BD PC Drive Vs. Stand-alone models

[GrandBlu]

Hi all,

Interesting and probably beat to death question: Has anyone checked quality side by side on a computer blu-ray drive/power dvd software combo and a stand-alone player on a HDTV (not a pc monitor)? Give us a review of picture quality.

Also, does power dvd or any HD software do upsampling on reg. dvd's?

Much thanks in advance,

Grandblu

[wuhan_clan]

I can't say I have compared BD-drive with a stand alone BD-player.
WinDvD 9 Plus is able to up-convert your standard DvDs though I think the improvement is unimpressive. However, I can't compare this with the up-conversion quality of stand alone players.
PowerDvD Ultra 7.3 has no up-conversion feature but maybe they have added some things with Ultra 8.

[dadkins]

PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 - Over The Hedge DVD... upscaled this fine.

Original size:


Full screen:


PowerDVD 8 Uktra upscales great too!
WinDVD 9 Plus BD upscales with the best of any.

Could be the nVidia scaler too... DVDs look ok here(Blu-ray kicks ass though!)

[wuhan_clan]

I didn't think PowerDvD upscaled. Then I saw I had hardware acceleration on.

[Blaumann]

Originally Posted by GrandBlu

Hi all,

Interesting and probably beat to death question: Has anyone checked quality side by side on a computer blu-ray drive/power dvd software combo and a stand-alone player on a HDTV (not a pc monitor)? Give us a review of picture quality.

Also, does power dvd or any HD software do upscaling on reg. dvd's?

Much thanks in advance,

Grandblu

It really depends on the individual setup and there are many things that influence pq. Personally i have experienced the following:

PowerDVD, while using its frontend, has worse pq than hardware players.

But using the powerdvd h264 direct-show filter (for AVC) used in a direct show filter player like MediaPlayerClassic HomeCinema (or the standard Microsoft filter for VC1), results in equal or better pq than my hardware player.

But this is only for my setup and my subjective opinion.

[maxmcleod]

if your system can handle the bluray load, which honestly isn't that hard to achieve, I think its VERY comparable, I don't notice a difference at all on my setup. My friend has a ps3 hooked to a 36 LCD, and i have mine HTPC setup to a 57 DLP. We watched cars on both setups, and both looked amazing.
The opening scene when they show all the closeups of the car, and then the audience with all the lights flickering is stunning.
Then we watched Planet earth on both, focusing on the fine details, the scene with the migrating birds, where there are thousands of birds flying was awesome. Could see every detail on both setups.

Anytime you're stretching video you're technically upscaling it, so to answer your question, yes they all do upscaling, but the question is do they offer any sort of fine tuning, yes, pdvd 7 does have fine tuning, you have to turn off hardware acceleration though, and they have a clv something something that does pretty well actually.

I just use my video card to handle enhancements, which i feel works better and takes the load off of my CPU and onto the video card, which is what the card is meant for. Nvidia has some pretty nice controls, play with them, they are worthwhile, and they work on all your video, so you'll see the improvement when you're watching SD tv shows in Media center as well.

[wuhan_clan]

Well for me, up-scaling means to turn non HD material into HD image by using software to create the missing pixels. I thought this is what up-converting players do. The results would vary from manufacturer (or software developer) since the algorithm must guess what to display for the pixels that aren't contained in the original image.
I guess up-scaling would work best on animated movies since the frames are generally less complex then real life. I don't have any lying around to try but that Over The Hedge screen shot looks pretty good.

[dadkins]

Don't have 7.3 installed any more... 8 is it

Default:


Full screen:

[GrandBlu]

Hi Guys and Gals,

I reallly did mean UPSAMPLING not upscaling. Wires crossed I guess from the look of things. Upsampling meaning sampling the pixels around an area on a reg. dvd and propagating the pixels thereby increasing resolution artificially and getting better results on screen. ewwww. ick. i feel dirty.

well, whatever. I dont really know if power dvd and windvd bother to work this into there software. But standalone players have this option for reg. res. dvd's.

