Do regular DVD's look like garbage on widescreen monitors?

[MrMatt]

I have a 23" LCD monitor that looks great, blurays look great, etc. I rented a regular dvd tonight to watch, and it looks grainy as fuck...what gives?

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Depends on the dvd and the ability of your player to scale up to your monitor's native resolution. A good scaler can go a long way, but it can only do so much for a poor dvd.

 

[Locut0s]

Shouldn't look that bad on just a 23 inch moniotor. You don't have I set to stretch the image do you? Of course it will be worse than blu-ray. What is the player you are using? How is it hooked up?

 

[sdifox]

stick it in a brd player and it should look pretty good. Not quite as good as BRD of course, but not bad.

 

[irishScott]

I have a 21.5" monitor and I think DVDs look fine on VLC. Then again I'm not a videophile.

 

[mugs]

What movie? Are you sure you mean grainy?

A non-anamorphic widescreen DVD would look worse than an anamorphic widescreen DVD. I don't think I'd describe either as grainy when watched on a screen with much higher resolution than 480p. Pixelated would be a better description, which I assume is what you meant?

 

[MrMatt]

It's the Edge of Darkness DVD, and I'm playing it on an LG blu-ray player in WMP

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Regular DVDs are going to look like crap on monitors unless you sit far away or its a small monitor.

 

[Bateluer]

Or you could just be used the the higher quality of the BluRay movies now?

 

[Newbian]

Could be simply a bad dvd.

I watched that movie also a few weeks ago and the sound was so quiet on it that perhaps they did a bad patch for that movie...

 

[0roo0roo]

I have a 23" LCD monitor that looks great, blurays look great, etc. I rented a regular dvd tonight to watch, and it looks grainy as fuck...what gives?

the monitor is showing you exactly how little detail there is on a dvd. dvd is 1/3 of a megapixel, bluray and hdtv is 2megapixel.

 

[mrjminer]

Maybe I'm not that picky... DVD looks fine to me with my head 3' from a 28" monitor at 1920x1200

 

[rcpratt]

480p content doesn't look great on a 1080p monitor? What?

 

[ScottSwing]

It looks exactly the same as it always has. You're just used to seeing high-res images on your monitor.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Edge of Darkness wasn't a very good looking movie either.

 

[Craig234]

They usually look ok to me on a 65" LCD from 6 feet away and an upscale player (PS3).

 

[Locut0s]

They usually look ok to me on a 65" LCD from 6 feet away and an upscale player (PS3).

The PS3 does a good job of upscaling though. And a 65" TV has a low dot pitch compared to say a computer monitor. But still a small 23inch monitor shouldn't display DVDs poorly.

 

[0roo0roo]

They usually look ok to me on a 65" LCD from 6 feet away and an upscale player (PS3).

they don't look photographic either, and its at distance, so your vision becomes more limited, its not close scrutiny in the center of your vision like on a computer screen.

 

[fleabag]

420p content doesn't look great on a 1080p monitor? What?

more like 480p.... but what ever

 

[Locut0s]

more like 480p.... but what ever

Um if it's a computer monitor then yeah a 23" monitor has a native res of 1920 by 1080 I believe which is exacly HD.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Um if it's a computer monitor then yeah a 23" monitor has a native res of 1920 by 1080 I believe which is exacly HD.

he meant its 480p and not 420p. No such thing as 420p as far as I know.

And the OP mentions his res is 1680 x 1050 I believe, which is a 16:10 resolution.

 

[Locut0s]

he meant its 480p and not 420p. No such thing as 420p as far as I know.

And the OP mentions his res is 1680 x 1050 I believe, which is a 16:10 resolution.

Oops yeah glossed over the 480 420 difference. 16:10 vs 16:9 shouldn't make much of a difference especially on such a small monitor. Well it will make a difference but it wouldn't be why the OP is complaining about the poor quality of the image.

 

[Koing]

The op said monitor...the screens resolution is probably 1920x1200 native, hell most 23 tvs run that resolution and ratio 16:10 & not 1920x1080 16:9 due to cost...this wouldn't affect the image that much though...

Koing

 

[Kanalua]

The PS3 does a good job of upscaling though.

This (cliche). DVDs generally look pretty good, some just as good as some of the bad Bluray conversions I have (on a 52" LCD). DVD9 better than DVD5, have some Korean Dramas that have horrible DVD Video and no amount of upscaling will make it look good.

 

[rcpratt]

he meant its 480p and not 420p. No such thing as 420p as far as I know.

And the OP mentions his res is 1680 x 1050 I believe, which is a 16:10 resolution.

Yeah yeah, late night typo. You got the idea.