what are dvd'rs like on the big screen

[slimpickins]

how are my dvd-r's gona look on a 42" screen

has anyont compared a dvd-r to a dvd ona really big high quality screen,, e.g hdtv

[zoobie]

larger

[mats.hogberg]

The media as such doesn't affect video quality.

/Mats

[slimpickins]

so its totally watchable if using a 4.7dvd-r, why have 8 gig if a 4.7 is the same, i do rip everything except for movie and menu out though

[guns1inger]

so its totally watchable if using a 4.7dvd-r,

What's watchable is in the eye of the beholder. Some here will tell you that a 50% shrink using DVD shrink is totally watchable. Others won't go below 95% without using other means.

If you wan't know if it's watchable, watch one and see. Quality of commercial discs is so variable that some will look like crap even if you haven't touched them.

[slimpickins]

hmm, if only i could test it, id be sucha shame if i have this huge library of my backups and i end up having to use the originals,

if 4.7's were crap on a lcd id probably buy a huge 52" box rear projection tv

[ROBERT BLACK]

From personal experience,guns1inger is correct. Some commercial DVDs will look like total crap on a 42-46 LCD, AND on a similarly sized rear projection CRT. I find video originated(except for HD programming) programs questionably mastered on commercial discs to be the worst. You're backups will probably vary just as much. Several of my AVI files that I transcoded to DVD-R look better than some commercial discs I've played.

[mats.hogberg]

if using a 4.7dvd-r, why have 8 gig if a 4.7 is the same

That's a different story. 8 GB of video, compressed to 4.37 GB will of course not look as good as the original.
Like most are trying to tell you in different wordings, is that only you can be the judge of if it's good enough for you.

/Mats

[ROF]

how are my dvd-r's gona look on a 42" screen

has anyont compared a dvd-r to a dvd ona really big high quality screen,, e.g hdtv

There are too many factors to reliably answer this questions. Image quality is subjective in most cases anyways, but when it comes to dvd-r discs there is just too many methods of making them which are viewable on HDTV.

To start with what looks good to you might not look that good to me. You may burn AVI/Xvid and think they look good. Maybe you've shrunk the movies which most certainly, IMO, destroys the quality. Perhaps your DVD media of choice doesn't allow for reliable playback making the image pixelated or other issues.

The only way to answer this question with any reliable reasoning is to try your different DVD-R discs with an HDTV and decide for yourself. No one else should be able to tell what your tolerance is for quality.

[funnel71]

I have a 51' HDTV rear-projection, and on movies that I've compressed as much as 45-50%, I still can't tell a difference between the copy and the original. Perhaps if you start talking screens larger than 100', then you might see something, but I figure it's well worth it.

[redwudz]

I have a 5ft X 8ft projection screen and a 4.38GB DVD backup looks the same as the ~7GB original to me. In my case, it's more a limitation of my projector resolution. (800 X 600) Even my older SVCDs (700MB X 2) look OK, just some detail is lost, compared to the DVD version, but still more watchable than a SVHS video.

[guns1inger]

There is also the quality of the playback device itself. Not all HDTVs are created equal. In fact many are created sub-par when it comes to quality. I have seem many large plasma and LCD screens that don't hold a candle to my 72cm CRT TV. If you can't audition a set that you are going to spend (presumably) large sums of money on, then I wouldn't buy it.

[edDV]

Yep take your DVD discs to the store and watch them at similar viewing distance that you intend at home.

Many people buy a big screen but watch from further back. In that case you wouldn't see huge differences watching say a SD HBO channel. But when you switch to "home theater" distances (e.g. 50" at 6 ft) http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html , you will see all the resolution and/or bitrate compromises for SD DVD.

The way I handle mixed NTSC to SD DVD to HDTV viewing distances is to keep everything on wheels. For a 50" set for example, I would roll the sofa in to 6Ft for HDTV but slide it back a few feet for
SD DVD or DV camcorder and futher back still for NTSC or VHS.