Grandblu

[Allin4greeN]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Don't have 7.3 installed any more... 8 is it

Default:


Full screen:

I think Jessica looks good at any resolution...

[Kirsty_Mc]

I have to say that my Sony BDP-S500 does produce a discernibly better picture than my HTPC when using PowerDVD. I have recently changed the player on the HTPC to the latest version of WinDVD and there is a substantial improvement in PQ, it is now up to a level that is nearly on a par with my BDP-S500. I suspect that PowerDVD did not fully work with the hardware acceleration on my graphics card.

I am not able to do an exact side by side comparison, as I have only one panel (Sony KDL-46X2000U), and one copy of each title, but my memory serves me well.

I now use my HTPC as a region A player, my BDP-S500 is my region B player. The HTPC loads titles quite a bit faster than the BDP-S500, though that is not bad for load times.

I find the interface and the functionality on WinDVD much superior to PowerDVD, so IMO, this is the one to go for.

As far as DVDs are concerned, it is a long time since I watched one. I just can't abide them these days.

For information my HTPC comprises of:-

• Case: Coolermaster Praetorian 731 (modded with silent fans).
• PSU: Hiper HPU-4K580 (Modular).
• Mainboard: Intel D975XBX.
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 6700.
• Processor cooler: Coolermaster Geminii.
• Memory: 2Gb.
• HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb SATA.
• HDD Drive caddy: Lian-Li RH-48 (x2)
• BD Drive: Sony BWU-100A
• HD-DVD Rom: Toshiba SD-H802A.
• Graphics: nVidea 8800GTS.
• OS: Windows XP Professional (32 bit).
• KB & Mouse: Logitech DiNovo Laser.

[wuhan_clan]

Originally Posted by GrandBlu

I reallly did mean UPSAMPLING not upscaling. Wires crossed I guess from the look of things. Upsampling meaning sampling the pixels around an area on a reg. dvd and propagating the pixels thereby increasing resolution artificially and getting better results on screen. ewwww. ick. i feel dirty.

I'm pretty sure we are still talking about the same thing. If you have a starting image of a certain size, then that is all the information you have to work with. Any kind of manipulation of that data to produce a larger image is all "guess work" though the guessing is actually based on complicated interpolation algorithms. You can call it what you will but they all stem from the same concept. The most pleasing end result is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think anyone is really interested in the exact math behind the method of upconversion used by a particular player or software. The upconversion is done by the firmware (software) of your player. The results would also vary even more depending on the coding of the software.

If you're really interested, wikipedia it here.

[rarredoa]

Originally Posted by Kirsty_Mc

I have to say that my Sony BDP-S500 does produce a discernibly better picture than my HTPC when using PowerDVD. I have recently changed the player on the HTPC to the latest version of WinDVD and there is a substantial improvement in PQ, it is now up to a level that is nearly on a par with my BDP-S500. I suspect that PowerDVD did not fully work with the hardware acceleration on my graphics card.

I am not able to do an exact side by side comparison, as I have only one panel (Sony KDL-46X2000U), and one copy of each title, but my memory serves me well.

I now use my HTPC as a region A player, my BDP-S500 is my region B player. The HTPC loads titles quite a bit faster than the BDP-S500, though that is not bad for load times.

I find the interface and the functionality on WinDVD much superior to PowerDVD, so IMO, this is the one to go for.

As far as DVDs are concerned, it is a long time since I watched one. I just can't abide them these days.

For information my HTPC comprises of:-

• Case: Coolermaster Praetorian 731 (modded with silent fans).
• PSU: Hiper HPU-4K580 (Modular).
• Mainboard: Intel D975XBX.
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 6700.
• Processor cooler: Coolermaster Geminii.
• Memory: 2Gb.
• HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb SATA.
• HDD Drive caddy: Lian-Li RH-48 (x2)
• BD Drive: Sony BWU-100A
• HD-DVD Rom: Toshiba SD-H802A.
• Graphics: nVidea 8800GTS.
• OS: Windows XP Professional (32 bit).
• KB & Mouse: Logitech DiNovo Laser.

