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Video quality on iMac?

S

Sydney1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2010
3
0
Okay, I've searched for this on Google numerous times but I couldn't find any answers to this.

When I play a movie with the DVD player on my late 2009 21,5 inch iMac the quality isn't that good. I've read that the iMac supports high definition. I was kind of dissapointed by that and I tried to find a solution to it. I've changed the HD setting on the DVD player but to no avail.

Also, when I play downloaded movies on either VLC, Realplayer or Quicktime (by using Perian) it's the same bad quality. Now this could has to do with the quality of the download itsself but I remember a friend of mine downloading the same torrent once and it was great quality. It is a Sony Vaio wich supports high definition also.

I'm totally lost now. I really want to see video's in HD quality on my iMac wich it is supposed to do.

I hope someone can help me with this. Also, if someone posted about this same problem before, I'm sorry. I used the search function but there were over 40 pages of results and I couldn't find a title that resembled this.
 
Yeah DVD sucks on the iMac but try download off of the itunes store or hook up a ps3 to it.

I am using the atlona hd620 and am watching 1080p blu-ray movies from my ps3.

If you want a sample of what 1080p looks like click this link and play trailer 1 with 1080p selected and in full screen............might take a while to load but look stunning.
 
iCaleb said:
Yeah DVD sucks on the iMac but try download off of the itunes store or hook up a ps3 to it.

I am using the atlona hd620 and am watching 1080p blu-ray movies from my ps3.

If you want a sample of what 1080p looks like click this link and play trailer 1 with 1080p selected and in full screen............might take a while to load but look stunning.
Click to expand...

Well, my country doesn't have the movie section on iTunes (yet) unfortunately. And I don't have a PS3.

Do you by any chance know with wich settings I could play DVD's with so I have the best quality?

This really dissapoints me though.. you'd expect to have at least the quality you get when playing it on your old laptop.

And yes, the trailers are looking beautiful with 1080 p. It sucks that iTunes in my country doesn't have that option yet.
 
Umm well theres no huge setting that will improve SD playback on the iMac but maybe there is a service like netflix in you area so you can watch in HD.

But other than that I dont know what to tell you.


HD vs SD

hd_vs_sd.jpg
 
Sydney1 said:
Okay, I've searched for this on Google numerous times but I couldn't find any answers to this.

When I play a movie with the DVD player on my late 2009 21,5 inch iMac the quality isn't that good. I've read that the iMac supports high definition. I was kind of dissapointed by that and I tried to find a solution to it. I've changed the HD setting on the DVD player but to no avail.

Also, when I play downloaded movies on either VLC, Realplayer or Quicktime (by using Perian) it's the same bad quality. Now this could has to do with the quality of the download itsself but I remember a friend of mine downloading the same torrent once and it was great quality. It is a Sony Vaio wich supports high definition also.

I'm totally lost now. I really want to see video's in HD quality on my iMac wich it is supposed to do.

I hope someone can help me with this. Also, if someone posted about this same problem before, I'm sorry. I used the search function but there were over 40 pages of results and I couldn't find a title that resembled this.
Click to expand...

DVD movies are not HD. You wont get HD quality if the source is SD. I have seen some Full-HD movies on my 27" iMac and they look stunning.. now we just need a Full-HD+ standard, 1080p is starting to become old. ;)
 
I'm not sure if I understand what the OP is saying. You are saying DVDs look bad on OSX, or DVDs look bad? The second is true. As regards the first, DVD playback is the same as it would be under any other OS.

The thing is DVD is a low-quality video format now, especially for these 27" screens we have these days. There is no way to magically make a DVD HD video, on OSX or anything else. (Ok there is upsampling which some software does - I could be mistaken but I think Apple's DVD Player does actually do this - but it doesn't make a huge difference in my experience.)

If you want to watch HD video, then buy your stuff in an HD format, not on DVD.
 
aki said:
I'm not sure if I understand what the OP is saying. You are saying DVDs look bad on OSX, or DVDs look bad? The second is true. As regards the first, DVD playback is the same as it would be under any other OS.

The thing is DVD is a low-quality video format now, especially for these 27" screens we have these days. There is no way to magically make a DVD HD video, on OSX or anything else. (Ok there is upsampling which some software does - I could be mistaken but I think Apple's DVD Player does actually do this - but it doesn't make a huge difference in my experience.)

If you want to watch HD video, then buy your stuff in an HD format, not on DVD.
Click to expand...

I mean that the DVD's look bad on OSX yes.

Do you think that by installing Windows on my iMac and downloading BS Player the quality will be better? I used to play all my downloaded movies with BS Player, it was the best in my opinion.
 
It's not likely to improve under Windows. As screen size and resolution increase standard definition viewing quality will decrease. There may be other DVD/Media Players that could do a better job of up-converting the video but I don't know. I doubt Apple has spent too much time worrying about it though as physical media....especially DVD's are not even on most peoples radar anymore.
 
Sydney1 said:
Do you think that by installing Windows on my iMac and downloading BS Player the quality will be better? I used to play all my downloaded movies with BS Player, it was the best in my opinion.
Click to expand...

When you say downloaded movies what do you mean? You mean downloaded disc images? If it's a DVD or an image of a DVD it will play exactly the same on the same monitor regardless of your OS or anything else. The only difference you can make is with upscaling in your playback software, which will have some but limited effect.

If you are talking about downloaded movies in other formats, then yes, higher resolution video will of course play better, and again this is independent of your OS.

I'm not sure exactly what you are aiming for, but the basic point is - for playing back video, OSX, Windows, Linux, it doesn't matter, it's all the same. What is important is the quality of your video (and I guess size of your monitor). That's it. If it's SD video on a 27", it won't look great because it's being blown up too much. If it's 1080p, it'll look pretty sweet.
 
The larger, higher resolution panel makes DVD's picture look like crap. Unless you play it in a small window. There are people who say they can't tell a difference between HD and SD and I tell them they need to get their eyes checked.

The bigger the panel the more imperfections you will see in a standard def stream or dvd. There is nothing wrong with your system.
 
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