Checking encode/transcode results on PC Monitor

[Alacard]

I've read posts where users say that your PC's monitor is the best thing to view backups on to judge the quality of your backup. I have a 20" monitor, and if I maximize the screen, everything stretches. My question is, do you all view your movies "windowed"? Or is there some trick to viewing the movie full screen?(without it stretching, etc..)

BTW, I know it's resolution causing this, but I'm just wondering how you all view DVD's on your monitor. Do you change your screen's resolution?

[ukb008]

I kept the resolution of my flat-screen 17" monitor to 1024x768, at which the icons and dialog-box texts are comfortable to read.

I frequently backup my new DVDs into XviD and burn in XCD mode to CDRs. I generally use AutoGK to generate the XviD file except in special circumstances where the ever reliable Gordian Knot is called for.

Naturally the XviD file (the .avi) has various resolutions depending on the movie material. When I open that file in my PC (where all these operations have been going on in the first place), my media player (I use Media Player Classic when I wish to use DirectShow, and VLC Player when I don't) displays the video in the proper resolution, which is almost always smaller than the PC screen. I then make the vidow full-screen, and the picture is then stretched proportionately, giving preference to the horizontal dimension, which means that the picture fills the screen laterally, and the vertical height comes out in proportion to that, the rest of the screen above and below the picture (if any) is filled with black (which you can modify and make purple or some other color if you want).

Read this (http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=2&q=http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm&e=10167) excellent guide from Doom9 to understand Aspect Ratios. There are many other guides like this (http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/aspect.htm), this (http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/resize.htm), or this (http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/bilinear-vs-bicubic.htm) by the celebrated Nicky Page.

Please read, read and read. Ask if there's anything unclear.

Regards.

[Alacard]

Thanks for your help.(and typing all that) I'm going to visit the links you posted and do some reading. If I set the resolution to 1024x768 on my 20" monitor, everything is too big. But I do use 1024x768 on my other 17" monitor.

BTW, just curious.. why do you convert all your movies to Xvid? For your HTPC? I've seen a lot of info. out there about Xvid, but haven't ever converted anything over to it.

[feedback]

As for watching DVD's on your monitor, with most Media Players like PowerDVD or WinDVD etc. you can just change the aspect ratio settings to your liking. Look for pan & scan.
What media player are you using to watch movies with on your monitor?

Regards,:)

[eb]

The best(in my opinion) tool to asses DVD picture quality is VirtualDubMod. Open .vob in VDM set zoom up to 4x , you can also view not only idividual frames but also individual fields of the picture.
Only pity that picture cant be moving to watch as a whole in 2x or 4x zoom./ especialy for HDDVD or HDTV files

eb


EDIT
To be able assesment with higher zoom and every part of the picture it can be saved as bitmap picture.