Divx files on an HDTV?

[snaithbert]

Quick question, hoping someone can help me out with this:

I just bought a 32 inch HDTV and while I'm enjoying it quite a bit, my one problem is that divx files now look a little pixeley when I play them on my DVD player. They used to look darn near perfect on my old TV but the new one is a little bigger and of course it's HDTV (if that even matters) so now the picture is bigger, etc.

I'm just wondering if anyone can recommend a way to improve the picture quality? Like maybe if I got an upconverting DVD player that plays divx files, or maybe if I connected via HDMI, rather than those red, yellow and white cables or something?

I'd hate to have to go buy a new DVD player but I'd do it if it'd increase the quality of the divx files.

Can anyone out there recommend anything?

Rest assured, I'd greatly appreciate any advice anyone has.

[[_chef_]]

Quick question, hoping someone can help me out with this:

I just bought a 32 inch HDTV and while I'm enjoying it quite a bit, my one problem is that divx files now look a little pixeley when I play them on my DVD player. They used to look darn near perfect on my old TV but the new one is a little bigger and of course it's HDTV (if that even matters) so now the picture is bigger, etc.

I'm just wondering if anyone can recommend a way to improve the picture quality? Like maybe if I got an upconverting DVD player that plays divx files, or maybe if I connected via HDMI, rather than those red, yellow and white cables or something?

I'd hate to have to go buy a new DVD player but I'd do it if it'd increase the quality of the divx files.

Can anyone out there recommend anything?

Rest assured, I'd greatly appreciate any advice anyone has.

Honestly, its best to use a better source then.

[Krispy Kritter]

As noted above, garbage in = garbage out. The larger the screen (TV or monitor), the more obvious the quality of the avi files becomes.

There isn't anything that you can do to "make them better". With that said, some Divx players have better quality than others. Also, the "yellow" cable is the lowest quality. In order from lowest to highest quality, composite (yellow RCA), S-Video, component (red, blue, green RCA), DVI/HDMI. (** note that component and DVI/HDMI typically yield the same quality of picture).

[rijir2001]

In my opinion S-video makes little difference over the yellow cable. Everything looked like crap on my HDTV until I upgraed my DVD player to one with HDMI. 100 times better. And I only paid $60 bucks for it.

[Soopafresh]

About the only thing I can think of would be to play the AVIs off of a PC, using FFdshow as the codec so you can enhance the image a bit during playback. Still, it won't look all that great regardless. I've got the Superbit (very high bitrate) version of several DVDs, which look great at normal size but display a lot of haloing if the image is enlarged.

[RickA]

Greetings,


You mentioned 'rather than those red, yellow and white cables'. That has me thinking you are using the lowest quality input connection. The yellow input is for composite connections which is poor quality compared to the others. Where you really would want to be using the red, green, blue connectors of a component connection for higher quality. The HDMI and VGA connections also offer higher quality input. Even S-Video if need be will deliver a better quality picture than the yellow video in.

If your current dvd player does not have any of these options and you are thinking of upgrading. Look for one that has the some of the above mentioned connections. Your new TV being HD should offer at least some of those options for input.

Remember it is a Hi-Def tv so it is designed for HD content more so than standard def. So there is the possibility that SD content might not look as good on it as it would on a SDTV due to the way they process the picture. They tend to be less forgiving on the picture quality than our older sets or more critical depending on how you look at it. I hear they are working on and getting better at making them more 'backwards compatible' to SD content.

Cheers,
Rick

[jman98]

Divx is a lossy format. However, there are things that might be going against you here.

We don't know what brand of TV you have. Samsung, for example, has some excellent sharpening filters and upconversion technology that can make even VCD look pretty good.

You might be sitting too close to your HDTV. You can even see faults in commercial DVD if you sit too close.

You might be watching everything in 16:9, which is a horrible idea. For Divx, watch in 4:3.

Your connections may be giving you poor results. Using either component, DVI or HDMI should result in tremendous improvement. I'm getting really excellent results out of an old Philips DVP-642, which is a fairly poor quality player. I just set the output of it to progressive and used component cables to connect it to my TV and it looks great on everything that it plays.

[snaithbert]

Okay, this is great info, thanks everyone.

The number one thing I need to do (I think) is upgrade to a DVD player with HDMI out. I get the feeling that will improve my picture quality quite a bit. I know it'll never be HD quality but I think it can be improved upon and I aim to do so. If not it's still watchable but on my old TV (one with a tube) divx always looked damn near perfect and since my new TV isn't that much bigger- I'm hoping to find a way to increase the quality at least a little.

I'm picking up a new player later this week and I shall report back with my findings.

In the meantime, thanks very much for all the input!

[snaithbert]

"You might be watching everything in 16:9, which is a horrible idea. For Divx, watch in 4:3."

Wait a sec, I missed the above comment and not sure I understand it.

You mean I should set the TV or the DVD player to 4:3?

Wouldn't that totally scrunch up a widescreen video?

I'm a little confused...

[guns1inger]

It doesn't make much sense to me either. If it is a widescreen Divx file, my players will output a widescreen (16:9) image. Frankly, even on my 'old technology' SD CRT TV, the bulk of Divx/Xvid files look a lot lower than DVD quality. My Pioneer has some great playback filters that clean up a lot of the mosquito noise and even smooth some of the blockiness, but unless your files are encoded at a minimum of 720 x nnn with a bitrate of 2000k or higher, they are going to look like crap on a good HD TV. HDMI will only make the flaws clearer.

[SatStorm]

Get a popcorn hour, put a HDD inside with all your DivX and XviD files, connect it to your HDTV using component (not HDMI) and turn on upscaling output. It's the best you can do.

Or, re-encode your whole DivX/XviD collection, using MSU_Smart deblocking, Deemon's Video Enhancer and Neat Video. It will take you about half century to do so, but the results gonna be slightly better.

[jman98]

"You might be watching everything in 16:9, which is a horrible idea. For Divx, watch in 4:3."

Wait a sec, I missed the above comment and not sure I understand it.

You mean I should set the TV or the DVD player to 4:3?

Wouldn't that totally scrunch up a widescreen video?

I'm a little confused...

Some DVD players that support Divx aren't capable of outputting correctly it in anything but 4:3. You may or may not have such a player. If not, ignore it. Geez people, it's just a suggestion.

[snaithbert]

Okay, still good info to have, thanks very much.

To be honest I realize that divx files will never look like HD, but I enjoy them and they come in quite handy at times, etc. Frankly the current quality on my new TV is watchable but I figure if I can improve the quality just a little- that'll be just fine.

Thanks again

[[_chef_]]

Get a popcorn hour, put a HDD inside with all your DivX and XviD files, connect it to your HDTV using component (not HDMI) and turn on upscaling output. It's the best you can do.

Or, re-encode your whole DivX/XviD collection, using MSU_Smart deblocking, Deemon's Video Enhancer and Neat Video. It will take you about half century to do so, but the results gonna be slightly better.

Hey, ya have one??

[SatStorm]

I tested one, for about 3 days, on my HD Ready 40" Samsung M91.

It did the trick very well. Also, I was able to hook an external USB HDD.

Currently, I don't have money to buy one, other things are planed for the next 5 months. Too many things, one only salary (and that not a huge one I'm afraid)

[[_chef_]]

Hehe, I'm in the same boat.