Best way to watch DivX on a TV..?

[Boathouse]

I've tried various ways of playing back DivX movies on my TV, please could someone give advice on the best method?

The most successful (and longest) method for me, has been to convert the DivX to Mpeg format, burn it onto CDRW(s) and watch it on my DVD player.

I'd like to playback straight from my pc and output the video to the TV, but have encountered the following problems...

1. The TV output quality from most standard graphics cards is poor, with these cards TV out is just a gimmick.

2. I've tried watching DivX through a Hollywood Plus card using the HHPlus player - results were quite good, but not as smooth running as watching the DivX on my PC, and some block artifacts were visible.

3. I have a Dazzle capture card, but it doesn't support DivX playback.

I'd like to try using WinDVD 4, which allows you to output the Video directly to the TV out of your graphics card. Has anyone tried this method?

Also can anyone recommend a grahics card that gives good TV output and will work with players such as WinDVD4?

Any advice much appreciated...

[khp]

I use a Matrox Marvel G450, image quality is about the same as through my hollywood+ card, and much better than the TV-out on my Asus Gforce2 mx. And playback is 100% smooth, as long as the cpu can decode the file fast enough.

The ATI all in wonder cards are also supposed to be ok, but I have never tried any of these.

[Boathouse]

Thanks for your reply,

Which DivX player do you use with the Matrox card?

I currently have a PIII-1000 cpu which gives perfect results when playing DivX on my pc - however it becomes a little chopping when using HHPlus through the Hollywood+

Do you think this processor would be fast enough with the Matrox card?

[khp]

I primarily use wmp6.4. But I don't think it will make much difference which player is used.

When playing any file through DirectShow, the TV-out on the Marvel card will automatically switch to full screen, even though wmp is still playing in window mode on the desktop. Even The preview window in windows explorer will cause the TV-out to switch to full screen, when a avi file is selected.

And yes, a 1GHz PIII will be enough, I use a 900Mhz celeron, which is enough for 704*400, using B-frames and GMC in divx5 at 1500kbs, and 128kbs MP3.

[divxdude]

youll never get near quality with a tv card as TV's arent as high definition as a computer monitor, unless you have a high definition TV.

[Apnoea]

In my experience a film can look better on a tv than a monitor...
It seems to mask some of the artefacts.

I remember watching Enemy at the Gates (lots of smoke, dark rooms etc) and the TV made the DivX look better than on the monitor simply because the smoke& dark backgrounds divX had trouble with are more 'fuzzy' (If you want to get technical, 'cos the TV has a wider point spread function).

That's on my ATI Radeon VIVO composite out through my video to an old cheap tv anyway. Very nice card but I have extreme problems getting any decent capture out of it.
No idea about WinDVD4... ATI has it's own hardware accelerated player (DVD/VCD) but I somehow doubt it accelerates DivX.
It has the best DVD playback I've seen on a computer. Far superior to software (I used powerdvd) at any rate. Must admit I haven't seen anybody else's DVD cards in action though.

Cheers-
Apnoea

[Boathouse]

...yes I think movies often look better on a tv rather than a monitor...

although tv's have much lower resolution than monitors, that doesn't really matter for movies because you tend to sit further back from the screen, also tv pictures have higher contrast/brightness which makes the movie look good.

Of course if you were trying to edit a Word document on your tv,
or use the Windows desktop, then the low resolution could be a real problem

I've done some research, and it seems that if you want good tv output from a modern graphics card (without investing in a high end capture card), look for a card with a Conexant cx25871 video encoder chip. There are lots of them about, especially bundled with NVidia GF4 chipsets.

This chip offers HDTV output and a display resolution of 1024x768, it's also the chip used in the XBox.

[divxdude]

better on TV than monitor? man you guys must have shitty monitors. no offence.

[Apnoea]

15" Belinea 10-20-20

Unfortunately I need a faster CPU more than a better monitor...

I hear the widescreen Mac LCD screens are pretty damn tempting though! Not sure about the price...

Apnoea

[hoopy_frood_42]

A very functional card with excellent tv-out

I have tried a bunch of the TV-Out cards. In my case, I really only needed the card to output to the TV, because I use no monitor with my setup, just the TV. So getting something with a beefy chipset is kind of pointless because a TNT would probably do just fine.

My search for a cheap and excellent quality product has ended. I found that Albatron makes a Geforce 2MX with a Conexant 25871 r14 (cx25871) chip. The quality is perfect. It's absolutely stunning. And the price? About $45-55.

I got mine at www.NewEgg.com. Check this link if it still works by the time someone reads this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=N82E16814170014

It's a Geforce 2 MX 400.

Lemme tell you about the quality from this encoder. I used to be unable to adjust my card (Radeon 7500 tvout) to get the whites white enough while keeping the blacks black. The saturation ovearall was good, but the quality was only -good-. The Conexant has EXCELLENT qualities.

Why be concerned? Well, because Divx likes to super-compress dark areas, it gets -really blocky- in there. And if your encoder bumps up the brightness in that area it tends to quantize the levels. (The colors kind of jump one to the other without a fine gradation) So, if you have what should be a really dark scene, it will make the blacks gray, and they'll be really blocky. This happens with any color that should be dark, but for some reason is visible lighter than it should be, and is also blocky as all hell.

The above card has solved all my quality issues. Well, except for the fact that I have to use TV-Tool to get the overscan to work, it is likely though that this is a serious problem only for me as I use the TV-Out exclusively (no monitor) and thus lose the picture completely if something goes wrong.

I'll be happy to supply information about my setup if anyone wants it. it can be built to play DVD's and Divx beautifully for about $160 if you can supply the case to put the guts in. The most challenging thing is to decide on which software to use.

[Pes]

Everything counts ... i spend a lot of money on TV (Philips 32" widescreen) and comp (Athlon 1800+, GF4200), but the picture was still bad.Then I buy expensive cables and whoa ... what difference .. just wanna say everything counts.

[Boathouse]

The Best TV Out Chips

Cables are very important. I you use high quality S-Video leads you can achieve high standards even over long distances, the leads that I use are 15 metres (49 feet) long.

I have read various reviews which say one of the best TV-Out chips is the Conexant cx25871. However it can be hard work identifying which cards use these chips, since manufactures don't often state the chip type in the card specs.

Also a lot of Nvidia cards these days use Philips chips instead since these can offer a basic capture ability.