Quality Different with PowerDVD vs DVD Player - PLEASE HELP

[nyijedi]

I recently captured, encoded, and burnt a few tv episodes (not cartoons). I captured them with a ADVC-100 with the s-video and audio cables connected directly to my cable box. I captured using Scenalyzer Live, then encoded using dual VBR w/ TMPGEnc. When I play these episodes on my DVD Player/XBox/PS2, the quality looks VERY different compared to playing it with PowerDVD XP (I use PowerDVD to watch it on my TV screen, not my monitor). In PowerDVD the picture is definitely darker than w/ the other players, but there is NO interference. On my DVD player and video game systems, the picture is the correct brightness, but there is some interference on the video-it kind of looks like a "sandpaper effect," or slight snow. It's not TOO bad, but it is rather annoying, and I'm hoping someone can fill me in as to why this is happening. Why would PowerDVD's output look different than my DVD player's for the EXACT same DVD?

[Vejita-sama]

Different MPEG2 decoders I suspect.

[ztank]

Maybe you need to adjust the brightness?

That interference/noise may be there in PowerDVD too, you just might not see it because your brightness and/or contrast is set too low. Make sure your monitor is calibrated (e.g. http://www.jasc.com/monitor1.asp).

Otherwise it would be as Vejita-sama said... probably different decoders.