Advice on DVD playback at 800x600

[CrazyBee]

Okay, unfortunately, I am limited to a screen size of 800x600. Reason: my friend bought a front-end projector without consulting me and, well, the rest is history.

Any ways, we'd like to do software play back, but, 800x600 is not enough resolution for anamorphic videos. Obviously. And, it looks nice and sharp, good color, but, there is a really ugly effect that happens to curved surfaces and is always present. I believe it is called "quilting" and looks like there is a wrinkle or some lines dropped in the picture every 50 pixels or so. Looks like heavy horizontal scan lines.

Is there a software DVD play back program that can be used that will or has filters to compensate for a screen of 800x600?

Right now, we have Power DVD 2.55 and WinDVD 2000. I was able to make it look somewhat better with "smooth vertical scaling" in WinDVD. But, the effect is still very noticeable.

Thanks!

[Maggi]

What kind of system do you have ???

[CrazyBee]

As in projector and comp? The projector is an Infocus DLP-425 (the 900 lumen one). The computer varies depending on which one we hook up. Normally its my friends with a DxR2. But, if we use software, its either my comp with a G400 DH, 256MB RAM, Celeron 366 at 566, etc. Or, my friends comp with a TNT2, PIII 500, 256MB RAM.

Either of ours do software decoding without a problem.

Any thing else?

[Maggi]

Ok, dunno know about the other ones, but the G400 DH should be set to use DVD Max and thus is independant of your actual desktop, i.e. it'll port the video stream in fullscreen to your TV out. If possible use a S-VHS connection to the beamer.

Cheers,
Maggi

[CrazyBee]

The projector has VGA in which is what we have been using. 800x600 at 60Hz or it can take a 1024x768 signal and "compress" it. Which means dropping lines. Tried it and no better.

And, thats also what we want to use since it will be a better signal. PLUS, we have the VCR out connected to the projector and its composite and the projector can not switch between composite and S-Video inputs.

I had thought of using DVDMax and never did but I'll try it and see what happens.

You can see the effect I am talking about if you drop your res to 800x600 and play a movie in anamorphic mode. I was just wondering if their is a software DVD decoding program that has some filtering to smooth out the quilting.