Whats the best PC dvd-playbacl software?

[mrboo]

Im getting a HTPC soon and its comes with PowerDVD7, now ive seen some really mixed reviews about it so my question's are :

1. Is it "REALLY" anygood?
2. Is there anything better?

Also as i'll be running on my new 720p LCD screen i want something that will upscale SD video to HD resolution the same way that dvd-players can upconvert to 720p.

Many Thanks

 

[Blazkowicz]

what you probably want is using ffdshow's post-processing (the resize part especially).
for playback software maybe use media player classic (have power DVD installed just to provide the codec)

or, an alternative is VLC (free software player which can read DVD and do post-processing on its own)

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You should also try out Intervideo WinDVD and Nero Showtime.

 

[mrboo]

what you probably want is using ffdshow's post-processing (the resize part especially).
for playback software maybe use media player classic (have power DVD installed just to provide the codec)

or, an alternative is VLC (free software player which can read DVD and do post-processing on its own)

How do i get that? Is it free? will it work with all media players or just a few? is it easy to set up?

 

[_xxx_]

IMO, they all kinda suck. Bloated, bad interface etc. I use Media Player Classic or just my stand-alone DVD-player.

 

[MuFu]

I use Zoom Player, Sonic DVD filters and and ffdshow. ffdshow scales up to 1080p (Lanczos algorithm) then the GPU scales down to 1360x768. For some reason this gives better edge quality than a direct scale. It's stunning - far, far better than our (albeit modest) Sony standalone player, to the point where it is painful to watch the latter.

However, for ease of use I'd go for InterVideo WinDVD 7 (or 8 maybe - not sure what the latest version is). Interface and output quality is ok.

 

[MuFu]

Hi,

I'll try and answer your PM here since it's sort of the idea of a forum to open things up a little. Plus there are other people more familiar with these things that I.

The best free player to use with ffdshow is Media Player Classic. To ensure ffdshow is active during DVD playback, select "all supported" Raw video in the Codecs section of the video configuration menus. Say you want to scale non-HD content up to 1080p:

Edit - come to think of it, you will probably find that you need to disable aspect ratio correction for anamorphic DVDs (i.e. most of them).

Not sure about VLC and ffdshow, sorry. I would imagine they are incompatible as VLC uses proprietary decoders.

Hi, i was just wondering how do you set ffdshow to scale your image to 720/1080p? And is it compatable with VLC player because i cant see ffdshow in the system tray when im playing a File with VLC.

Regards

MrBoo

 

[ban25]

Another vote for MPC and ffdshow here...

 

[Kaotik]

VLC and FFDSHOW use both the same libavcodec, just FYI

Anyway, I also suggest using FFDSHOW, and for resize settings, IIRC you should set both Luma & Chroma methods to Lanczos, not just Luma.

Oh, and the other postprocessing capabilities FFDSHOW have can really make a huge effect on the IQ, too, especially if you consider rather "low quality" videos (like those usual 1-2 disc Xvid DVD Rips)

 

[Moloch]

zoom player+ purevideo+ ffdshow resize filter :smile:
I just prefer the interface and it's nice and snappy.
I tried to get some avs scripts working but never could

 

[MuFu]

VLC and FFDSHOW use both the same libavcodec, just FYI

Yes, but it's implemented in different ways. VLC uses it as part of an internal decode graph and ffdshow wraps it as a DS filter. I don't think they're interoperable.

Anyway, I also suggest using FFDSHOW, and for resize settings, IIRC you should set both Luma & Chroma methods to Lanczos, not just Luma.

Aha, yes that's right. IIRC, older builds don't have the option to set each one individually (just bicublin etc). Been a while since I set it up and just quickly took some screens on my main PC (not the HTPC) for mrboo.

Oh, and the other postprocessing capabilities FFDSHOW have can really make a huge effect on the IQ, too, especially if you consider rather "low quality" videos (like those usual 1-2 disc Xvid DVD Rips)

Anything settings in particular? I have experimented but not had much luck with cleaning up 2 CD rips.

 

[Kaotik]

Just the basic "PostProcessing" usually helps a bit, with automatic quality control enabled, I use mplayer method with accurate deblocking myself.

SPP Deblocking is damn high quality, but it's broken in several releases, and when it's not, it's damn (too) heavy to use.

