Awful DVD playbac quality on MBP!

Awful DVD playback quality on MBP!
Just got the MPB today. So I popped in a few DVDs to check for the playback image and found it to be grainy.
I've use the crappy apple-DVD player and VLC and both have a grainy image
What am I doing wrong?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I understand your average DVD is recorded at 720×480 wheras the MBP screen resolution is 1440x900. So, playing full screen there is bound to be some pixelation.

 

It does depend on the DVD. I've got a new Pat Metheny concert DVD and there's no grain, as opposed to Star Wars ep IV...

 

That doesn't make any sense - my Dell e1505 1200x800 has no graininess with the same DVDs.

 

Well you just said it, your Dell has a lower resolution which is going to make a DVD look a little better. The MBP has a much higher resolution of 1440x900 which is going to make a DVD look grainy. In order to make a DVD look it's best you need a screen that has a resolution the same as DVDs or has a good upscaler, like an HDTV or upscaling DVD player. Most computers do not do a good job at upscaling and even if they did the resolution is so much higher than what a DVD can output (about 4x higher in the MBP case), it would be hard to make it look good.

 

Yeah, that's what happens. Same reason why watching YouTube videos full screen looks bad...you're stretching it larger than its original resolution was. Same thing, DVDs are 720x480, while computer displays have much higher resolutions.

 

Thats why apple need to stick a blu-ray drive in there =)

 

If you ask me, it seems Apple may hold out of the whole thing...I mean, they might offer an option for Blu Ray on the Mac Pro, but other than that, it seems Apple is probably waiting until the format war has a clear winner before stepping in. It does officially support Blu Ray, yes.

 

I don't know what Apple is going to do, but that would be the smart thing to do, Sam.

 

You're not doing anything wrong.

And despite what others have said, it's not the resolution of your screen or anything like that.

The quality sucks because DVD Player and the way OS X handles video sucks.

If people don't believe me, they can simply install Windows in Boot Camp on their Intel Mac and install PowerDVD.

DVD Player in OS X is very bad at upscaling the video. Up until Leopard, DVD Player didn't even upscale video! It simply stretched it to fill the screen! Plus OS X doesn't have a system wide video acceleration standard, like Windows does, so VLC's quality is entirely dependent on the software it uses to decode and display the video.

Heres what I posted in another thread:

So it's not your DVDs fault that the video looks bad. It's simply OS X and the way it handles video. The only way you're going to be able to get video that looks good is to install Windows via BootCamp and use a modern DVD player like Theatertek, PowerDVD, or WinDVD. The GeForce in your MBP with Windows and one of those players will decode, deinterlace, and properly upscale your video. Your CPU use will be lower and the image quality will look better than you ever imagined DVDs could.

 

Well I tried. After downloading the 48 MB trial (for a DVD player?) and installing it on my system, I tried viewing a DVD and it would not let me since I apparently have TV out enabled and the copy protected DVD won't play if it is enabled. First I am not going to try to figure out how to turn that off in Windows. Second I have no idea what TV out they are talking about, I assume the DVI port since it is the only video out the MBP has. Third there is no way on earth I would pay $50 for a DVD player for my computer. That is a rip off, especially considering the DVD playback on OS X is not that bad, and I doubt that PowerDVD will be $50 better.

 

Well, theres definitely something wrong with your Windows installation or the drivers Apple provides for the MBP. I had both WinDVD and PowerDVD running on my MacBook in Windows just fine.

TV Out has functioned properly on all PCs since about WinDVD 3.0.

And don't try to spin this as a Windows problem. OS X certainly has similar issues, such as the Safari 3 beta installing a screwed version of WebKit that killed everything from Yahoo Messenger to iTunes.

Anyway, as for DVD players for Windows being worth the price.. definitely. You're not getting nickel and dimed like you do with all of the little utility software for OS X that costs $10 here, $15 there, etc.

PowerDVD with PureVideo enabled on my HP connected via HDMI to my LCD TV actually looks better than my Onkyo upscaling DVD player. The resolution and color are the same, but PureVideo cleans up the compression artifacting that appears in some movies, making it look absolutely amazing. With DVD quality this good, I don't need any of the HD formats.

My MacBook connected via HDMI with the mini-DVI to DVI adapter, DVI to HDMI adapter, and then an additional optical cable.. while the desktop looks like a really sharp large monitor, DVD playback in Leopard actually looks worse at 720p than my old Pioneer DV-578As progressive scan universal disc player.

You can actually head over to various home theater related forums, like AVS and HTF, and you'll find that the number 1 complaint amongst the Mac users is that DVD Player is awful and the only solution anybody can give is to install Windows and use WinDVD, PowerDVD, or Theatertek. Probably 1 out of 10 people are satisfied with DVD Player in OS X, but they've never seen what a Windows PC (or even their own Mac with Windows installed) can do, or a good upscaling DVD player by Oppo, Pioneer, or Onkyo is capable of.

