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**dZeus** · 20 October 2003, 13:14

1. a proper DVD player will downmix the 5.1 AC3 track to 2.0 stereo if you configure the player correctly. More expensive players will do the same with DTS as well. If your DVD player can't downmix 5.1 AC3, then it's shit. You probably don't have it configured correctly, look in the config menu.

2. hardware DVD acceleration won't give any better image quality than a good software DVD player. The most current versions of Power and WinDVD ought to do the job (v5.0 for both).

3. hardware acceleration for .AVI ? avi is only the container format, any form of video compression can be used in .AVI. Anyway, even if there was video acceleration for anything other than MPEG1 and 2, it wouldn't be any better than software decoding for the reasons stated at point 2.

4. some DVDs sold are notoriously badly transferred/encoded. From the ones I bought only the cheaper ones were really bad. All €17 + DVDs that I bought had good to excellent transfers.

**Gurm** · 20 October 2003, 14:56

Re: Questions about DVDs

Originally posted by Drizzt
Question followings:

1) Why DVDs can't have an audio track in normal stereo mode? I can't build a surround system, and I'm tired of seeing the movies with only half the audio...

Your DVD player will downmix, or your stereo will downmix. If you come out of the DVD player with the red/white cables, you're getting an analogue stereo downmix of all 5.1 channels... NOT just the front left and front right. If not, something is wrong with your DVD player.

If you're coming out of the digital port, it's up to the receiver to downmix. My Onkyo will happily produce as many or as few channels as I want. It'll even produce EXTRA channels that aren't included in the mix if I really want to get wild and pretend that I'm in a movie theater with side-surround.

2) Why I have a 3D card with all the hardware needed to better play a DVD, and I cannot enable it because DVD hw accelleration is not supported under Win2k?

Uhh... which card? DVD acceleration for Radeons is supported in Win2k. I'm not aware of any DVD acceleration not being supported in Win2k. Is this some Matrox thing?

3) Why I have a 3D card with all the hardware needed to better play a DVD or an AVI movie, and there is not A DAMN PAGE in the ATI control panel to enable it?

You have video overlay controls. The player has to support hardware acceleration. And the newest ATI Catalysts DO have a checkbox to turn WMV/AVI acceleration on and off. But I must point out that it doesn't help. It doesn't make it LOOK any better, it just lowers the CPU usage by a small amount. With today's processors, that hardly matters.

4) Why a 60€ DVD (LOTR Extended Edition) is encoded worst than a 10€ porno movie? Or worst than a 30 MB porno 2 hours long AVI d'loaded from edonkey?

Now that's just silly. LOTR Extended is encoded EXCEPTIONALLY well. Pornos look TERRIBLE, even the high budget ones. I don't know what kind of crack you're smoking when watching LOTR.

5) Why everything has to be so damn complicated?

1. Install WinDVD.
2. Insert disc.
3. Watch.

- Gurm

**Drizzt** · 21 October 2003, 07:26

Re: Re: Questions about DVDs

Originally posted by Gurm
Your DVD player will downmix, or your stereo will downmix

Something like RTFM, uh?

Uhh... which card? DVD acceleration for Radeons is supported in Win2k. I'm not aware of any DVD acceleration not being supported in Win2k. Is this some Matrox thing?

Nope, it's a PowerDvd issue. On their site they state that no hardware acceleration is available under Windows 2000 and NT, it's available only on 95/98/ME

You have video overlay controls. The player has to support hardware acceleration. And the newest ATI Catalysts DO have a checkbox to turn WMV/AVI acceleration on and off. But I must point out that it doesn't help. It doesn't make it LOOK any better, it just lowers the CPU usage by a small amount. With today's processors, that hardly matters.

Radeons card have a few hardware functions that should interpolate the video to give a better quality. I'm upset because there is no way to check if they are working or not.

Now that's just silly. LOTR Extended is encoded EXCEPTIONALLY well. Pornos look TERRIBLE, even the high budget ones. I don't know what kind of crack you're smoking when watching LOTR.

(speaking about the specials, not the film itself wich I still have to test)
On the TV, from a meter or more, LOTR's special features are good quality.
But, on my monitor, from less than a meter, I can clearly see the color artifacts...and they are ugly!

**Gurm** · 21 October 2003, 08:31

Re: Re: Re: Questions about DVDs

Originally posted by Drizzt
Something like RTFM, uh?

Yup.

Don't feel too bad - we all had our fair share of "this DVD has no audio! WHY OH WHY DEAR GOD WHY!?!?!?!?" when we first got a player.

Nope, it's a PowerDvd issue. On their site they state that no hardware acceleration is available under Windows 2000 and NT, it's available only on 95/98/ME

Again, which PowerDVD? I've been using hardware acceleration forever, and I don't think I _ever_ used PowerDVD under Win9x. Hardware acceleration works just fine under Win2k/XP with PowerDVD 4 and 5. If it's grayed out for you, try getting DVD Genie (freeware) as some selections can get locked out on you sometimes depending on the version of PowerDVD and kind of license you have.

Radeons card have a few hardware functions that should interpolate the video to give a better quality. I'm upset because there is no way to check if they are working or not.

No, they don't REALLY make it look better.

Ask around on Rage3D or do some searching there. There are some videoshaders that do some interesting things, but don't really make it LOOK any better. And in fact some of the Radeon acceleration functions make it look WORSE. Trust me here.

(speaking about the specials, not the film itself wich I still have to test)
On the TV, from a meter or more, LOTR's special features are good quality.
But, on my monitor, from less than a meter, I can clearly see the color artifacts...and they are ugly!

Well... special features are often dubbed from TV.

Additionally, you obviously have a deficient version of PowerDVD.

But seriously something that's TV-resolution won't look really great on your monitor in fullscreen mode, no matter WHAT you do.

- Gurm

**Drizzt** · 21 October 2003, 13:30

Re: Re: Re: Re: Questions about DVDs

Originally posted by Gurm

Again, which PowerDVD? I've been using hardware acceleration forever, and I don't think I _ever_ used PowerDVD under Win9x. Hardware acceleration works just fine under Win2k/XP with PowerDVD 4 and 5. If it's grayed out for you, try getting DVD Genie (freeware) as some selections can get locked out on you sometimes depending on the version of PowerDVD and kind of license you have.

No, they don't REALLY make it look better.

Ask around on Rage3D or do some searching there. There are some videoshaders that do some interesting things, but don't really make it LOOK any better. And in fact some of the Radeon acceleration functions make it look WORSE. Trust me here.

Well... special features are often dubbed from TV.

Additionally, you obviously have a deficient version of PowerDVD.

But seriously something that's TV-resolution won't look really great on your monitor in fullscreen mode, no matter WHAT you do.

- Gurm

Hey, if I say that hardware accelleration is not supported under Win2K...it's because it's clearly stated on their site!

However, I've tested the same DVD on the TV and the color obscenity is still there, less obscene but still there. Or maybe it's simply my eyes that are too sensible...

Apart from this, the film with the actor's comments is really funny

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