Blu-ray Playback: AMD Vs. Nvidia

[Shortbread]

I noticed Blu-ray playback seems a little gimpy on PS4/XB1 hardware. At times, almost like its software driven, vs hardware decoded. Blacks (shades) seem washed at times, and color accuracy seems a bit off.

When playing Blu-ray Disc on my PS3, the quality becomes very apparent (videophiles may notice, not so much the average Joe). The PS3 playback (picture quality) is more accurate, and cleaner overall.

I could be wrong (hopefully, I am), but I noticed the same inaccuracies between my PCs ...one with a Asus GTX 690 and the other with a Sapphire HD 7990.

Could the quality of playback be solely the GPU differences between the XB1/PS4 (AMD) and PS3 (Nvidia)? Or is it more so, software (codec/decoding) related?

 

[Babel-17]

On your PC what looks better, gpu or cpu driven playback? What software do you use?

 

[Shortbread]

On your PC what looks better, gpu or cpu driven playback? What software do you use?

Nvidia PC, Blu-ray playback looks better. Both have PowerDVD, the latest edition.

 

[Grall]

Are you sure it's not mindghosts you're chasing? The human mind and senses are notoriously inaccurate in any kind of comparison situation, which is why you need to do (double) blind studies to get any decent results...

 

[Shortbread]

Are you sure it's not mindghosts you're chasing? The human mind and senses are notoriously inaccurate in any kind of comparison situation, which is why you need to do (double) blind studies to get any decent results...

I guess ...Image quality is subjective to ones taste. However, the IQ seems more refined on the Nvidia based GPUs, compared to AMDs offerings. Not saying I'm right, it's just my opinion something looks slightly off in the quality department - like there is more of an added film grain going on with AMD GPUs, along with lack luster shadows (black/gray tones).

But as you stated, could just be how I perceive quality on my end.

 

[Grall]

I'm sure that you are seeing something - question is, without a blind study, is what you're seeing actually THERE or not?

Audiophiles for example always fail to differentiate things like uber expensive special audiophile audio cables and lengths of ordinary solder (!) in blind studies, and tend to rate sound quality higher when they know it's their own gear playing the music. The PS3 is well known for being a really rather good blu-ray/DVD player, so perhaps it gets automatic buff in your mental comparison?

As for NV vs ATI video quality, there actually might be something there. I remember years ago that internet video looked like absolute crap on a previous AMD card I had. Turned out the "video enhancements" in the catalyst control centre were the culprit. Look over those settings and perhaps turn everything OFF. Maybe video quality will improve!

If you use powerdvd on both systems there really should not be a quality difference, so only reason I can think of is driver interference. Perhaps you could try to turn off hardware decoding in powerdvd altogether, and see if AMD quality picks up...?

 

[Shortbread]

I'm sure that you are seeing something - question is, without a blind study, is what you're seeing actually THERE or not?

I get what you're saying. Maybe there is some study or articles dealing with the differences between Blu-ray playback between the PS3 and PS4/XB1.

As for NV vs ATI video quality, there actually might be something there. I remember years ago that internet video looked like absolute crap on a previous AMD card I had. Turned out the "video enhancements" in the catalyst control centre were the culprit. Look over those settings and perhaps turn everything OFF. Maybe video quality will improve!

I'm pretty good in that department - when it comes to tuning my GPU and video playback settings. But I'll check them over again...

If you use powerdvd on both systems there really should not be a quality difference, so only reason I can think of is driver interference. Perhaps you could try to turn off hardware decoding in powerdvd altogether, and see if AMD quality picks up...?

I'll look into that... but this issue I have seen on other playback softwares that I have used over the years.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It's not the OP's imagination that the PS3 is better than the PS4 and XBone at playing Blu-Rays.
Eurogamer made an article claiming that and other things.

Issues should be solved as firmware updates go by (I doubt the PS3 came out perfectly on day one either).

This has nothing to do with hardware decoding on AMD vs. nVidia. AMD has been conquering the top spot in HQV benchmarks for several years now.

 

[djskribbles]

I have a colorimeter and spectrometer used for display calibration. I can measure the color output and gamma response of the PS4's Blu-Ray player relative to my HTPC (which is my main BD/media player). All Blu-Ray players generally output a slightly different picture, but it should be fairly close to my HTPC's output (which is what I used to calibrate my plasma). I'll see if I have time to do it later today.