Back to the overall original point of this thread, DVDs look terrible simply because of the way Apple handles DVD playback. As I said, Mac OS X has no system wide standard for hardware acceleration, and Apple chooses not to take advantage of the advanced features of the dedicated GPUs they include with some of their machines. They also fail to offer software based solutions that can clean up the picture entirely in software like PowerDVD and WinDVD do. Even with a lowly GMA 950 or X3100, PowerDVD and WinDVD can work wonders to make the image quality much better than it would be in DVD Player.

This isn't an "OS war" or anything like that. I'm just speaking the truth based on my own experience with a Mac and a system with a dedicated GPU, as well as what you can find with 10 minutes of browsing various video/home theater related forums.

 

i'm sorry but I completely disagree that WinDVD or PowerDVD look better at all, I have used both under windows and grain on grainy DVD's, Lost in Translation is a DVD that is particularly grainy, YES, it does have to do with how the DVD was encoded, etc. it plays a very large part.

I have found DVD looks much better under VLC than nearly anything, and look absolutely fine under DVD player in OS X. chalk one in for the DVD player is great if not better than others I have used, side of the line.

remember that every negative complaing about most of these things has atleast 1 or maybe more to disagree with it.

 

Something in BETA? Screwing up something? Never! /sarcasm

How about playing your part, since you're using it, and report the Safari problem to Apple if they haven't fixed it already instead of complaining about it here? That's what BETAs are for, after all.

 

Well, you're free to disagree as much as you like, however wrong you are.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk in this post, but you really are wrong. Your opinion may be that you like DVD Player and VLC more. However, it's a fact that WinDVD, PowerDVD, Theatertek, and even Vista's own built-in decoder are all much better with PureVideo and ATI's equivalent.

You don't believe me? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26 Thats the AVS forum for HTPCs. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=115 and theres the link to the Mac HTPC section. You're more than welcome to go over there and talk about how much better you feel VLC and DVD Player are.. and, quite honestly, see how fast you get laughed off both the Mac and standard HTPC forums. Theres more than half a million members there who would be more than happy to disagree with you and show you the truth.

Its funny that you mention Lost in Translation because that was the DVD I was using LoT is purposely grainy. Sofia Coppola even said she chose film because of the grain and how "romantic" it feels

However, there is a big difference between FILM GRAIN that is intentional and grain due to improper upscaling/stretching. An intentionally grainy film like Lost in Translation still looks fantastic when properly upscaled. On a good upscaling DVD player, or a Windows DVD player with PureVideo/DXVA, it will look like you're watching the movie directly from a film print, as intended. But grain that is caused by improper upscaling and stretching, like DVD Player in OS X, causes the movie to look soft, pixelized, and just generally awful.

As I said before, when I connect my Mac to my LCD TV, DVD Player generally produces a picture that looks worse than my old progressive scan Pioneer DV-578As universal disc player. Where my HP with PowerDVD generally beats my Onkyo upscaling DVD player because it cleans up the minor compression artifacting that can sometimes poke its head up in some DVDs.

DVD Player is also missing MANY crucial features. For example, why can't I take screenshots during movie playback? That's about as stupid as you can get.

DVD Player also lacks the ability to decode the LFE channel and push it out to headphones or speaker sets below 5.1 channels. Why is that? WinDVD and PowerDVD had this ability way back in the 90s. Why is it that Apple still forces people to suffer with their absolutely awful EQ that pumps up mid-bass frequencies and miss out on everything below 120Hz?

Why no DTS decoding? Again, standard as far back as WinDVD 2.x

DVD Player (nor VLC) can use any kind of disc caching. For example, when running on battery, WinDVD will cache the disc to the system RAM and shut the optical drive down until its needed again. This saves the life of the drive and can add anywhere between 30-60 minutes of battery life.

And finally, why is the CPU use so high? Why does it take 20% of a Core 2 Duo at 2.16GHz (both cores!) to decode and play a DVD? Even though I have the Intel GMA 950 and it only has HWMC to assist, back in the days of my Celeron 566 (Coppermine) and a GPU that also only had HWMC, CPU use would hover around 15%.

DVD Player is an awful piece of software, the quality is only where PC DVD players were in the previous decade.. its really bad that Apple can get off selling this to people and that the fans will even defend it!

As I said earlier in my post, you're more than welcome to head over to AVS and discuss the topic with more than half a million people who will be more than happy to repeat what I've said and show you the facts

Never had any beta software for Windows do that And I was one of the brave souls to beta test SP1 and SP2 for XP.

