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neverwind · Dec 9, 2004, 02:32 AM

I've just bought the Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King Extended Edition and the quality in the Apple DVD player is terrible. Smearing of color, and artifacts. In VLC ver 8 it is fine. My other DVDs are fine on the Apple DVD player.

Looks like some new kind of compression was used in the Extended edition and Apples' DVD player needs an update. I'm using Apple DVD player 4 in Mac OS 10.3.6.

mitchell_pgh · Dec 9, 2004, 02:41 AM

Originally posted by neverwind:
Looks like some new kind of compression was used in the Extended edition and Apples' DVD player needs an update. I'm using Apple DVD player 4 in Mac OS 10.3.6.

If it uses some new kind of compression... how is it supposed to play on my 5 year old DVD player?

I'm guessing it's a software problem... not a new compression issue.

neverwind · Dec 9, 2004, 04:21 AM

A friend who also bought this DVD tried it on their 17" iMac ( all the same revisions of software) with no hassels. The only difference is I'm on a powerbook. This doesn't bother me that much - I can use VLC. Just thought I'd report what I am seeing.

Randman · Dec 9, 2004, 04:27 AM

Just the problem with that one disc? If so, it's likely something in the disc.

neverwind · Dec 9, 2004, 04:32 AM

No - the whole movie. (discs 1 AND 2).
Also if it was a problem with the DVD discs then wouldn't I also have this problem in VLC?

One other thing. I experienced this in panther a while back with another movie. Then an update to the Apple DVD player at the time fixed it. It is most definitely software related in my opinion.

Person Man · Dec 9, 2004, 06:59 PM

never mind... he lives in Australia.

Nebagakid · Dec 9, 2004, 08:40 PM

Originally posted by neverwind:
I've just bought the Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King Extended Edition and the quality in the Apple DVD player is terrible. Smearing of color, and artifacts. In VLC ver 8 it is fine. My other DVDs are fine on the Apple DVD player.

Looks like some new kind of compression was used in the Extended edition and Apples' DVD player needs an update. I'm using Apple DVD player 4 in Mac OS 10.3.6.

uhm, isn't that DVD not released yet?

Person Man · Dec 9, 2004, 09:53 PM

Originally posted by Nebagakid:
uhm, isn't that DVD not released yet?

I had asked the same question, but he lives in Australia. It may have been released there already.

Nebagakid · Dec 9, 2004, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by Person Man:
I had asked the same question, but he lives in Australia. It may have been released there already.

maybe the disc is spinning counter clockwise......

neverwind · Dec 10, 2004, 04:02 AM

Originally posted by Nebagakid:
maybe the disc is spinning counter clockwise......

LOL Ok right then...LOL

Yes I do live in Australia. Yes the DVD was released on the 10th. A friend who works at Sanity told me it had arrived on the 9th. He let me buy it early. It rocks so go get it!

Now back to topic. Other mac using friends of mine are not seeing the problem with the Apple DVD player OR are seeing it to a lesser degree.

BUT, and here is the heart of the matter, ALL agree that the quality of VLC is MUCH better than in the Apple DVD player. Open both at the same time and compare 2 identical scenes from ANY DVD. Let me know what you find.

One friend, who using Apple DVD player, saw nothing amiss still agreed that side by side on the screen the VLC player reproduced better colors...

Please let me know AFTER you check this yourself.

Person Man · Dec 10, 2004, 07:38 AM

Originally posted by neverwind:
LOL Ok right then...LOL

Yes I do live in Australia. Yes the DVD was released on the 10th. A friend who works at Sanity told me it had arrived on the 9th. He let me buy it early. It rocks so go get it!

Now back to topic. Other mac using friends of mine are not seeing the problem with the Apple DVD player OR are seeing it to a lesser degree.

BUT, and here is the heart of the matter, ALL agree that the quality of VLC is MUCH better than in the Apple DVD player. Open both at the same time and compare 2 identical scenes from ANY DVD. Let me know what you find.

One friend, who using Apple DVD player, saw nothing amiss still agreed that side by side on the screen the VLC player reproduced better colors...

Please let me know AFTER you check this yourself.

Well, here in the US, it's not going to be released until December 14.

At any rate, the colors in Apple's DVD player are a bit "washed out," and you can't adjust them. VLC allows you to adjust things like color, contrast, tint, brightness, etc. Reportedly Tiger's DVD player will let you adjust those things too.

Scooterboy · Dec 10, 2004, 02:58 PM

Why are there so few DVD Players for OSX? VLC is really a port of a UNIX media player, yet it's better than Apple DVD Player? Shouldn't Apple's DVD Player be at least as good as VLC, or at least as good as the best Windows DVD players? WinDVD and PowerDVD offer better video, HD video, and software decoding of Dolby 5.1 and DTS 6.1 multichannel audio. It took Apple until DVD Player 4 and Panther to feature only pass through of encoded Dolby and DTS audio content.

DVD playback is one area where Apple and OS X is behind the Wintel world. Apple may be ahead in video content creation but I'd like to see Apple catch up and surpass PeeCee land in content playback as well.

Nebagakid · Dec 11, 2004, 10:14 PM

Originally posted by Scooterboy:
HD video,

HD video? There are no HD quality DVDs yet, so that is not the problem of DVD Player, it is the problem of the QuickTime player, which needs to get its act together. VLC is beating it hard.

Here's to iTheater and the iTheater Movie Store.

Guy Kuo · Dec 11, 2004, 10:34 PM

I'm seeing the same DVD Player 4.0 issue here on my Powerbook 12 under OSX 1.3.6. Playback of DVD's and test DVD images. I create video test patterns for home theater setup and video engineers. I see severe vertical and horizontal filtering (blurring) that halves image resolution. This behavior is new and I don't recall seeing it several months ago. It happens with all DVD playback. It is independent of which disc is played or even a fresh video folder from DVD Studio Pro. Interestingly, an iBook G3 running the same version DVD player and OSX appears normal and does not blur the image.

And no, this isn't a matter of the LCD being set to a non-native resolution. The DVD Player app and the DVD Studio Pro preview both show this problem. VLC does not.

So, he is not alone in seeing this new problem.

Guy Kuo · Dec 12, 2004, 01:57 AM

Some more investigation.....

If I boot the Powerbook with 10.3.5, the blurring problem doesn't occur.

Going back to 10.3.6 causes the DVD Player blurring to reappear.

Applying the 10.3.6 combo updater doesn't help.

Looks like something in 10.3.6 breaks DVD playback on my Powerbook G4 Al.

neverwind · Dec 12, 2004, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by Guy Kuo:
Some more investigation.....

If I boot the Powerbook with 10.3.5, the blurring problem doesn't occur.

Going back to 10.3.6 causes the DVD Player blurring to reappear.

Applying the 10.3.6 combo updater doesn't help.

Looks like something in 10.3.6 breaks DVD playback on my Powerbook G4 Al.

I think we can safetly assume 2 things:
This is a software issue.
It appears more apparent/ occurs more often on Powerbook G4 AL.

Guy Kuo · Dec 15, 2004, 04:35 PM

OS 10.3.7 has fixed the DVD blurring problem on my Powerbook. The update includes new ATI and nVidia drivers.