As for PCs, there are many things that can affect the picture (drivers, renderers, decoders, players etc.), so it can be pretty complicated to get the picture right. Personally I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema with madVR video renderer. I also turn off any processing in the AMD drivers just in case (madVR ignores them anyway).

I also don't think it has anything to do with the GPUs.

edit: David Mackenzie is a very good HDTV reviewer, and according to him, the PS4's picture quality is not an issue. http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ps4-201312173519.htm

It is fairly basic in features though, but that will improve with updates no doubt.

 

[Shortbread]

It's not the OP's imagination that the PS3 is better than the PS4 and XBone at playing Blu-Rays.
Eurogamer made an article claiming that and other things.

Issues should be solved as firmware updates go by (I doubt the PS3 came out perfectly on day one either).

This has nothing to do with hardware decoding on AMD vs. nVidia. AMD has been conquering the top spot in HQV benchmarks for several years now.

edit: David Mackenzie is a very good HDTV reviewer, and according to him, the PS4's picture quality is not an issue. http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ps4-201312173519.htm

Thanks for the links...

 

[Sigfried1977]

It's not the OP's imagination that the PS3 is better than the PS4 and XBone at playing Blu-Rays.

Better? - Yeah. But not in terms of image quality.

 

[Davros]

what other metric is there ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Better experience in terms of interface. Two BRD players can have exactly the same picture quality yet one can be better in operation.

 

[London Geezer]

Better experience in terms of interface. Two BRD players can have exactly the same picture quality yet one can be better in operation.

Faster, Smoother, ability to play all sorts of different formats (PS4 and X1 at the moment are uselss with anything but 1080/24p, basically negating any documentary/TV based material)... There's all sorts!

 

[tuna]

Faster, Smoother, ability to play all sorts of different formats (PS4 and X1 at the moment are uselss with anything but 1080/24p, basically negating any documentary/TV based material)... There's all sorts!

What is the problem with PS4 and non 24p Blu-rays?

 

[Nesh]

What is the problem with PS4 and non 24p Blu-rays?

Digital foundry had a pretty nice analysis of the PS3, PS4 and XBOX One's media capabilities. You can find all the details there

 

[tuna]

Digital foundry had a pretty nice analysis of the PS3, PS4 and XBOX One's media capabilities. You can find all the details there

Well, I am stupid and couldn't find it. Maybe you could tell me?

(And I wasn't asking about media capabilities or the XBOne.)

 

[Shortbread]

What is the problem with PS4 and non 24p Blu-rays?

Nothing wrong with 24 playback, however see below...

Well, I am stupid and couldn't find it. Maybe you could tell me?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-vs-xbox-one-which-is-the-better-media-player

Edit:

Basic 1080p playback is more stable on the PS4, although Sony's system isn't completely without its own quirks. The console struggles to correctly de-interlace progressive 25fps content encoded at 1080i50 without throwing away a small amount of picture information and blending detail from one frame into the next, duplicate image (all of our test consoles output 1080i50 at 1080p50, resulting in each frame being duplicated). Manually switching the console to 1080i shows no improvement, indicating that the machine is internally de-interlacing the signal regardless of the output resolution.

On the other hand, the Xbox One gets the de-interlacing part right, but then converts the 50Hz output to 60Hz causing judder - for every five "native" frames, a sixth duplicate is added. To put things in perspective, the PS3 comfortably handles all high-definition material on disc without compromising the output in any way. And let's not forget that the PS3 also handles 3D Blu-ray movies too - a feature that is currently missing on both of the next-gen consoles.

But I'm guessing all this got resolved since the DF article...

 

[tuna]

So this is the relevant section: "The console struggles to correctly de-interlace progressive 25fps content encoded at 1080i50 without throwing away a small amount of picture information and blending detail from one frame into the next, duplicate image (all of our test consoles output 1080i50 at 1080p50, resulting in each frame being duplicated)."

It would be nice to get some examples of what is actually happening here. I do not fully understand, the pictures in the article look the same to me...

 

[Shortbread]

So this is the relevant section: "The console struggles to correctly de-interlace progressive 25fps content encoded at 1080i50 without throwing away a small amount of picture information and blending detail from one frame into the next, duplicate image (all of our test consoles output 1080i50 at 1080p50, resulting in each frame being duplicated)."

It would be nice to get some examples of what is actually happening here. I do not fully understand, the pictures in the article look the same to me...

I can't say what's going on with this particular issue (if it still exists) ...the only thing that I can recognize visually, is that PS3 has a cleaner and more refined Blu-ray playback, than PS4/XB1. But that's my opinion at the moment anyhow....