Can DVD Video Quality Be Improved on Higher Resolution Laptop Screens?

I have a new HP dv9700t laptop. Configuration below:

- HP Pavilion dv9700t Entertainment CTO NB
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.50 GHz, 6 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 17.0" WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)
- 3GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 50% OFF 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS!!
- FREE Upgrade to HP Imprint (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader + Webcam + Microphone
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection and Bluetooth(TM)
- 240GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120GB x 2)
- LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
- No TV Tuner w/remote control
- High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
- Microsoft(R) Works 9.0


I have a higher resolution screen. In the TV world I have seen upconverter units that one can hook up to a regular dvd unit. It ups the lower native dvd resolution to match the higher resolution of the high def TV's giving a better picture. Does anyone know if there are software equivalents that can do the same thing in the laptop world or do current media players already do this? Is there a way to improve the video quality of dvd's to take full advantage when played on higher resolution screens?

Thanks

 

Since you have Nvidia GPU, you may want to use NVIDIA Purevideo Decoder. It's the best DVD decoder I've used so far. Here is a review of decoder on Tom's Hardware.

 

What actually is a DVD decoder? Is any media player considered a DVD decoder or is it an additional windows pluggin? I just use Windows Media Center (WMC) to play my DVD's because it has the best playback quality of all the media players I have tried.

I assume this decoder improves the quality of all DVDs played on WMC? How much improvement is there? Will all videos played, not just DVDs, be better as well?

 

Thanks for your suggustion but I checked NVIDIA's website and it said:

NOTE: The PureVideo Decoder is not supported under Microsoft Windows Vista

 

Decoder is a software used to decompress a particular media file type to enable media players to play that file type. DVD Decoder can decompress MPEG-2 stream (DVD Video). Media players need decoders to play any media file type. Many of common media file decoders (eg: mp3 decoder) are built-in to most media players. Some, you have to install separately (eg: Flac decoder) Decoders can be used with any media players of your choice (think of it as a plug-in for media players). You can use it with WMC as well.

A popular all-purpose decoder is ffdshow. It can playback AAC, MPEG-4 AVC, DivX, Xvid, MPEG-2 (DVD Video), FLV, MKV, ...

However, for DVD playback Nvidia Decoder is still the best (in my opinion). I usually experience de-interlace and vsync issue on other decoder but not Nvidia's.

Actually, Nvidia DVD Decoder is one of a few decoders featured on Windows Media Player webpage. In addition of decoding MPEG-2, it also can decode AC-3 and DTS audio. The best part of this decoder is it uses Graphic Card to help decode video files, result in less CPU power usage.

I did not realize that. Well, I recall that Nvidia has Pure Video HD that you can use on Vista. This one can decode Blu-Ray as well as DVD.

I think I found an answer for you. It seem that Nvidia stop providing decoder for Vista. However, Purevideo features are still available to all Nvidia GPU users (it's built-in to Forceware driver). To use those enhancement features on vista you will need a recent Forceware driver and Media Player that capable of playing DVD. On Nvidia website it mentions three applications.

You can turn on "edge enhancement" and "noise reduction" in Nvidia Control Panel (choose view>advance, it's in "video and television".)

 

Thanks again for your post. I read your link.

I am looking to play regular DVDs on my laptop not HD or Blu-ray ones. I know upconverter DVD players exist in the TV world that work with regular DVDs to add lines to the signal to match that found on High Def TVs making for a better picture. I am looking for the equivalent if it exists for my laptop.

 

All you do is download CCCP (combined comunity codec package) and full screen your dvds with zplayer or MPC and your good to go it will look fine. You can never make them a higher quality because you cant make something out of nothing but you can scale it up to a higher resolution with no perceived loss in quality.

 

Thanks for your post.

I have tried the CCCP and K-Lite Codec packs already. I had hoped there was an analagous "up converter" in the laptop world. I don't have one but I have been told that it adds lines to the picture to match the resolution on the Hig Def Tv's making for a better picture.

 

I know that you want to play regular DVD. Those applications mentioned on Nvidia page, they can play both Blu-Ray and regular DVD.

Since I do not use Vista, I can only tell from what I've read. It seem that if you want to utilizes PureVideo on Vista, you will need a software that can support PureVideo.

I found that Corel WinDVD 9 supports PureVideo. (scroll down to "Other Features" section)

This paper shows PureVideo features that available on different Nvidia GPUs. According to the paper, the card you have, 8600M GS, does not support "noise reduction" and "edge enhancement" features.

 

Thanks again mk.2 for your time posting. I have read your links.

You are suggusting that utilizing another DVD player like Correl WinDVD 9 will allow me to take advantage of Pure Video on my GPU. It isn't clear to me if WMC doesn't already support it. I may be getting all the quality I can as ViciousXUSMC has indicated. Nvidia website indicates other players do support it but doesn't mention WMC, at least in the material I read. I will need to clarify that. I would hate to invest in another DVD player to find the video clarity unchanged.

 

I understand that Canyon.

Another free solution is to use ffdshow.

Many people say that it is superior in up-scaling and post-processing than PureVideo. Personally, I find ffdshow is good for DVD-Video decoding but not so good for AC3 decoding. And It's a bit hard to use, in my opinion. ffdshow has many options for users to adjust how they want their movies to be decoded. it is fully compatible with Windows Media Player.

 

I already use ffdshow. I think it is incorporated in WMC already or I did so by installing the K-Lite Full Codec Pack. I have notice the icons in the Systray when the movie is playing. I haven't adjusted any of the settings yet. I need to research ffdshow to find out what settings options are available. The K-Lite Codec Pack installation gives one options for configuring ffdshow. I just went with the default choices.

