Best setup for highest quality DVD playback on a PC

[plautus]

I am a film producer/screenwriter and I watch at least one DVD movie on my PC every day. What setup -- video card, monitor, sound card, anything else -- will give me the best quality playback. Currently I have a Samsung 19" LCD, SB Audigy2 ZS, a 7600GT, Klipsch 2.1 speakers and 1 GB DDR 400 RAM. The films look fine, but I'm wondering if the quality could be improved upon. Thanx.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you aren't already using the purevideo decoder and a supporting player That is the place to start.

Hardware recommendations I'll leave to others, since "best" is somewhat subjective anyways. There are doubtless better displays, sound cards with SPDIF, for the prupose of DVD film audio, and a minimum 5.1 quality speaker system would help the immersion factor too.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Does the nvidia decoder work with WMP11?

 

[Arkaign]

DVD resolution is very low to begin with, so there's not a lot of improvement you can see. I recommend using WinDVD 7, PowerDVD 7 is pretty nice as well. The biggest upgrade you would see with your setup would actually be a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup. Logitech and Creative both have great budget sets (under $150) that are astounding for the price. I remember paying $100 for a Yamaha 2.1 set back in '96 or so .. my how things have changed!

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
DVD resolution is very low to begin with, so there's not a lot of improvement you can see. I recommend using WinDVD 7, PowerDVD 7 is pretty nice as well. The biggest upgrade you would see with your setup would actually be a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup. Logitech and Creative both have great budget sets (under $150) that are astounding for the price. I remember paying $100 for a Yamaha 2.1 set back in '96 or so .. my how things have changed!

/eyebrow

Upscaling and postprocessing can make a world of difference in the perceived quality of a DVD.

- M4H

 

[ForumMaster]

do you already use ffdshow? if not, download and install it. post processing can and will make the video look much better. also, get good speakers. also, a video card that supports HDMI/HDCP would be a good investment if you ever plan on moving up to HD movies.

 

[trOver]

sound is probably your biggest bottleneck right now...

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Does the nvidia decoder work with WMP11?

Yeah. Using it now with WMP11.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

FFDshow for the video playing and then output DVI to whatever display you want (you don't need to stick to a computer monitor) and output spdif to a receiver or pre-pro and amp to a good set of speakers/sub.

Basically you have your computer act as an upconverting DVD player and then hook up whatever equipment you want. Without a budget, the sky is the limit.

 

[mikek753]

use CRT monitor or Sony HD CRT TV (250 lb)
nothing comes close to CRT for color reproduction for a while.

LCD looks good when it turned off.

Unless you need >34" screen

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
FFDshow for the video playing and then output DVI to whatever display you want (you don't need to stick to a computer monitor) and output spdif to a receiver or pre-pro and amp to a good set of speakers/sub.

Basically you have your computer act as an upconverting DVD player and then hook up whatever equipment you want. Without a budget, the sky is the limit.

FFDshow is the greatest program every written.
You really don't even need Purevideo with it if you don't want it.

I have a guide, although by now it's out of date (learned a few things since I wrote it):
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=1930617

You can just skip the Purevideo part if you want and use the 5-tap Lowpass deinterlacer built right into ffdshow.
And if you don't think the image is sharp enough, you can always use the independent sharpening filter along with the sharpening in the resize (although not always recommended).

For that sharpening filter, I always liked the unsharp mask with a strength of 5 or 10 depending on the movie. But on most DVD's this sharpening isn't really necessary but try it if you want (also msharpen with high quality with both strength and threshold on 10 or 15 also makes a nice image).

 

[JRW]

This is actually true .. when it comes to DVD playback a good CRT will offer the best overall image quality (Trinitron / Aperture grille based CRTs, dont bother with Shadow Mask).