MickeS
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2000
- Messages
- 5,058
I had never really watched a movie on a PC before, but I just bought a DVD-ROM so I could view some Swedish R2 titles.
MAN, what a difference there is in quality between DVDs!
OK, all of you out there knew that already, but I didn't. I have a standalone DVD-player hooked up to my "Joe Sixpack" Proscan 32" TV, and the picture is pretty good, but nothing spectacular. Most movies look about the same.
Then when I got the DVD-ROM a few days ago, I checked out a few discs on it. First of all, I was once again blown away by how much better a PC monitor looks compared to a regular TV screen. It's hard to go back to watching DVDs on the TV now...
Second, I was REALLY amazed at the differences in picture quality between titles. I put in my Region 2 version of Night of the living dead - 30th anniversary edition (terrible movie by the way), and there was a large amount of artifacts as well as some weird focus thing (it shifted constantly between being in focus and then slightly, slightly out of focus). When I played the same disc on the TV, none of this showed up. In this case, I wasn't even able to watch it on the monitor, it was just too distracting, I had to watch it on the TV... I guess that's one good thing about TV, it lets bad disc look decent because it can't show enough bad details.
I then proceeded to play Jurassic Park, and that one looked much better, but still had some problems. It didn't seem as sharp or "in focus" as it could have been, still it was very enjoyable and I much preferred to watch it on the monitor to seeing it on the TV.
After JP, I decided to give Starship Troopers a spin. OH MAN, this disc BLEW ME AWAY! The picture quality is SO GOOD. Like I said, I'm new to checking out transfers in detail like this, but this has got to be one of the best DVDs out there as far as picture quality goes, right?
Everything was sharp, I didn't see any artifacts, and I couldn't see any edge enhancement distortion effects either.
After that, it was hard to go back and view this movie on the TV, it just looked so dull in comparison to how it looked on the monitor (both were calibrated to the best of my ability with VE). The only thing that gets me to the TV is the fact that I have no surround sound by the PC. The screen size of the monitor (17") isn't really a problem, since I'm sitting so close to it that the picture looks big anyway.
Anyway, I guess what I wanted to say was that I have a new understanding for those people with top-notch FP setups that complain about transfers... I imagine their picture quality is similar to what I have on the computer monitor, and I now understand what a pain it is to sit through transfers that aren't as excellent as they could be.
What other titles besides "Starship Troopers" are there that are really excellent as far as picture quality goes? And what are some bad ones? I want to rent and compare some more.
/Mike
MAN, what a difference there is in quality between DVDs!
OK, all of you out there knew that already, but I didn't. I have a standalone DVD-player hooked up to my "Joe Sixpack" Proscan 32" TV, and the picture is pretty good, but nothing spectacular. Most movies look about the same.
Then when I got the DVD-ROM a few days ago, I checked out a few discs on it. First of all, I was once again blown away by how much better a PC monitor looks compared to a regular TV screen. It's hard to go back to watching DVDs on the TV now...
Second, I was REALLY amazed at the differences in picture quality between titles. I put in my Region 2 version of Night of the living dead - 30th anniversary edition (terrible movie by the way), and there was a large amount of artifacts as well as some weird focus thing (it shifted constantly between being in focus and then slightly, slightly out of focus). When I played the same disc on the TV, none of this showed up. In this case, I wasn't even able to watch it on the monitor, it was just too distracting, I had to watch it on the TV... I guess that's one good thing about TV, it lets bad disc look decent because it can't show enough bad details.
I then proceeded to play Jurassic Park, and that one looked much better, but still had some problems. It didn't seem as sharp or "in focus" as it could have been, still it was very enjoyable and I much preferred to watch it on the monitor to seeing it on the TV.
After JP, I decided to give Starship Troopers a spin. OH MAN, this disc BLEW ME AWAY! The picture quality is SO GOOD. Like I said, I'm new to checking out transfers in detail like this, but this has got to be one of the best DVDs out there as far as picture quality goes, right?
Everything was sharp, I didn't see any artifacts, and I couldn't see any edge enhancement distortion effects either.
After that, it was hard to go back and view this movie on the TV, it just looked so dull in comparison to how it looked on the monitor (both were calibrated to the best of my ability with VE). The only thing that gets me to the TV is the fact that I have no surround sound by the PC. The screen size of the monitor (17") isn't really a problem, since I'm sitting so close to it that the picture looks big anyway.
Anyway, I guess what I wanted to say was that I have a new understanding for those people with top-notch FP setups that complain about transfers... I imagine their picture quality is similar to what I have on the computer monitor, and I now understand what a pain it is to sit through transfers that aren't as excellent as they could be.
What other titles besides "Starship Troopers" are there that are really excellent as far as picture quality goes? And what are some bad ones? I want to rent and compare some more.
/Mike
