I watched the Star Wars Episode 1 DVD the other night at a friend’s house on his Dwin DLP Transvision system. He was using an external Sony non Prog Scan DVD player. I have to say I was not blown away by the sharpness of the picture. I have the same DVD and wanted to compare it on my system (1Ghz, HTPC and G11 D-ILA projector) I have been using WinDVD for most of my DVD viewing as I think it has a little sharper picture quality than the ATI DVD player I also have installed. Using WinDVD, I couldn’t get enough contrast and saturation in the DVD to make me happy. I began to think that it was just a poor transfer, although I had read it was suppose to be quite good on the video side. I, then for the hell of it fired up the ATI DVD player and was amazed in the difference in color saturation and contrast I was able to achieve. I really liked the Gamma adjustment. I do think that the image was a little sharper using WinDVD, however. I have been reading some of the post (just too many to read them all) about the TheaterTek DVD software player. The Screen shots looked good but I don’t think they do justice to the real quality of any DVD software player. Also I would have to see one DVD on all 3 players to determine if there was a real difference. I can’t see spending more money for an additional DVD software player when I have what would appear to be two quite good players already installed. I down loaded the latest ATI DVD software update (vsn 4.1) and hope to install it this weekend. I have the ATI Radeon 64 DDR AGP video card at the heart of my HTPC. I am sure the pros and cons of ATI DVD and WinDVD have been thrashed about quite a bit in this forum. Does anyone know if this ATI DVD update is worth installing and will it give me a sharper picture? The DVD I use as a bench mark is Patriot. Using WinDVD the picture was close to HD quality. Not many other DVD’s have come very close to its image quality.
Any general comments and observation on these players would be appreciated.
Thanks, Don
*************************************
JVC G11, hushbox, VuTek 3X4 100" screen, AVS 1Hgz HTPC, Dish Net HD6000, HBOHD & ShowTimeHD, Lexicon MC-1 7.1, NHT 2.9's, AC2, 1.5's, DT BP2X Surrounds and Sub, BK amp, Rotel amp, 4DTV "C" band BUD, Pioneer LD, Pronto TSU2000.
Any general comments and observation on these players would be appreciated.
Thanks, Don
*************************************
JVC G11, hushbox, VuTek 3X4 100" screen, AVS 1Hgz HTPC, Dish Net HD6000, HBOHD & ShowTimeHD, Lexicon MC-1 7.1, NHT 2.9's, AC2, 1.5's, DT BP2X Surrounds and Sub, BK amp, Rotel amp, 4DTV "C" band BUD, Pioneer LD, Pronto TSU2000.