VLC gives better image quality than DVD Player...can someone please explain

[Kiwi-Todd]

I am just finishing a DVD project and I have some graphics that are red on black - apparently bad for MPEG2 but the m2v files were looking pretty good after compressor.

Then I burned in SP2 and played the disk on dvd player - and they looked like garbage - all pixelated/furry at the edges - not good. So I then tested playing the VOB thru VLC at full screen and it looks fantastic-just like my m2v files.

I would provide a screen shot but DVD player prevents it thru grab.

Does anyone know what I can do to get DVD player playing as well as VLC? I have changed the scan rate to maximum and still no joy.

I find this wierd as I thought one program would read the file the same as the next!?

 

[OutThere]

Try putting the burned DVD into a physical DVD player (attached to a TV) and see what happens. If it's all pixely and fuzzy then you will know that VLC is putting some magic to work and getting it to look better. If it isn't then Apple DVD player is somehow dumbing it down.

 

[Kiwi-Todd]

Try putting the burned DVD into a physical DVD player (attached to a TV) and see what happens. If it's all pixely and fuzzy then you will know that VLC is putting some magic to work and getting it to look better. If it isn't then Apple DVD player is somehow dumbing it down.

yeah it looks fine on a standard set-top DVD player - just seems strange that DVD player would do that. - No big deal - just wanted to know if I was doing something obviously wrong.

 

[superbovine]

vlc has some rendering option, that can clean up some fuzzy video i have found (under the video). apple dvd player isn't dumbing it down, just the vlc is perhaps using so rending options to blend (i use blend losely) and the image appears shaper.

i use these option alot with animated dvd like Undergrads

 

[Kiwi-Todd]

I am coming to the conclusion (not just on this issue) that VLC is a pretty cool little program - I like it!

 

[7on]

VLC de-interlaces = Tv emulation
OSX DVD Player doesn't de-interlace = bad mamajama

 

[briankonar]

VLC is amazing...

VLC puts Apple's media offerings to shame. Not only does it play more media file types than QT, it provides better image quality, as well as a single program for all your video usage (DVD's and media files). Now that they're concentrating on development for OS X (instead of porting from Linux) it's starting to shape up to be a "killer" or necessary app.

by more media types, i'm including the file types QT claims to be able to play, but typically has issues with (.avi, .mpg). QT really only seems to be 100% with media encoded using an Apple, which is pretty hard to find.

 

[blue&whiteman]

as I have said elsewhere in these forums in the past vlc is a very strong player. great decoding of everything and a very nice full screen look. its one of the few apps out there that deserve to be called elegant. I use it 70-80% of the time and mplayer the rest.

 

[~Shard~]

I've always loved VLC, and reading a post like this makes me love it even more! Why doesn't this surprise me...

VLC is the best player out there that I've ever come across - puts QT to shame...\

 

[Marble]

Does VLC do this automatically or will I need to change the deinterlacing settings? And what do those deinterlacing settings in the preferences (modules>video filter) do?

I ask because it seems to me that mplayer seems to be slightly better a deinterlacing a lot of my movie files.

 

[Heltik]

I find that I only use VLC when Quicktime absolutely won't play the file. VLC normally brings up a crash message saying that the ap has crashed, even though it continues to play in the background.

I guess this is because my iBook 500 is toooooo slow for highly compressed video and VLC is perhaps not so well optimised?

However for full screen playback it is the only way to go. When are Apple going to wise up and supply a version of Quicktime that can view full-screen video as part of the 'out of the box' solution? - I mean, we are behind windows media player on that score, and that's quite lame when you consider the quality of the other multimedia offerings on the mac.

 

[blue&whiteman]

I find that I only use VLC when Quicktime absolutely won't play the file. VLC normally brings up a crash message saying that the ap has crashed, even though it continues to play in the background.

I guess this is because my iBook 500 is toooooo slow for highly compressed video and VLC is perhaps not so well optimised?

However for full screen playback it is the only way to go. When are Apple going to wise up and supply a version of Quicktime that can view full-screen video as part of the 'out of the box' solution? - I mean, we are behind windows media player on that score, and that's quite lame when you consider the quality of the other multimedia offerings on the mac.

vlc needs altivec (a G4) to decode high end rips without choppiness. your best bet is to use mplayer, go to prefs and select the "drop frame rates on slower machines" it still won't be perfect but it works better.

people think altivec is just another technology that hardly gets support from apps and to some extent that is true but on the apps it does work with it makes a huge difference. on my blue and white with a G4/500 upgrade I can decode video perfectly no matter how high quality the rip yet my friends ibook G3 900 has a bit of trouble.

 

[plasticparadox]

I like VLC, but MPlayer is crap. When I installed MPlayer, it pulled a Real on me and took over half of my media-related file associations. Why would I want to play WMA files in MPlayer when I have Windows Media Player installed?

MPlayer is trash.

 

[Makosuke]

Yep, gotta be the de-interlacing that VLC does and DVDPlayer doesn't. Why Apple doesn't have a rudamentary deinterlacer in DVD Player is beyond me; QT has been able to do that for years, and even iMovie has one now!

I still prefer QT Player for my general media watching needs, though; I find that it scrubs MUCH more smoothly and responsively than VLC in at least MP1 files (most of what I watch), and so long as it's able to handle .avi files, does better with those as well. VLC is certainly a must-have player, though.