DVD video quality

[wonderworm2000]

I would like to know if upgrading the graphics card to say a 128 mb card from a 32 mb card will improve sharpness of dvd quality when watching it on my LCD monitor. My monitor appears very sharp on everything including DVDs until I bring the DVD video to full screen. Then it is slightly grainy.

Thanks

 

[lancer]

simply put...yes it would. the reason being is not really the memory size, but really the hardware on a new v/card will process the movie better. But before you do that, all you may need is a software decode. download vlc which is a free media player, and see if it looks any better... let us know.

direct link:
http://www.videolan.org/mirror.php?...lan/&file=vlc/0.8.5/win32/vlc-0.8.5-win32.exe
or title page:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

[LeeJend]

Not necessarily. You are dealing with native monitor resolution at full screen vs native DVD resolution. If you set the monitor to have the same resolution as the recorded DVD format then it will look good.

If the resolutions do not match then the codecs start guessing (interpolating) what each pixel should be. This causes fuzziness. It also depends on how good your codec is. Try some different players/decoders first.

That said a 32mB card is very old and will not have DVD playback hardware support and DVD type screen resolutions.

 

[Aprox]

If you go with ATI or Nvida, both camps offer decoders that take advantage of their powerful GPU's for DVD decoding. This will make the picture sharper and various other video processing functions. I will spare you the boring lingo involved, but yes investing in a new video card could help if you also spent the 30 - 40$ on their decoders.

For Nvida you can get their lower middle card for less than $200 usually less than $175. However these cards are all PCI-E, and you are saying you have a 16MB video card, you most likely are still using a AGP or even a PCI platform. Are you planning on upgrading your entire system?

eVGA Nvidia 7600GT - Link - 139.99 After Rebate

Nvidia PureVideo Decoder - Link

 

[Aprox]

Be careful if you want to go with a lower model, if you drop to low then you will lose the GPU's special ability to use its hardware to decode the movies. This feature is only available in their mid and high end cards. Their bottom of the barrel cards dont offer this feature set.

 

[Aprox]

I dont know, I am more talking about Nvidia products. ATI's current lineup is far inferior to Nvidia right now.

 

[Aprox]

I know that ATI does offer a similar decoding product, but I am not as familiar with it. I will let any of the ATI guys chime in on it if they are familar.

 

[LeeJend]

The 9550 would be the better choice for improved DVD playback. The 9250 is ancient and does not have the same features.

On the improved software side. Here is the link to Power DVD's trial download. See if that improve the full screen playback.
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_1_ENU.html

 

[vertigo]

for dvd playback the 9250 will do, or even the geforce 5200, both have hardware acceleration, and almost all decoders use it when available, the exception being VLC/ffmpeg. graphics cards do not influence picture quality directly (regardless of what nvidia and ati say, there isn't much difference at all in picture quality between the 5200 and the 7800, 9200 and x1800, etc, only performance increases), but you'll at least want to go with a dx9 compatible one.