What software and filetype should I use for playing dvds off harddrive?

[neo squidward]

I currently have PowerDVD 6 and was a little disappointed on the picture quality presented to me on my samsung 19" LCD (1000:1 contrast, 8ms response). The picture is a little grainy and blurred. The hardware acceleration is turned on and I have it on the bright setting along with the deinterlacing settings all at default. I rip DVD's using DVD decrypter at its default settings and just play the VIDEO_TS folder with the .VOB files inside.

Is this how it should be done for the best picture quality?

On a side note, I know that the lcd has to interpolate when you watch dvd's because of the lower resolution but why isn't there any software that upscales dvd files like stand-alone players can do?

[celyo]

You sould try with ZoomPlayer or MPC if quality is same then the problem is in your ripper.

[nexx]

As long as you aren't re-encoding, any format will result in the same image quality.

Look into using FFDShow for filtering, rescaling and post-proceesing. This guide (http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1) is a bit old but still mostly relevant.

[movax]

I like MPC for DVDs...my WinDVD 7 freakin' "shakes" the video in windowed mode, making it nearly unwatchable.