will a better video card improve DVD viewing also?

[mrhata]

Will the overall video playback improve and not just the gaming side of things? I'm using an onboard video card, 16mb. When I view my DVDs they are somewhat soft or fuzzy, not as sharp as on the TV. I also only have PCI inputs and most cards I see around are AGP. Will that make another difference too as far as video card quality/capabilities?

[pixel]

It should improve the DVD playback, but you may find it will be just as fuzzy because DVD resolution is lower than the resolution of most PC monitors. They probably seem sharp on TV because TV's work in a different way from monitors.

Yes, a PCI vs AGP card will be another big difference. I believe PCI slots use a frequency of 33MHz and the AGP card uses 66MHz, so a PCI card won't be as fast, but anything better than the onbaord card, with at least 64MB of memory will help a lot.

[BJ_M]

what helps is a video card with a good hardware mpeg decoder built in and make sure to enable hardware mpeg playback in your playback app ..


speed of the video card or if its on a pci ir agp buss makes no diff.

case in point -- avid cards, targa 3000's , sdi HD and SD capture and playback cards all work off the pci buss and they have a lot more data transfer

[mrhata]

Thanks a lot. I'm looking into a couple of different cards at the moment.

[808smokey]

PCI video cards suck. Thats why they have AGP cards. 4x 8x PCI runs at 66mhz AGP runs at 66 MHz times 4 or times 8 which equals 264MHZ and 528 MGZ. Gaming and video playback will all dramatically improve. You also need to have a decent processor and a reasonable amount of RAM.

[BJ_M]

PCI video cards suck. Thats why they have AGP cards. 4x 8x PCI runs at 66mhz AGP runs at 66 MHz times 4 or times 8 which equals 264MHZ and 528 MGZ. Gaming and video playback will all dramatically improve. You also need to have a decent processor and a reasonable amount of RAM.

he was asking about playing back mpeg -- it doesnt mater if it is pci or agp was my point ...

video playback will not change what so ever ... if you have hardware decoding - you dont even need a decent cpu ...

[808smokey]

he was asking about playing back mpeg -- it doesnt mater if it is pci or agp was my point ...

No he wasn't and since when are DVDs mpegs?
His question was:

When I view my DVDs they are somewhat soft or fuzzy, not as sharp as on the TV.

video playback will not change what so ever ...

Umm yeah it will

if you have hardware decoding - you dont even need a decent cpu ...

Ummm yeah you do.

If not then everyone would have an old pentium 200mhz and never need to upgrade to watch these movies. My friend has a Duron 450mhz and he can barely watch small mpegs let alone a DVD. He uses onboard 16meg video and it sux. It's almost like a slide show.

Yes you can use a PCI card for video but AGP is 10x better than PCI. Besides that most half way decent AGP cards are around the same price as a PCI card. I'd only buy a PCI video card if my mother board didn't support AGP.

[BJ_M]

808smokey:

DVD's are mpeg files ....



as for the rest --- i suggest you do up a little study on video playback which i suspect we were doing before you were born ... before you keep putting your foot into it ...

were you also the one who didnt think i could not possabily be using a 64 bit workstation in 1995 (because you believed some marketing crap) and I had to pull out a tonne of data to show you otherwise?

[pyrate83]

Damn! Hostility in the forums today...

[Craig Tucker]

No he wasn't and since when are DVDs mpegs?

Sorry, but you are really showing your ignorance here.

If not then everyone would have an old pentium 200mhz and never need to upgrade to watch these movies. My friend has a Duron 450mhz and he can barely watch small mpegs let alone a DVD. He uses onboard 16meg video and it sux. It's almost like a slide show.

Most peoples primary use for a PC is not to watch movies, and your friends card probrably does not have hardware decoding so it has to be done by the cpu.

[RabidDog]

I am very surprised your dvds look worse on your screen. I would hazard a guess and say you are using a laptop? no agp, shared 16mb video memory, fuzzy lcd screen ? on my desktop computer screen dvd s look exceptionally sharp and good quality.

[Piccoro]

A better graphics card may help because they would offer much better 2d performance. Whether that will help with your issue I'm not sure. It might be best to buy a MPEG encoder expansion card (pci), one that would be supported with the software you use. I used to have one and they are great.

[The village idiot]

If not then everyone would have an old pentium 200mhz and never need to upgrade to watch these movies.

Five years a go I was watching DVD's on my P166 with a PCI decoder card from Sigma. I went like this for about 1 1/2 years, then only went to a stand alone player becuase I needed to check some (s)VCD disks to find out I was making them wrong. The decoder card would play raw mpeg without blinking. I was also streaming video though that machine to my TV before most people had ever tried it. All that using a p166 with an ATI AIW pro with the Rage pro chipset, and the Sigma DVD decoder. That's all that machine did. Even only had an 800MB hard drive.

[rallynavvie]

While we're on the subject are there any mainstream chipsets (Radeon or GeForce) video cards that have hardware decoders?

[BJ_M]

Radeon , GeForce and matrix parellia and 650 and 750 all have hardware mpeg2 decoders ... ati has HD mpeg decoder hardware though in practise i found that it really plays a max of 15meg/s in hardware then switchs to hardware assist software decoder or software only (for HD) don't know why...

[g_shocker182]

No he wasn't and since when are DVDs mpegs?

VOB(DVD) = MPEG (M2V) + AC3 (Audio Tracks) + SUBTITLES

Essentially,

DVD=MPEG