Anyway, to stay on topic, the problem the original poster is facing is directly related to Apple's poor video decoding and handling of video content. It's ironic that Macs are supposedly better at making video... yet terrible for playing it back.

 

Yeah, ok =) WinDVD is just so great But it's kinda funny that you compare a free in-built dvd player with a commercial app worth $$$.

Not so long ago you couldn't play a dvd on windows at all with in-built software.

 

Wow so there's some grain on the screen, jeez, calm down you guys!

I'm not going to EVER pay $50 on a DVD player just so it can deinterlace my grainy DVDs. It's just not worth it.

New DVDs don't have the graining issue...

 

Just because you're a lucky fool doesn't mean it's Windows that does it. Apparently you haven't been around enough to run into some of the InstallShield beta bugs that deleted whole hard disks.

Heh, I remember when that same problem hit the Mac OS too.

lol, you're not brave for testing SP1 and SP2. You'd be (barely) brave testing XP pre-launch, or Vista pre-launch. Of course, you'd be stupid if you didn't have a backup while you tested them.

Oh...and yes, you ARE starting an OS war.

 

This is turning into crap. To the OP. If you don't like the grainy playback on the MBP, you can always return it, sell it, whatever.

To SauronMOS: it seems like you know a lot of stuff and yet you're on for bashing this, bashing that. Get a Dell or Gateway or some crap like that and compare watching a grainy DVD with a MBP.

Cheers!

 

Guys, chill out. 1st warning.

 

Lost in Translation is definitely not purposely THAT grainy, a theatre or the HD DVD version will let you understand that a little more clearly.

I have watched this film with all of the software you have mentioned and Win DVD without question looks the worst of any that I have watched it with.

and just to keep you up to date, Apple has done a massive amount of work when it comes to video, codecs, software, production pipelines, you name it. What exactly have you done for this particular industry? You are complaining about something only the pickiest person may even notice like it is a complete failure of a machine, and you honestly know only what the internet is telling you.

and to the original poster, what exactly is the point of this thread really? posting a complaint on a notebook review site about Apple software is not going to do anything about it.

please take your complaints to people who are much more interested http://www.apple.com/feedback/dvdplayer.html

 

I haven't popped in a DVD yet, but i have many video files that i like to watch in OS X and in Windows. Usually these videos are of a lesser resolution than DVDs. I use MPlayer in OS X and Media Player Classic in Windows, both work well for me...no real graininess that i've noticed but i've ensured that the quality of the videos i have are good.

 

Sauron, I am not saying that PowerDVD isn't better. It may be, but for me, and most people, they are not that interested in paying a lot of money for a software DVD player.

Let's all agree that for some DVD software is more important than others. Are there any decent solutions for the OP? For the OP, if you happen to have Windows, you could always try out VMware Fusion and see if that gives you more acceptable results.

 

I think a few of the things have been brought up already, the main thing being that its being scaled from 720 to 1440.

But something that wasn't talked about was the fact that depending on the quality of the dvd itself, in both encoding, and the actual film, is that that can vary from one dvd to another.

Film itself has grain, and if you go to a movie theatre you can see the grain, and obviously if the way that the movie is shot and the quality, you could get graininess when watching in playback.

As to why one player is different quality then the other, I cant say for sure, but I've used VLC for ages and the quality is good.

And watching 720p content in vlc/niceplayer/quicktime looks perfectly fine, so i doubt its the player thats mucking up the video.

 

WinDVD and PowerDVD, up until the release of Vista, were typically bundled in with OEM computers. If you bought an HP or a Dell or something, WinDVD or PowerDVD came with it. Vista has it's own built-in DXVA capable decoder.

If you bought a DVD capable optical drive yourself to put in a computer, it would generally come packed with PowerDVD or WinDVD. Just about every videocard from 1999 and on came packed with WinDVD, PowerDVD, or ATI's own DVD playing software (that was built off of PowerDVD) or nVidia's "nvDVD" until they changed it to PureVideo, then they were packed with that. Even my Leadtek PCI TV Tuner came with WinDVD. I probably have about 10 copies of all of those combined that have built up over the years.

With the exception of movies that have intentional grain, and a few first releases, DVDs generally don't have "grain". Any grain you see will be caused by poor playback software or hardware.

As I said, been around since the 3.0 days. Never had anything like that happen. Used DOS before that.

No, I'm not. I can't help it that certain Apple fans can't handle the truth and get all mad and start flame wars.

I'm not bashing anything. I'm simply telling the truth. Everything I say can be verified with a quick google search, and there are more than half a million people over at AVS who would gladly repeat what I have said (especially considering its where I learned a lot of what I know about video processing to begin with!).

