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velvetlampshade · 08:56 PM

I just purchased a dual 2 Ghz power mac and am very pleased except for the video quality of DVDs. I purchased a 20 inch cinema display with my computer and would like to know how I can get better DVD quality. Upgrading the video card? A 23 or 30 inch screen? Use a different program to play DVDs? I would like to toss out my TV and use my monitor for TV and DVD's but if I cannot get better quality then I will have to keep the TV... I read on the apple store that the cinema displays are made for optimum still image quality. Will i sacrifice DVD quality on any setup?

Justin

Big Mac · May 2, 2005, 03:02 AM

What exactly do you find unacceptable about the quality of playback?

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 10:58 AM

The video seems grainy and blurred. There is not alot of definition in the picture. I currently watch movies on a zenith 27" HDTV with a DVI output from a Denon DVD player. The picture quality on that setup is much sharper than on my power mac with my 20" cinema...

Justin

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 11:04 AM

I have the Zenith HDTV recieving a 1080i signal from the Denon DVD player. Is there any way to match this video quality on my mac? I would like to trade in the 20" and get a larger cinema display, but I do not want the video quality to suffer. Would a different optical drive help? A different DVD program? More video memory? Upgrade the video card? Thanks for the input...

Justin

ReggieX · May 2, 2005, 11:46 AM

DVDs aren't 1080i natively, your Denon player is upconverting them to that resolution.

They'll also be blurry on a 20" display because the picture has to be stretched to display full screen at the LCD's native resolution. It's also a progressive scan picture.

rm199 · May 2, 2005, 11:49 AM

the scaling and deinterlacing of the Apple player is very low end unfortunately. I wouldn't expect Apple to leave it that way for too much longer though...

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 01:35 PM

Are there any other programs I can use? I really would love to use my power mac and cinema display as my primary dvd source. Any rumors regarding a possible update of the mac dvd program? Thanks for all of your help.

Justin

OreoCookie · May 2, 2005, 01:56 PM

Try VLC (VideoLAN Client), it has several kinds of de-interlacing and processing algorithms. It also plays (almost) any kind of .avi, .mov, etc.

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 03:40 PM

Would there be a difference in picture (especially on DVD's) if I used a 23" display instead. It is an "HD" display whereas my 20" is not. If all factors were kept the same and I simply used a 23" instead of my 20" with my new power mac would the picture be better? Would I see even better results if I then upgrated my ATI 9600 to a X800, 9650, or nVidia 6800? Thanks.

Justin

powertrippin · May 2, 2005, 04:55 PM

No. Displays are displays, one just has a higher resolution. The videocard shouldn't really affect it much either. It's the program itself, and also... the reason it looks sharp on your TV is because the TV's resolution is a LOT lower than your monitor.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/hdgallery/

Check that out. If htat's what you're looking for, sorry isn't here yet.

rm199 · May 2, 2005, 05:58 PM

The Tiger review on Anandtech has a small DVD player comment and he reaffirms his position on Apple's DVD software - it is very below par.

ChrisB · May 2, 2005, 07:27 PM

I agree. Apple's DVD Player software has never been up to par, acceptable yes, but never fantasic. You also have to remember that a "TV", due to it's lower resolution (except true HD displays), and NTSC's and ATSC's lower color gamut allows for a much lower picture and quality of display. So when you display a video signal on a Mac or PC, you will see all of the inherent flaws in the signal and compression. It will always be a sub-par experience watching video on a computer display. Displays that accept video inputs (LCD TV's, normal CRT TV's, and Plasma displays) know that they need to alter the incoming signal, add gain, sharpen the image via filters, and add luster to the colors via the built-in software so that the picture looks like it does on your Zenith HD display.

Watch digital cable on your Mac using using the video output to the input on say an ATI card that allows video input and you will see all of the compression that your cable provider applies to a channel to make it fit into their bandwidth. It's hidden fairly well on your television display (optimized to display much lower quality signals) but watch it on your Mac monitor and you realize what a gimmick and a crok "digital cable" is.

