[Some Guy []]

has anyone tried playing a dvd movie with dvd player in 10.3 on a 2nd display, specifically on a powerbook (12" g4 first gen here)... i've noticed the video quality is **** (massive mpeg artifacts) when watching the movie on the 2nd display, but if i watch it on the powerbook's lcd the video is fine.

also, one other thing about the 10.3 dvdplayer .app, it lets you drag the movie to other displays now. too bad there's no way to make it play fullscreen on one monitor while doing work on another.


-justin

[tooki]

Check the resolution of the external display.


There absolutely is a way to watch full-screen on one display while working on the other.

In DVD Player, go to Preferences -> Full Screen -> Remain in full screen when DVD Player is inactive.


Ah, what a little poking around in Preferences can teach one!

tooki

[Sarc]

you can do it using VLC ... select the screen you want in the Video Device submenu.

[Some Guy []]

Originally posted by tooki:
Check the resolution of the external display.

tooki

what does screen resolution have to do with "massive mpeg artiacts"? the screen is a 20" CRT and the resolution is a lot higher then the powerbook's LCD.

it really is nasty, sort of like watching a vcd or something.

as for VLC, it's simply too slow to play dvds on a 2nd display on a 12" powerbook... cpu usage goes to 100% and it starts to drop frames.


-justin

[tooki]

Originally posted by Some Guy []:
what does screen resolution have to do with "massive mpeg artiacts"? the screen is a 20" CRT and the resolution is a lot higher then the powerbook's LCD.

it really is nasty, sort of like watching a vcd or something.

It's the high resolution that is showcasing the MPEG artifacts. Try lowering the CRT's resolution instead.

NTSC DVD video is only 720x480 pixels (the pixels are not square -- this resolution is for 4:3 video). Scaling it up to higher resolutions tends to exaggerate compression artifacts, not hide them.

tooki

[Phat Bastard]

I just tried watching the U2 Go Home DVD and I noticed the same thing. The video looks fine on the laptop's screen but is grainy on my external LCD screen (17" Samsung Syncmaster 172T). It isn't THAT bad, but it certainly doesn't look up to what DVD quality should be.

Tooki, as per your advice, I tried playing with the resolution of the external screen, but the picture stays pretty much the same. I tried 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, all with similar picture quality. That was without video mirroring. I tried turning on mirroring at 1024x768, and I could quite clearly see that the PB had much better quality than the external LCD.

What's up here? I can deal with it but it's annoying not being able to fix it.

[Some Guy []]

Originally posted by tooki:
It's the high resolution that is showcasing the MPEG artifacts. Try lowering the CRT's resolution instead.

NTSC DVD video is only 720x480 pixels (the pixels are not square -- this resolution is for 4:3 video). Scaling it up to higher resolutions tends to exaggerate compression artifacts, not hide them.

tooki

this is noticeable when the dvd is in half size or normal size, not just fullscreen, so lowering the resolution won't have any effect. like i said, it's like watching a dvd... it's really noticeable when there's sharp contrast or change of colors.


-justin

[Some Guy []]

here's a screenshot i took :

http://psychosis.net/~justin/dvdplay...al-display.png


-justin

[RayX]

Originally posted by Some Guy []:
here's a screenshot i took :

http://psychosis.net/~justin/dvdplay...al-display.png

Looks fine to me?

[tooki]

Frankly, that doesn't seem to me like a problem with the player but with the encoding.

It's not very apparent on my PowerBook screen... perhaps it has to do with the color profile?

tooki

[RayX]

2nd obvious point, don't sit so close when watching a DVD!

Most people wouldn't sit within arms length of their TV...so serious DVD viewing on a computer would be the same. Sit at least 1 or 2 meters away, your eyes will not notice as many defects in the video (which are not really defects as such, but artifacts due to scaling etc.)

[Some Guy []]

that was just one example which isn't that bad, but you can see some leakage on the fonts.

and i'll mention it again tooki, it's fine on the powerbook's LCD which means it's not an encoding problem. it's also fine in VLC, but VLC is too slow compared to DVD Player.

you guys really need to stop coming up with excuses about the quality being **** on the 2nd display. when i hook up my powerbook to a projector (or a TV) the dvd looks like ass, and it's even more noticeable on a bigger display area (like a wall).


-justin

[arekkusu]

Hey, what is that app with the Pants icon?

--your screenshot looks fine on my AlBook LCD. Any MPEG block leakage you are seeing on a CRT is probably due to the CRT gamma being different, or the brightness knob turned too high. Fiddle with Colorsync.

[Some Guy []]

Originally posted by arekkusu:
Hey, what is that app with the Pants icon?

hmm, pants? the one between icomic and kdx?


-justin

[tooki]

Originally posted by Some Guy []:
that was just one example which isn't that bad, but you can see some leakage on the fonts.

and i'll mention it again tooki, it's fine on the powerbook's LCD which means it's not an encoding problem. it's also fine in VLC, but VLC is too slow compared to DVD Player.

you guys really need to stop coming up with excuses about the quality being **** on the 2nd display. when i hook up my powerbook to a projector (or a TV) the dvd looks like ass, and it's even more noticeable on a bigger display area (like a wall).

Since you don't like our suggestions thus far, how about this: buy a freaking standalone DVD player and see how its playback looks. My bet is that it'll look just as bad.

(Why? Color response, hence my note about the color profile and arekkusu's comment about gamma [brightness response]. Most DVD artifacts are in shadows, which happen to be an area where different displays react very differently, so some may mask these artifacts better.)

tooki