I already have an HP with a dedicated GPU. PowerDVD with PureVideo enabled blows away my MacBook with the GMA950 and my friend's MBP (8600M, Leopard) when it comes to DVD playback.

As I said, theres half a million people over at AVS who are more than willing to backup and repeat every word I have spoken here. Especially about WinDVD.

Its funny that you mention the theater and HD-DVD versions. I saw Lost in Translation the day it came out. Fourth showing of the day. It was every bit as grainy as the DVD. HD-DVD? Same thing. Lost in Translation is intentionally grainy.

And as I said before, again, INTENTIONAL grain is very different than the grain you get that is introduced thanks to poor playback software and/or hardware.

You are free to think that WinDVD is bad. People can disagree with facts all they want. There are people who still think the world is flat after all. Again, however, there are more than 500,000 people over at AVS who are more than willing to repeat what I have said and prove you wrong.

If Apple has done so much for video, then why do the movies sold on the iTunes Store (as well as TV shows and music videos) look awful?

Again, I already said that Mac OS is better than Windows for video PRODUCTION. However, Mac OS X is terrible when it comes to playing back that video it just made.

And, again, there are more than half a million people at AVS, as well as many other video related forums, who would be more than willing to disagree with you on the topic of video playback under OS X and the quality of WinDVD versus DVD Player and VLC.

That's a pretty typical "fanboy" response, really. The original poster was complaining and looking for some help. He was obviously disappointed in just how bad DVDs look on OS X, and probably expected the quality to be at least as good as his Windows machine. So he came here hoping to get help. Unfortunately he received a bunch of posts from people who can't seem to accept the fact that DVD Player and Apple are the cause for the bad quality, and they will even go so far as to lie to back up their claims.

Well, as I said earlier in the post, you don't need to pay for the software in most cases. Someone who built their own PC will have probably 2 or 3 copies of PowerDVD or WinDVD that came with their various parts, like the GPU, optical drives, TV tuners, etc. If they bought an XP system with a DVD reader (or writer) then it also came with a copy of one of them. If you bought a pre-built Vista system, or Vista Home Premium for your Boot Camp partition (most likely won't work with VMWare or Parallels), then it comes packed with an MPEG-2 decoder that can take advantage of nVidia's PureVideo and ATI's GPU video functions as well. You don't have to pay anything unless you want to.

That is absolutely not the case at all. A properly upscaled DVD will look clean, sharp, detailed, and even rival good HD sources. A poorly upscaled DVD will look bad. Just look at how bad progressive scan DVD players look compared to upscaling DVD players on good HD displays.

How the software handles the playback is directly related to picture you see on screen. Perfect example is DVD Player in OS X. Just look at the huge difference in image quality between DVD Player in Tiger and previous versions, then look at how much better DVDs in Leopard look (not taking Windows DVD players into account here). It's a world of difference. DVD Player in Tiger and previous versions didn't even upscale the image. It simply stretched it to whatever resolution you were running your display at. Leopard finally upscales, but it doesn't do it as well as a dedicated GPU can, hence the reason for the OP (and others like me) complaining about the awful image quality.

Now you look at the Windows side of things. If you enable PureVideo/Hardware Acceleration on modern GPUs from the last 3 generations with any of the current software players, from the last 3 generations, you can't see a single difference between them. Why? Because they're all letting the GPU handle all of the work. And on all of them, you can run the DVD at any resolution and it will be properly upscaled and will provide a nice, clean, colorful image that is very detailed. A properly upscaled DVD, meaning one that is not played in DVD Player in OS X, will blow even the most hardcore videophiles away. You'll be surprised just how much detail your DVDs still have that are waiting to be unlocked. Unfortunately, DVD Player in OS X cannot do this and you need Windows or a good dedicated upscaling DVD player to see it. Those with Intel Macs that have dedicated GPUs can install Windows and see this for themselves. And those with Intel GPUs can still take advantage of the much better software decoding that Windows DVD players offer.

For the record, I am not "bashing" OS X or starting an "OS war". This is a simple fact that you can see with your own two eyes by trying it yourself, or by going and talking with the 500,000+ people at AVS, including all of those who populate the Mac forum there and agree that DVD Player and VLC in OS X leave very much to be desired.

 

There is no FACT in anything you've said so far, only your opinion, and if you don't quit asserting your opinion as such it will get you banned.

Visuals are SUBJECTIVE, just as sound is SUBJECTIVE, we all see and hear things differently. There's a reason the terms audiophiles and videophiles are used. You're doing nothing more than stirring up trouble.

Mods, close this topic like the other one, another topic derailed by Sauron (goodness, that name is becoming more and more appropriate every time you speak).

 

End flame war...