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 08:09 PM

When or how will I be able to watch DVD's in the same quality as the HD demos (H.264) from the apple website? Is there any way to get the same quality from a DVD? I just watched the Batman preview full screen and it looks amazing. Then when I go to Finding Nemo full screen it looks terrible. There has to be some way to get the same quality form DVD that you get from H.264.

Justin

Kristoff · May 2, 2005, 08:15 PM

What is it with the inability of people to name topics intelligently.

Next time, try:

"How do I get better DVD quality?"

not

"How to get better DVD quality..."

Do you understand the difference?
One implies that it is going to offer a solution, the other is asking for help.
There's a difference, and the ability to differentiate the two based on topic titles is essential.

powertrippin · May 2, 2005, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by velvetlampshade

There has to be some way to get the same quality form DVD that you get from H.264.

Well, sorry. There just ISNT. You have to understand that most DVDs have a resolution of around 640X480. There's no magic way to scale it up to 1024 by whatever. Once we all have massive DVD collections, the RIAA will then release a standard to hold even MORE data, such as the blue ray DVDs coming out soon. Once we all have our libraries in that format, they'll make it even better. That's just the way things are.

velvetlampshade · May 2, 2005, 09:58 PM

I just don't understand why I can buy a $250 Denon DVD player that can upscale/upconvert the DVD to 1080i but my new $2000 can't even come close. I am not very technically advanced, it just seems reasonable that there would be some way to improve the resolution from what it is now. Thanks for all of your help. I am sure that I am not the only one frustrated with DVD resolution on their computers.

Justin

anamexis · May 2, 2005, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by powertrippin

Well, sorry. There just ISNT. You have to understand that most DVDs have a resolution of around 640X480. There's no magic way to scale it up to 1024 by whatever. Once we all have massive DVD collections, the RIAA will then release a standard to hold even MORE data, such as the blue ray DVDs coming out soon. Once we all have our libraries in that format, they'll make it even better. That's just the way things are.

To clear up the inaccuracies in your post, DVDs in North America are NTSC resolution, 720x480.
Secondly, the Recording Industry Association of America has nothing to do with digital video media. The ones that deal with new formats are the vendors. At the moment there are two formats competing to be the successor to DVD. (Remember VHS vs. Beta?) There is HD-DVD, developed by Toshiba and NEC, and Blu-ray, developed by Sony.
HD-DVD is backed by Time Warner, Universal, Paramount, and Microsoft.
Blu-ray is backed by Columbia Tri-star and Apple.
These new formats will support full HD resolution.

sideus · May 2, 2005, 11:09 PM

And remember, DVDs do NOT equal HDTV.

Sporty G · May 3, 2005, 02:24 AM

Originally Posted by velvetlampshade

I just don't understand why I can buy a $250 Denon DVD player that can upscale/upconvert the DVD to 1080i but my new $2000 can't even come close. I am not very technically advanced, it just seems reasonable that there would be some way to improve the resolution from what it is now. Thanks for all of your help. I am sure that I am not the only one frustrated with DVD resolution on their computers.

Justin

On both my 17" Samsung 172T LCD and 20" ACD DVD playback is amazing! Can it touch the 1080p Quicktime trailers that Apple is now hosting on their website? Of course not.... because the constraints of the MPEG-2 format associated with the DVD Forum's DVD-Video specification are, by 2005 standards, archaic... and they appear as such, particularly when being viewed on a high-quality LCD. Having said that, DVDs still look brilliant on my LCDs. Good discs, notably those that are 16x9 enhanced (anamorphic) with a high bit-rate, look brilliant while discs that were poorly mastered/sourced look much worse.

You have to look at it this way.... you can scale DVDs as high as you want, but you can't make something out of nothing. If the disc lacks detail at "480i" (roughly it's native resolution) it certainly won't just appear when scaled to 1080p. DVDs are inherently low-resolution by today's standards and most computer's sold since 1999 have had the ability to decode MPEG-2 in software. A new graphics card at this stage will make no difference in the computer's ability to display a DVD.

