[mythtv-users] [OT] VideoDVD playback quality of xine

[Scott White]

Cor blimey, there's a question.

First of all the quality of your PCs DVD player will not make a
difference unless it is so bad that it is unable to deliver the 1s and
0s that make up the MPEG2 stream.  You would not see this as a lack of
colour and vibrancy.  Copy the VOBs off the DVD and play them from disk
if you want to prove this.

Secondly what you would consider a picture that "lacks colour and
vibrancy" may have others scratching their heads.  I found the picture
quality from my well thought of Sony DVD player on my 42" plasma was
just noticeably better through component than through S-Video.  In
particular I noticed some bleeding of colours on S-Video, (watch the red
title section of blade for example), and it was enough for me to also
choose component connections but the difference was not distracting or
terrible.  Others may hardly notice the difference, while others would
simply be unable to watch the S-Video picture, claiming it was so bad.

I also find the quality of the source material matters.  I found a
noticeable difference between watching a DVD on my PC through S-Video
and VGA, (VGA is arguably roughly the same quality as Component), but
did not notice the same differences with source material from digital
cable.

Could I suggest you connect your normal DVD player by S-Video and see if
you are sensitive to the difference in quality.  Do you also see this
lack of vibrancy?  If you do, can you upgrade the connection from your
PC to your TV?  VGA or DVI will give you better results than S-Video.

I would rate my Xine picture quality as just better than that from my
DVD player, (PC connected by VGA, DVD player connected by component).  I
suspect this is because you get resolution scaling, line doubling and
other things for free when you use Xine.  I have other issues with sound
that mean I still use my DVD player.

Scott


On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 20:46 +1000, Phill Edwards wrote:
> I've just started looking into using MythTV/xine to play my DVDs
> instead of my stand-alone DVD player. I've got audio sorted, but I've
> noticed that the picture quality from xine is very poor compared to
> the stand-alone DVD player. The video lacks colour and vibrancy - it
> just looks quite washed out and dull.
> 
> - My stand-alone DVD player has component out, whereas I only have
> S-Video from MythTV. Could that make such a big difference?
> 
> - Could it be that the DVD-ROM is cheap & nasty (it's a LiteOn)? Would
> it make a difference if I bought a more expensive one?
> 
> - I saw that there are hue/contrast/saturation/brightness controls in
> xine, which I can't get to work at the moment. If I could find a way
> to adjust these could I expect much difference and could I make the
> changes permanent or would I have to adjust for every DVD I want to
> play?
> 
> - Or is it just the way it is and not much I can do about it?
> 
> Regards,
> Phill
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users