Do you recommend any particular changes to improve general DVD playing?

Thanks again for your time and expertise.

 

WinDVD 9 Plus has the option to upconvert standard DVD. You can download the 30 day trial version.

 

Thanks for the info.

Do regular DVDs look significantly better when upconverted?

Do you have a higher resolution screen?

 

Why not install the trial and judge directly for yourself? If it doesn't look better just skip over it...

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satell...&lc=en&ppg=CorelCorp/Trials/DownloadContainer

 

In general principle I am hesitant to install and uninstall dvd players because it is often difficult to get all the settings and file associations back to the way they were. I am doing a little research now to educate mayself. I plan on first playing with the ffdshow settings and later may follow your suggustion.

 

kmplayer>>>>media player classic>>>vlc

 

I use FFDshow and GomPlayer and the image is pretty much perfect on dvd`s.
Sure, avi and mpegs don`t look as good on a WUXGA screen, but dvds look just awesome

 

Thanks for your post.

I am new to higher resolution, why would avi and mpegs not look as good on a WUXGA screen and DVDs look better?

What is GomPlayer?

 

I have a question for expert multimedia readers:

I have been doing some general research. Some people suggust that computer media players automatically upconvert any video to match the resolution of the display they are played on. Others have indicated that ffdshow and some other video decoders have setting options that allow for upconversion to higher resolutions. I am unclear on what is going on. Does anybody know for sure and can please explain what really happens?

Thanks

 

Quality is what is most important in videos.

DivX is the worlds most widely used & perhaps the best decoder.

but it causes LAggyness on slower comps unless u set Process priority to High.

 

Gom Player is a free video player...
Avis and mpegs don`t look very good on a WUXGA screen(1920x1200) like mine since they`re usually a 600 something x 200 something resolution and stretching them on triple the screen makes them sometimes blurry and pixeled.
Dvds are higher quality and correspond to higher resolution.
Since yours is WSXGA+ yours should do better with avis and mpegs and still look good in dvds.

 

with such a post...ur opion doesn't mean anything
lol @ divx and best being used in the same sentence

H.264(.mkv)>>>divx(.avi)
KMplayer>>>any player

 

...DivX is an MPEG-4 Part 2 codec. It cannot decode any DVD-Video (MPEG-2).

Anyway, to my knowledge, the better DVD upconversion is rumored to be released by Toshiba. It will use super-resolution technique to upscale DVD from 480p to 960p. Result should look somewhat similar to this:


I haven't heard that there is any software video player that can use this technique yet. (Some photo editors can though)

Most of software video players upscale video using bilinear, bicubic or lanczos methods. People who use ffdshow may want to read this DVD setup walkthrough.

EDIT: add a few sample screen shots. These are the largest I can upconvert as I do not have high-res screen.

Scale without Purevideo enhancement





Scale with Purevideo enhancement





It would be great if anyone can post screen shots of DVD movies upconverted by other decoders/filters.

 

That looks nice.I wonder how much of a visual improvement would I actually perceive over the other enhancements..

 

Some post-processing sharpening techniques actually make the picture look worse. Yes it looks sharper but unnaturally sharp.

 

Interesting topic. I watch a lot of video (TV and DVD) on my laptop and on the Sony CRT monitor that sits to the left of it. Most of it is NTSC (720 X 480 Interlaced). I always just let the player upscale as needed. My three usual players are VLC, PowerDVD and WinTV 2000 (the app that displays my capture card). All three of them do a fine job of upsizing.

@mk.2: Does this 'Pure Video' thing always create so much ghosting and ringing on high contrast images like the lettering on the second skull shot? Is there a setting to tone that down, or does it butcher everything equally? I also think that looks unnatural.

 

A bit off topic..
Do you notice any differences in quality between using PowerDVD and other players when you watch interlaced movies? I heard that PowerDVD can use Motion Adaptive Deinterlacing.

I've had an interlacing issue. With Media Player Classic decoder, 2 fields will be blended together, creates ghosting effect but has smooth picture, like the shot below:



With Nvidia DVD Decoder, there is no ghosting effect but picture becomes jagged:



Nvidia deinterlacing method is less annoying to me as those jagged effect is hardly noticeable in moving scene unlike ghosting effect. Anyway I wish that I can find a better way to deal with interlaced movie.

You can adjust intensity of the effect. For those two sample shots on my earlier post, I did use edge enhancement at 100%. I find it does not work well for close range viewing like watching movie on laptop, as digital artifacts will be too obvious. It looks ok if I output movies to TV since I usually sit 10 feet away. About using enhancement, it's a matter of preference I guess. For some movies, it works well, for some like animation, it does not.

Another sample picture on detail enhancement (taken from TH):



Earlier in this thread I posted a review of this Purevideo. You can read it in full at Tom's Hardware. The review compare between using PowerDVD with and without hardware acceleration for both Nvidia and ATI GPU. It would give you a pretty good idea of what Hardware Accelleration could do regarding DVD Quality Enhancement.

Purevideo, in this case, is not a software, it's a set of features that already exist in Nvidia GPU. All that users need is a software/decoder that support hardware acceleration. Term can be a bit confusing since there is "Purevideo DVD Decoder" which is an Nvidia's MPEG-2 software decoder, available only on Windows XP.

Actually I rarely use 'edge enhancement' or 'noise reduction'. I use Purevideo because I has slow CPU and I need my GPU to help in DVD decoding.

 

I'm still using PowerDVD 4. The deinterlace options are only 'Bob', 'Weave', and 'Auto'. VLC seems to do a pretty good deinterlace.