OS X DVD Player bad quality

ulrik

ulrik

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Today, for the very first time, I used the OS X DVD Player. I have real good standalone, region code free, macrovision free DVD player with a dolby 5.1 surround system and a big TV attached to it in my living room, so I never used the OS X DVD player till now, and since I make all my DVDs in OS 9 with DVDSP, I only know the quality from the OS 9 player and the DVDSP-builtin preview, which is quite good. Out of curiosity, I just tested the OS X player, first with Die Hard with a Vengeance, Terminator 2, Aliens 2 and Five Star Stories...and damn does this thing have a lousy quality! ARTEFACTS ALL OVER THE PLACE! Especially Five Star Stories (Anime) was impossible to watch, every solid area was full of artefacts, not to mention black spaces. I couldn't believe it so I switched to my Cube...same thing there on another display (17'' Studio Display).

Do I just have two "bad" Macs or does the rest of you also notice artefacts when using the OS X DVD player?

I was really shocked!
 
Hi,

I don't know on my TiBook 400 the quality is really good. What do you mean with artefacts exactly ? (post it in german to give me a better impression, I'm german as well).
I watched a DVD just yesterday on OS X. You got the update (3.0.1)?
 
Nun ja. Artefakte! Das, was man sowohl in englisch als auch in deutsch unter Artefakte versteht.

Back to english:

I now checked it also on the TiBook of my ex-boss, and it has the same bad quality there! No solid color areas, especially when it is dark. I have some movies which I use for "testing" the quality of standalone players, one of them is Dark City, and it was horrible on the TiBook compared to a good standalone player.

And yes, I used the most recent player version...
 
I had the same problem but that was because my display configuration was set wrong.

In mac os x there is a step by step configuration to configure contrast and brightness to the right levels. This adjustment makes all the difference.

After the proper adjustment dvd quality will be exelent.
 
Well, I am using a Cinema Display and I am using the Apple presets.

I just made the display a bit darker and well, yes, it is a bit better, but still, I am not as impressed as with the OS 9 player...
 
I am just the opposite I was never impressed with the OS9 DVD player is was slow and and the sound would snap crackle and pop all the time. In OSX the quality for me is near perfect! Blacks are solid, whites are white, and detail is near perfect. I am using a mitsubishi diamond pro 900u 19 inch monitor. I am not from Germany but I lived there for about 5 years and bought most of my audio/video sytem there so I have basicly the same setup in my living room. I wish I would have bought one of those philips wide screen tvs when I was there though. In 1998 the German tvs seemed way ahead of the American ones in both price and quality. My 32 inch goldstar multisystem TV kinda sucks but it still has decent picture quality, it was a cheap solution.
 
With both my mom's iBook, and my dad's TiBook, the DVD Player in OS X rocks, and I saw not one single artifact at all.

It probably is the actual DVD that is the problem -- maybe it's the encoder that it uses or maybe it's scratched, I dunno. All I know is that I've watched quite a few DVDs in OS X now, and so have my parents, and it's of the utmost quality.
 
I've seen artefacts turn up in the OS X player that weren't visible in the classic player, on a couple of anime movies with fast-moving areas of flat colour, edges can become slightly jagged. It is hardly noticeable and can only be found in a couple of very specific scenes, and is barely perceptible except in slow-mo. I figure Classic's DVD player had some sort of smoothing routines that are yet to be implemented in OS X.

Of course, it is only the first version.
 
I also have a QS 867 with a cinema display. I have only tried playing one DVD (Gladiator), but it seemed fine. I have tried a few others on my Pismo 500 and they also played well. I have to say, I am not extremely critical about this and may have missed a few things. I was watching the movies to relax, not check the performance of the system.
 
Hmm...it seems I am just too "picky" (lacking a better word). I am used to the quality of my standalone player, a rather expensive beast. Yesterday I checked the WIndows DVD player of a friend and the quality was even worse than the OS X player, and this DVD software won several awards on the PC side. I went back to my Mac and again compared the Classic and the OS X player to each other, and it seems the difference between them is not that big and the quality of the OS X version not that bad...the quality of my standalone is just too good ;)

I partially remedy my first judgement, the quality is not horrible and seems quite good for a computer software DVD player...
 
just a thought - do you have colours set to thousands or millions

ps i have noticed the blotchy artifacts in dark solid colours too but have never bothered to try resetting the colours setting so dont know if it fixes the prob
 
Originally posted by ulrik
...the quality of my standalone is just too good ;)
Click to expand...

So which standalone is that? I'm looking for a good region free DVD player. Progressive scan is not necessary but a definite plus!

FaRuvius
 
My standalone player is the rather new JVC XV-D723 GD, hacked to be both RegionCode and macrovision free.

I am using the Macintosh version of GeForce 3, but I have also tested it on the ATI Radeon in my Cube.
 
I think what you are seeing here, ulric, is what dvd's look like on computers :p

I've allways felt that if you want to cut your hair, you go to a barbershop. Likewise, if you want to watch a dvd, go to the living room :p

I think the dvd player in osx feels much more responsive (than the os9 version). And one of my dvd-lovin titanium laptop users says the same.

If you want a real treat, get a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920, and press the 'FPM' button. This puts it into Fine Picture Mode, which is REALLY nice with dvd's and games. FPM is just wonderfull with dvd's.

By the way, what resolution do you run when you play dvd's?
 
1600x1200...I guess...that's my res and I just hit "full screen". I don't know if it reduces the resolution, would make sense to me.

Well, fact is that I still see a difference in quality between the OS 9 player and the OS X player on THREE Macs with three different DVD-drives and three different graphic cards! And I am not alone with this! A friend of mine who plays ALL his DVDs on his PC also said the quality in OS X is worse.

No question, the OS X player is faster and more responsive! I really like it! REALLY! It's just that the OS 9 player has a better quality on my Mac...

or could it be because I am using the OS 9 player that comes with DVD Studio Pro???? I have to check this on the third Mac (Powerbook of my ex-boss) when I meet him again, because he doesn't have DVDSP installed.
 
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