Why does Monitor look worse than TV for Video/mpg/dvd/vcd?

[OmegaWeapon]

Hi!
this is my first post, so sorry, but I just could not find an answer after long nights till 4 am constantly finding a solution. I am sure its not just me, but ...
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"Why does my mpeg/vcd or dvd playback look considerably worse on my High resolution Monitor than my Tv? "
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When playing video, as I have always seen at display on pc monitors everywhere,(frys, best buy) the quality is suboptimal. Knowing that my Sun gdm 5010 Sony trinitron 21 in does .25 mm dot pitch and 1600X1200, and everything is so crisp and clear, the movies look like junk.
-they are considerably darker
-they lack contrast, more like a grayed out look over it, hazy sky look. (loses details when raised on video card.
-Lots of artifacting pixels are covering up the picture, making it dirty looking
-lacking of any dynamic light.
-looks poor clarity/resolution despite having decent hardware (ati Radeon 9700 agp 128 mb ram)
When I try to raise brightness, it looks more like washed out, the TV even my plain old sony trinitron 1990 does have better separation of light for Video. This is not the case with overall quality, the Monitor is superior in all ways.

I plugged my video card into my tv, and voila! The mpegs from Return of the King video game or quicktime movies look much better.
-picture is brighter
-contrast is great, without losing detail
-Any pixel is gone
-Lots of dynamic light, again without washing out details
-clear even though the sony tv is 640X480
TO the contrary, my monitor is clear text, superior pictures for jpegs and everthing else. The tv cannot handle text at all.

I thought i can get HDTV quality, since my monitor is capable for more lines and clear text.


can you please help me solve this? Do I need a scan converter, mpeg decoder etc?
i downloaded all the codecs, divx, the whole windows media codec package.
I don't have an official dvd player for my pc, but i won't buy one unless i can get the picture better.

I have found out recently, that a lossless compressed Quicktime mpeg-4 and Divx are far superior to avi and most mpeg's i seen.
This is much closer, almost there, but Still For some reason i know there might be an answer for the other stuff.

Thanks so much, sorry if this question was asked, but I could not find it!

[ElmarK]

Hi,
TV and PC monitor work totaly different. Material designed for TV will always look bad on a PC monitor. A TV is designed for interlaced videos, a PC monitor is not. On a PC a video always has lower contrast because the luminace range on a TV is smaller as on a PC. So, never expect a movie to look good on a PC if it is made for TV...

ElmarK

[OmegaWeapon]

Ok i see, so my monitor is non interlaced/progressive, as whereas the tv is the opposite.
Its interesting as the Black Point is so much greater on this monitor, the actual contrast and clarity on Pictures/text is so amazing, but for Film the opposite is true.
I guess IF i want to play dvds or such I will just use tv out all the time.

But I thought there is a way to make my Monitor behave sorta like an HDTV?
what's the difference between monitors for pc and hdtv monitors?

[Spicuzza]

But I thought there is a way to make my Monitor behave sorta like an HDTV?

It's my understanding that HDTV is nothing more than interlaced MPEG-2, just like a DVD. Further, I'm 97.36249% certain that the broadcast is still in an analog format and converted at the end user.

Please, anyone who knows for sure jump in and post a correction if I'm confused with the facts!

[CaseyComb]

720x480 isthe highest resolution right now for consumer video...whereas a computer has an average screen res of say 1024x740 anything blown up to fill a screen is gonna look worse. Thats a simple way of puttting it. Plus you add the interlace factor to the mix and that makes it worse.

[OmegaWeapon]

Ok thanks so much for the answers so far.
To enjoy decent quality, I did put these things in consideration

1. Use Quicktime and Divx, since they have best quality to what i can tell
2. Raise Contrast for Overlay setting, only so much although, since this tends to wash out picture after a bit of increase, since it doesn't work anything like a TV. Except for Quicktime, they do not use overlay, but the actual desktop setting.
3. Set resolution to 640X480 or 720X480 if possible to watch films

SO there is no way I can watch a movie using the FULL capabilities of over 720 lines of resolution? Ie 1280x1024 or HDTV resolution? 1920X1024?

[bugster]

Ok thanks so much for the answers so far.
To enjoy decent quality, I did put these things in consideration

1. Use Quicktime and Divx, since they have best quality to what i can tell
2. Raise Contrast for Overlay setting, only so much although, since this tends to wash out picture after a bit of increase, since it doesn't work anything like a TV. Except for Quicktime, they do not use overlay, but the actual desktop setting.
3. Set resolution to 640X480 or 720X480 if possible to watch films

SO there is no way I can watch a movie using the FULL capabilities of over 720 lines of resolution? Ie 1280x1024 or HDTV resolution? 1920X1024?

1) Not necessarily. Divx files are almost always progressive. The latest versions of the codec does support interlacing but I havn;t seen an interlaced encode yet. Quality varies depending on source material, encoder settings, bitrate etc. If you are encoding your own DVD's to divx for PC viewing, they can be great.

2). If making your own encodes, you should adjust the encoder for optimum viewing, not the playback device,

3) DVD is going to be the best quality source you can get. This is 720 * 480. If you can set your graphics card to this res, great. If not, 800 * 600 is probably the next best.

Unless you have a Hi-Def source, and a way of capturing it and maintaining that resolution, DVD is the best you will get.

[OmegaWeapon]

Ok one thing I like to add to many who may not experience, but the quality of Rendered Video from 3dsmax on high resolution beats everything, none of the problems that occur with video are related to this, getting above and beyond the resolution, Color separation and correct contrast is all possible.
but at what cost? a 3 minute uncompressed movie can be around a 100 mb, and the time it takes to render is many hours.

So i understand clearer now that Pixel computed images look best on the monitor, and original analog movie from dvd, film, internet movies look best on a standard tv.
All the high res screenshots from video games of course, come from the original source, the computer where it was made.

I am glad I have a TV out, i recommend the ATI over nvidia, the quality in my viewing of eyes is clearer and much better overall color, and correct contrast/brightness. I have used both makers, and the ati radeon 9700 pro does very well in imo.

[abid]

I get the message "reduce your screen resolution or color depth" but even after doing it the movie doesnot play and I still get the same message. How do I change the overlay setting. Some one please help.
Abid