This is a somehow unrelated question, but i noticed that u have a coolermaster computer case, where'd u get your quieter fans from? Mine are slightly louder than i'd like them to be during blu-ray playback (could it be the sound card? I removed the "muffler-like" tube to make room for a big CPU fan with copper heatpipes, what's my weak link here? (by that i mean what's the best way of silencing my setup as much as possible)

But for the sake of staying on topic, I believe that the interaction/hardware options/future-proofing potential of a blu-ray PC setup, beats standalone console players. The picture quality is debatable, however, sometimes, it seems like some titles look better on my PC, and others on my PS3, however I am a big fan of my X-FI soundcard. Its fidelity and configurability are second to none! Just my personal opinion.

[syncguy]

Unless you have some/good technical knowledge of PCs, I would stay away from PCs for blu-ray and go for a good stand alone player. PS3 is an excellent player and can produce an outstanding picture when coupled with a good quality display.

Blu-ray requires significantly more computational power (in comparison to DVD), hence could be tricky and the performance could be system dependant. However, there are lot of people out there happy with blu-ray HTPCs. In some cases they could be just lucky.

[rarredoa]

Originally Posted by syncguy

Unless you have some/good technical knowledge of PCs, I would stay away from PCs for blu-ray and go for a good stand alone player. PS3 is an excellent player and can produce an outstanding picture when coupled with a good quality display.

Blu-ray requires significantly more computational power (in comparison to DVD), hence could be tricky and the performance could be system dependant. However, there are lot of people out there happy with blu-ray HTPCs. In some cases they could be just lucky.

I agree, in-part, with syncguy. Unless you know what you're looking for or have a good recommendation from a reliable source, you're better off with a PS3, best overall option in my opinion. The computation power in blu-ray vs. DVD is much much higher and for early adopters such as myself... only through trial-error was I able to build a more-than-adequate PC for blu-ray. Regardless of the complexity, if you're technically inclined and know how to research you can put together an awesome setup that won't set u back too much (depending on your budget) The standards for hardware requirements are well-established at this point, so building an adequate-to-highend blu-ray PC is more acheivable than ever before

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by rarredoa

I agree, in-part, with syncguy. Unless you know what you're looking for or have a good recommendation from a reliable source, you're better off with a PS3, best overall option in my opinion. The computation power in blu-ray vs. DVD is much much higher and for early adopters such as myself... only through trial-error was I able to build a more-than-adequate PC for blu-ray. Regardless of the complexity, if you're technically inclined and know how to research you can put together an awesome setup that won't set u back too much (depending on your budget) The standards for hardware requirements are well-established at this point, so building an adequate-to-highend blu-ray PC is more acheivable than ever before

Glad to hear that you got a nice blu-ray PC setup.

[rovex33]

I think a PC can be better, certainly at upscaling. I can build (and have) a PC thats plays BR and HD-DVD for £80 less than a PS3, although its not my PC, which cost somewhat more. It plays perfectly most discs that arent already a known problem for BR software on the PC.

For upscaling DVDs i use Zoom Player, with WinDVD9 decoder and FFDshow doing the upscaling, sharpening and what not. My uncle has a £1k Arcam upscaling DVD, even he agrees the PC image is better on the same screen.

[pseudomaniac]

Envision being able to browse the web from your couch at 1920x1080 on a wireless keyboard and mouse, and also throw the occasional video game or two in the mix - for maybe a couple hundred dollars more than a stand alone player. That was the deal maker for me. Stick a card reader on it for your dig camera pics - a bluetooth adapter for relaying goodies to and from your phone, and then a stack of mp3s for jukebox mode.

Also bear in mind that alot of the standalones aren't firmware upgrade friendly - and as standards evolve, you might be stuck with another laserdisc player (aka HD-DVD, BetaMax, MiniDisc, etc.)