My dad just semi-spontaneously ordered a new 40-inch 1080p HDTV for our living room but our current DVD player doesn't have progressive scan. Right now he's eying the Oppo DV-981HD which upconverts to 1080p and supposedly has great quality for the price (about $230). What I'm wondering is if a computer with the right hardware and software could stack up against the dedicated DVD player. Right now my old computer is lying around for the most part unused and could be put to work as an HTPC in no time. It's got a 2.6ghz P4, 1g of RDRAM, and a 9700pro (AGP).
How does a PC stack up against an upconverting DVD player?
- Thread starter AndeeG
- Start date
The computer will do the same thing an oppo does almost as effectively if not better. However you need to make sure the 9700 pro can do 1920x1080. Also Im assuming your 9700 has DVI? because the Oppo has HDMI or DVI out (same thing signal wise) and digital will look best on an LCD.
the 9700 does have DVI but I'm not sure if it can do 1920x1080 yet. Is there any software I would need for playing DVDs besides something like windows media player?
Edit: I just checked the resolutions and under the standard "plug and play monitor" selection it only goes to 1600x1200. However, if I switch it to "secondary" with the pull down menu, it can go as high as 2048x1536, including a setting for 1920x1080. Does this mean it's capable of that resolution? By the way, the monitor i'm using with it right now is connected with the vga cable, not the dvi if that makes a difference.
I would look into videolan player. Its free has alot more codec support than WMP and I find it upscales pretty well and doesnt use tons of processor. One warning though, a pentium 4 will falter at decoding higher bitrate downloads (HD h.264 markov video for instance) But purely for DVD playback it should more than suffice.
www.videolan.org
To open a DVD in videolan, simply click open folder, and open the DVD drive on your computer.
www.videolan.org
To open a DVD in videolan, simply click open folder, and open the DVD drive on your computer.
1. Consider investing in a blu-ray or hd-dvd player. They can upconvert almost as good as the oppo, and have actual high def content available. Alternatively, consider a media extender (xbox 360 works).
PS. Your TV already will upconvert the current dvd player's output so the difference, as long as you're using component video output, may not be very significant.
2. People say the PC is superior, I've always found better results from dedicated hardware.
Stand alone DVD player vs HTPC: Things I've noticed
1. Stand alone usually gives a slightly sharper image
2. Can't seem to get image centered on screen. If I adjust the desktop to be perfectly centered, when playing video it gets slighly cut off on the bottom. If I adjust the video to be centered there's a small black bar on the bottom of the desktop.
3. HTPC can suffer from audio being out of synch every now and then
4. If you need optical or coaxial audio output on htpc you're pretty limited on sound cards that can do this and even then most of them have buggy drivers.
1. Stand alone usually gives a slightly sharper image
2. Can't seem to get image centered on screen. If I adjust the desktop to be perfectly centered, when playing video it gets slighly cut off on the bottom. If I adjust the video to be centered there's a small black bar on the bottom of the desktop.
3. HTPC can suffer from audio being out of synch every now and then
4. If you need optical or coaxial audio output on htpc you're pretty limited on sound cards that can do this and even then most of them have buggy drivers.
If you are using a CRT-type TV, you can fix this by enabling overscan in the video drivers' control panel (i.e. ATI CCC) and adjusting the overscan settings (if available) in the media player or PVR app. This will cause the Windows desktop to be drawn slightly off screen at all edges, but a properly configured media player app will only draw to the visible rectangle that you've denoted, making everything look "okay."
If you are using an LCD, plasma, or DLP TV, then you need to consult the manual and/or avsforums to use the proper input cable and resolution settings for 1:1 on your TV. Some TVs still cannot do 1:1 although many can even if not advertised as such. Those TV's which *guarantee* 1:1 have "PC Compatible" in their feature list.
If the player lacks progressive output then is it also limited to S-Video? If it at least has component then the TV's processing may be adequate. Spending that much for a DVD player at this point seems silly. If it is a direct-view display it will look meh anyway with low-res. Otherwise, the soft picture of projection may mask it somewhat. A PC can always do better but is fiddly and still limited by the source. As said, the CPU and GPU will not be capable of HD content either. I would either just make-do with the current DVD player, replace it with a better one costing no more than $50 if you still watch a lot of them or else get an HD disc player.
It does have component. I was thinking the same about buying a DVD player at this point. It just doesn't make sense right now as the HD formats are becoming more widespread. So assuming both the computer and non-progressive DVD player both work with my setup, would the computer have the advantage in IQ?
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