Should i buy a DVD player or ... [read] (1 Viewer)

[Mark Larson]

I want to get the best picture with my VPH 1030Q1, and i am vacillating between a DVD player (probably not progressive, with my budget), and an external DVD drive for my CD-equipped ye olde IBM Thinkpad i Series.

Which one would give a better picture? Any other advantages for one option??

Thanks,

-Mark

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The stand-alone player will virtually ALWAYS give better performance than a laptop

Now with an actual HTPC, then things are debateably

 

[Mark Larson]

debateably...?
Damn, i'm in suspense!!

 

[Larry Seno Jr.]

Yes please explain how ANY stand alone DVD player can top an HTPC?

 

[Andrew Chong]

Optimization notwithstanding, I think you can achieve about the same image quality whether you have a dedicated dvd player or a dvd-rom drive provided that you also have a video card capable of hardware decoding, or an mpeg decoder card such as Sigma Designs' Hollywood Plus (which also enables you to connect your digital video and audio outputs to your tv and receiver).

Depending on your system, software decoding generally has trouble keeping any broad motion (such as sweeping camera pans of landscapes or large space stations) smooth. Sometimes, even lip-synch would be off. I've tried both software and hardware decoding, of course, hardware decoding is preferred.

Advantages with a dvd-rom, you never have to worry about missing out on special features such as 'read the script while you watch', archived Web sites (for viewing from the disc), and other goodies (such as the ReVoice system on the Shrek DVD: it's a hoot!).

 

[Larry Seno Jr.]

Other advantages with a DVD-ROM:

Layer changes are nonexistant.

And the advantage of an HTPC is SCALING.

 

[Joseph S]

Yes please explain how ANY stand alone DVD player can top an HTPC?

Panasonic RP-91

Never spend 80 hours a month on filter issues. Perfect picture and non-anamorphic scaling automatically.

Plus:

DVD-Audio, MP3,

DVD-RAM and DVD-R compatibility