I think your gripes are unjustified. The only problems I'v ever experienced with Apple's DVD player is the occasional NTSC interlacing artifacts, but I appreciate that most of the time those are due to a disc's poor flagging rather than a poor decoding algorithm.

When you first open Apple's DVD player and the disc start's spinning up and the video is windowed, you are seeing the video content in its natural state, pixel for pixel. As soon as you enlarge that window, you are scaling it upward.

One more thing, chances are you also don't watch DVDs on your TV while sitting 12-20 inches away. If you placed your ACD next to your TV and had the same disc playing on both you'd certainly recognize how much better your Apple display is at displaying DVDs. I'm quite sure that your TV does NOT have a resolution of 1680x1050.

rm199 · May 3, 2005, 04:09 AM

"I just don't understand why I can buy a $250 Denon DVD player that can upscale/upconvert the DVD to 1080i but my new $2000 can't even come close."

What is there to not understand? Denon's core business is A/V and they spent time to ensure the scaling and deinterlacing features are optimized (which was easy - they licence existing chipsets from third parties). If you can convince some developers to take this on there is nothing stopping such functionality on the mac.

"There has to be some way to get the same quality form DVD that you get from H.264."

Remember that DVD is not exactly good to begin with, sure we have to accept it as the best we have for now, but that doesn't mean it is any good. MPEG2 at NTSC interlaced resolution with a limit on bitrate... The trailers on Apple's site aren't just a demonstration of H264 they are a demonstration of high resolution progessive video. There is a reason blu-ray/HDDVD disks are called next gen - they can carry such video!

Until Apple or a third party licences some strong deinterlacing and scaling technology for the mac platform (which I'm hoping someone will use coreimage image-units for) then we have what we have.

(just to make things more interesting go and have a look at the dvd output of a recent PC - they have great DVD output these days as both ATI and NVIDIA have integrated excellent scalers into the drivers)

rm199 · May 3, 2005, 04:19 AM

"I am sure that I am not the only one frustrated with DVD resolution on their computers."

Thought I might join you on this soap box though... since 1995 I've had a high res display of some description starting with a DLP projector back then and plasma or LCD ever since. I've been frustrated by the poor standard of DVD ever since but you just have to visit a 'regular' person's home to see why 'DVD is enough' for the masses... many still use VHS and DVD is not about quality for them (they display it with a composite lead into an old 20 inch CRT tv) it seems to be more about convenience. Convincing them to pay for a HDDVD or blu-ray HD platform and screen just seems unrealistic so I don't expect to be replacing my whole library this year or next due to all the releases by the studios that is for sure (although Q4 this year will see 50-60 HDDVDs released yippee!!!)

Many feel the same about CD - it is a diabolical digital source but try and convince the masses that they 'need' an SACD or DVD-Audio player... hmmmm more frustration!

Eriamjh · May 3, 2005, 07:04 AM

No offense, but Apple's DVD player is crap. It displays nasty interlacing lines on just about any DVD. PCs do a better job and so does just about every DVD player. It has nothing to do with the TV, standard definition or high definition. Their decoding software is junk.

rm199 · May 3, 2005, 07:36 AM

exactly

rm199 · May 3, 2005, 07:38 AM

in fact we should really move this thread to software or a/v

velvetlampshade · May 3, 2005, 04:21 PM

has anyone had any success with VLC and Tiger? Does it improve DVD quality on your system?

velvetlampshade · May 3, 2005, 04:26 PM

Is there any way to store or record the DVD in such a way that would allow more effective upscaling or upconverting? This may not be possible at all, I figured I would through it out there to see what happens. It seems like I am not the only one frustrated with current DVD quality...

