PC Playback vs REAL dvdplayer

[Sanosuke Sagara]

OK this thing has been bothering me for a while, my PC can't play DVDs as well as the PS2 and my Sony DVD player.

My specs(Built this thing last summer):
DVD 16x Lite-on
KT 400 Black Dragon Lite Mobo
2 sticks of 512MB Corsair +2700 Ram
RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB
Athlon 2800+ Barton Core Overclocked to 2.2Ghz (does same exact benchmarks as 3200+ **1337 PWNED**)
Sounblaster Audigy 2
OTHER CRAP I DON'T WANT TO MENTION

On movies such as Oceans 11 and dvds with real people in it, it looks fairly close to the same quality. But with Anime DVDs such as Trigun and Kenshin, i can see what seperates PC Playback from real DVD player playback.

Iam using WinDVD 5 and I have tried powerdvd, i get around the same results, i sorta think WinDVD 5 might have alittle better quality.

I also know I have the DVD decoder on, because I had to install Windows XP pro SP1 just to have it work, with out SP1 the DVD decoder on the radeons doesn't improve any quality(with the dvd decoder off it looks like how my dvds used to play when I had a Geforce 4 TI 4400). So I know i have the DVD decoder on because i can notice the difference with it off and on.

The main thing i see going on in my DVDs with the PC is I can notice the framerate difference. Its jagged when cameras are moving across the ground, or water.
example: When your watching a characters still image, and the screen is moving across him
I can notice the difference with the frames on the PC, and with the PS2 and real dvd player, it goes completely smooth.

Iam guessing if there was a way to uppen the framerates on the DVD player, it would be a big help to the performance( GUESSING)

I hope someone can help, AND DON'T ANSWER BY SAYING "UN Overclock your computer" because i used to get the same quality before i even overclocked it

[decryptit]

What makes you think that you will improve performance.

[Sanosuke Sagara]

remember, i was GUESSING, so don't bash me to hard. but i beleive that anything with more FPS on the screen will improve performance.

Such as how for games, 60FPS is as much as the human eye can ever notice.

And with your FPS on high, you would think that the scenes where the camerica moves across will have less of a choppy move. (When your watching a characters still image, and the screen is moving across him
I can notice the difference with the frames on the PC, and with the PS2 and real dvd player, it goes completely smooth.) Sense choppyness in other things, such as videogaming. is due to low FPS.

30FPS, is sorta below a good FPS as a game, so you think its below FPS for a also DVD (your wanting perfected qualitying like a real a real DVD player) and 30FPS for a dvd is simply 30 FPS below the Human Eye could tell (60FPS).

I don't know what the FPS for the PS2 and real DVD players are. but to me, it seems like its more then the PCs

[decryptit]

Yes obviously more frames more quality in many cases.Now not al dvd's are the same pal ans ntsc are a litle different and sometimes you may even see the difference.it does not depend on the dvd player only i can asure you it depends mostly from the sourve dvd/divx/xvid/vcd/scvd.

P2 is a game console designed to pump out the maximum of gaming graphics.BUT THATS ONLY A CONSOLE.

Pc's are designed to carry out most of the things we would like to make and have.If you are a gamer you can still have a graphic card even better that the one of p2.But obviously at high costs.
Noramlly pc's have a 32mb Ge**** which imho its quite under the normal.It would be best if you have 64-128mb at least on standard bases.

R**** 9800 PRO 128MB -Actually consider your card a verygood one.I tryied that on a p4 3.2ghz its amazing!!

[Aquila]

My theory is that you're computer is outputting progressive-scan video, while your dvd player and ps2 are showing interlaced video.

The theory behind interlace is complicated to describe without graphical examples, so you can look it up in google if you must know how it works. All you need to know is that interlaced video virtually doubles the framerate of the video, making it much smoother.

The TV output on your computer is non-interlaced (aka progressive scan) because computer graphics can tend to flicker otherwise, so you will never receive the benefit of a proper interlaced TV signal, and thus look rather jerky.

[sfheath]

Sanosuke Sagara: out of curiosity, have you pumped up the monitor refresh rate to see if that helps?

Also, I'm pretty certain ATI cards have interlace as an option.
I see progressive scan appearing on more and more standlaones these days. Interlace was the old way of doing things.

[decryptit]

Which ati cards have that option
and why would they need it.

[Sanosuke Sagara]

wow Aquila, you gave me a real answer. ya i sorta think its the frame rates fault too.

But DVD players in general are usualy Progressive scan aren't they? i think i just bought a Sony DVD player that was 130bux and it was progressive scan.

But anyways, how do we change to Interlace? with these ATI cards? I don't see the option anywhere.

[sfheath]

Originally posted by decryptit
Which ati cards have that option
and why would they need it.

I've not forgotten this thread - just wasn't at home much over the weekend - shall look at my home pc tonight but am pretty certain there's an interlace option somewhere residing deep within the ATI menu structure.

There again ... I might be cracking up!