How to "best" display standard DVD content on 1080P device?

FFDshow probably isn't needed for most DVDs if you have an 8 series card - I'm an ffdshut nut and even I gave it up when I got one.

If you're using Vista: try WMP with Dscaler. Seriously - WMP uses EVR, which (when it's happy with your drivers) gives an excellent, smooth image. Dscaler sucks as far as deinterlacing goes, but it's perfect for film DVDs which don't need that at all.

If you're on XP, WMP isn't quite so good. Try MPC in VMR9 mode with Dscaler, see if you can get it going without tearing. If so, all good. If not you'll need to get Zoomplayer or Theatertek - good time to get the latter atm btw, it's $40 (normally $70).

For HDDVD or Bluray, Powerdvd is the only real option at present. If you do get this, it contains all the video codecs you need for everything else, so don't bother with Theatertek also (a lot of the reason people buy Theatertek is for the purevideo codec it comes with). I've not tried to calibrate the new PDVD, but haven't noticed any colour problems - if it's smooth for you, you've got one app pretty much able to play everything.

Note this will be heresy to a lot of people, since PDVD has been fairly universally panned throughout its lifetime (and rightly so). However, recently they've got pretty much everything right (excepting still buggy HD playback!), and without the need for ffdshow it looks like a pretty good solution.

I couldn't get theatertek to scale very well.
I use Vista premium.
I tried evr, vmr9 renderless, HW support.
It was either too soft and blurry and didn't use HW mode, or using HW mode it was using bilinear resizing which is very blocky and ugly.

So I had different results then Arfster did.
Maybe it's different in XP.

Look at this thread, try out the Seesaw configuration and see what you think.
Link

That does depend on the video card though - the 8xxx models have vastly superior scaling. If you have something else then ffdshow is worth the hassle (perhaps not the 7800, someone said they were better than earlier models)

Theatertek itself doesn't do any of the scaling - what you're looking for in the video application itself is mainly a well-written presenter for VMR9 renderless, so you avoid tearing and get nice smooth video (and TT is as good as they get in that regard). WMP is pretty nice at that also, but it has some other quirks, and irritatingly in XP it uses VMR7 with its associated colour and timing problems. In Vista they've gone for EVR, which is a big improvement.

FFDshow probably isn't needed for most DVDs if you have an 8 series card - I'm an ffdshut nut and even I gave it up when I got one.


Does this include the 8800GT cards? Would they scale anywhere near close to the standalone HD-DVD players?

Yes, all 8 series have the same scaling. If you dig around this forum you'll see quite a few 8800 buyers noticed the improved scaling a while back.

As for a comparison: depends which model! It should be pretty similar though - I think we're approaching the limits of what can be done with upscaling low bitrate DVD.

Can your display run a 48hz or 72hz refresh rate?

If it can't you'll always have judder....

Are there any agp cards under $60 shipped that upscale DVD's better then a Philips DVP5982 would? Or is the scaler in my Sony 30xs955 better then both?

I have a P4 2.8 HT. Will I have the same stuttering problems with ffdshow?