Justin

Todd Madson · May 3, 2005, 05:24 PM

I can't watch DVDs' using the Apple player at all - I HAVE to use VLC to
make it watchable. The artifacting on the Apple player is TERRIBLE in
Tiger with my Radeon 8500. But only on moving images - still images
display fine. Weird.

tooki · May 3, 2005, 05:44 PM

The thing about DVDs on computer displays is that basically, the high resolution and accuracy of a computer display serves only to showcase the flaws of the DVD format. Even when played using Apple DVD Player, a TV set just looks better. (Those with PowerBooks or G5s can try it, by using S-Video output to their TV; it looks great!)

tooki

powertrippin · May 3, 2005, 06:40 PM

Originally Posted by velvetlampshade

more whining about the DVD format which has been around a while and isn't going to change until the next major format happens

I have an idea. Fire up your VCR. Watch a few movies. Then go back to DVDs.

ideasculptor · May 3, 2005, 06:51 PM

If you want your DVDs to look as good on your computer as it does on the tv, you need to watch the DVD at native DVD resolution, which means it will be a small window on your monitor, which has far higher resolution than a standard TV or DVD output. To display DVD content full screen on your monitor, it must be scaled up, resulting in each DVD pixel being represented by several pixels on the monitor, so it doesn't look as good.

Scooterboy · May 3, 2005, 07:18 PM

For any DVD source from interlaced video I use VLC. Better quality DVD's sourced from film or digital look much better even on Apple's DVD Player. VLC has about a half dozen different de-interlacers, but I always fall back on Blend as it gives the smoothest results with the fewest errors.

Really, with as many Mac users watching DVD on there Macs, we should petition Apple to give us a better DVD Player app. I wonder why there are no third party DVD Players for OS X (besides the open source VLC)? Not only are the PC DVD player apps better visually, but some also include Dolby 5.1 and DTS software decoders, negating the need to buy a separate decoder or limiting speaker choices to those that include decoders.

velvetlampshade · May 3, 2005, 10:56 PM

Is there any effective way to petition Apple about our DVD concerns? I really think that it would be helpful and appreciated by all Mac users...

Justin

porieux · 07:53 AM

...

velvetlampshade · May 4, 2005, 11:19 PM

When HD DVD does eventually develop how long will it take for us to get blu-ray drives or HD DVD drives for our computers? Will it be a fairly short transition or will we have to wait?

Justin

anamexis · May 4, 2005, 11:23 PM

Originally Posted by velvetlampshade

When HD DVD does eventually develop how long will it take for us to get blu-ray drives or HD DVD drives for our computers? Will it be a fairly short transition or will we have to wait?

Justin

It will probably be much like the DVD transition. Extremely costly and rare at first, and gradually becoming cheaper and mainstream. I think someone announced the first consumer Blu-Ray player a couple weeks back, at cost of something like $3500. Anyways, this isn't going to be for a couple of years.

rm199 · May 5, 2005, 04:18 AM

I should hope drives come down in price before that - titles are due Q4 this year (85 titles announced so far). I stopped buying any dvds that are on the release lists... lets hope NEC or Pioneer can bring a cost effective drive to market for us!

olli_g · May 5, 2005, 10:41 AM

I have a G5 but am not able to play a DVD with VLC. I get no sound! The G5 is hooked up to a 5.1 receiver via optical cable.

I tried setting the "Audio device" from 0 to 1 in the VLC preferences, but then I get only stereo sound.

Has anyone managed to get a 5.1 signal with VLC on a G5?

anamexis · May 5, 2005, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by olli_g

I have a G5 but am not able to play a DVD with VLC. I get no sound! The G5 is hooked up to a 5.1 receiver via optical cable.

I tried setting the "Audio device" from 0 to 1 in the VLC preferences, but then I get only stereo sound.

Has anyone managed to get a 5.1 signal with VLC on a G5?

VLC has some problems with digital pass-through on OS X. I don't know if there's any workarounds.

Scooterboy · May 5, 2005, 08:38 PM

Try checking the VLC wiki or FAQ's. There is a setting in VLC to enable Core Audio support. I don't know if it will help, but it's worth a try. 5.1 support on Mac is pretty dismal so far.