Oh, and Deinterlacing > Framerate Doubler > No motion estimation - blend images is nice as long as the video source isn't interlaced.

Some guides also suggest using slight amount of Sharpen filter, using the msharpen method (it tries to only search for the "edges" rather than applying it on everything), and a bit of blur & nr (denoise3d, hq, really really little on each 3 settings down there)
and if you look the screen from far, noise can do miracles on how detailed it all looks, New Noise Algorithm should be good, and again, just a tiny tiny amount of it. This at least annoys me though, when I watch movies from my PC screen.

 

[MuFu]

Thanks. Urgh, need a more powerful HTPC...

 

[Miksu]

Some guides also suggest using slight amount of Sharpen filter, using the msharpen method

I've read some guides where they tell to avoid using ffdshow's Sharpen filter and instead use Luma sharpen from the resize-settings.

 

[Kaotik]

I've read some guides where they tell to avoid using ffdshow's Sharpen filter and instead use Luma sharpen from the resize-settings.

msharpen should be better than that, but the Luma sharpen from resize eats less resources

 

[Moloch]

Yes, but it's implemented in different ways. VLC uses it as part of an internal decode graph and ffdshow wraps it as a DS filter. I don't think they're interoperable.



Aha, yes that's right. IIRC, older builds don't have the option to set each one individually (just bicublin etc). Been a while since I set it up and just quickly took some screens on my main PC (not the HTPC) for mrboo.



Anything settings in particular? I have experimented but not had much luck with cleaning up 2 CD rips.

2cd?
2cd rips even with 5.1 ac3 usally look great.
It's the 1cd rips that you gotta worry about. especially if its over an hour and 40 minutes, I do recall the old scene "rules" were 1 hour and 37 minutes for 1cd, over that and it needs to be 2 cd and it might be nuked by "sites"

 

[MuFu]

Depends on the display. I always thought 2CD rips were fine on a 28" CRT (via RGB) but on a larger LCD you can clearly see their shortcomings vs. the source DVD. Even with multiple pass rips of short films.

Kaotik - thanks alot, just for the suggestion to experiment. Haven't played about with some of the other ffdshow settings for ages. I'm not sure how far things have come in the past couple of years but I am getting really good XviD/DivX results now using postprocessing (auto w/mplayer accurate), Lanczos luma/bicubic chroma (sharpen 1.20/1.20) and uniform mplayer noise (no pattern). For DVDs I am still just using resize.

 

[Miksu]

For DVDs I am still just using resize.

I've been wondering if there's some way to make few presets and make ffdshow automatically switch between them, depending if the source material is dvd, divx etc? I also would like to have different settings for DVDs than other sources but it's kinda annoying to have to change the settings manually everytime.

 

[Moloch]

Depends on the display. I always thought 2CD rips were fine on a 28" CRT (via RGB) but on a larger LCD you can clearly see their shortcomings vs. the source DVD. Even with multiple pass rips of short films.

Kaotik - thanks alot, just for the suggestion to experiment. Haven't played about with some of the other ffdshow settings for ages. I'm not sure how far things have come in the past couple of years but I am getting really good XviD/DivX results now using postprocessing (auto w/mplayer accurate), Lanczos luma/bicubic chroma (sharpen 1.20/1.20) and uniform mplayer noise (no pattern). For DVDs I am still just using resize.

Sivx/xvid has gone a very long way , in the old days blockyness on action and a vuf loss of details was considered the norm, now that's cause for alarm.
http://www.doom9.org/codecs-final-105-1.htm
Still room for improvement, but still pretty good.
Hook up your big lcd and see how much a difference you can see

 

[MuFu]

Still room for improvement, but still pretty good.
Hook up your big lcd and see how much a difference you can see

Well, the "room for improvement" you mention... that's the difference I can see. I'm not quite sure what your point is; I was merely saying they weren't as good as the source (which the article you linked clearly illustrates).

I've been wondering if there's some way to make few presets and make ffdshow automatically switch between them, depending if the source material is dvd, divx etc? I also would like to have different settings for DVDs than other sources but it's kinda annoying to have to change the settings manually everytime.

You can use the autoload feature in "Image settings" to select a preset depending on the media resolution (or any one of a number of other factors), e.g. if 720<=width<=720 and 480<=height<=576 it loads the DVD preset , if 720<=width<=2048 it loads the HD preset etc etc.