Watching divx movies on tv from a PC

[bigbull]

I would like to watch my encoded movies on a TV rather than a PC monitor. My computer vendor said that this can be achieved thru an AGP card which will output to the TV. Is the clarity of PC output on TV bettre than standalone DVD players. My present DVD player does not support divx. Thats the reason why I was looking at an alternate solution of connecting my PC to TV.

Am prepared to go for a PC to TV connection if the video and audio quality is going to be pretty good.The added advantage with a PC to TV connection would be that it will be future proof and be able to play H.264 and other evolving codecs. Anyone has any experiences to share. I use Power DVD and windows media player to view my dvds and divx movies.

Bigbull

[mod]

ZoomPlayer (http://www.inmatrix.com/) works very well with TV out :)

[weaver4]

For the price of the Video card (maybe less) you can get a DivX set top box like the philips 642 or avayon 1000.

But I have had success doing what you are saying with BSPlayer. I would not say the quality is better from the PC, on mine it is slightly worse, but that could be because of my 25ft S-Video cable.

[bigbull]

is there any comparison as to whther the divx players like the philips one are better or the computers with a tv out. I wud assume that the computer would be in a better position to decode the divx,xvid movies etc.

bigbull

[weaver4]

is there any comparison as to whther the divx players like the philips one are better or the computers with a tv out. I wud assume that the computer would be in a better position to decode the divx,xvid movies etc.

bigbull

For a product to be DivX certified it must take a video stream in (avi file) and produce the correct results (or bit pattern). It is all digital, so the codec (regardless if it is software or hardware) will generate the same result. The advantage of the PC is that it can be used for more advanced codecs that are not available on set top boxes: like x264 and XviD (with GMC and QPEL enabled).

So in the divx world I don't think you are going to see much (if any) difference in video quality between it or the PC. I have two DivX set top boxes and a couple of computers; I don't see any.

BTW: I recommend the Avayon box over the Philips.

[chros]

About desktop players: there's a hungarian site which is devoted to this question (mostly in the hungarian market), and everybody can upload data to the database:

http://www.mpeg4-players.info/
(Go to 'Lejatszok' in the left menubar)
And here's an Hungarian-English (magyar-angol) online dictionary for that: http://szotar.sztaki.hu :)

About software players: I'm using Media Player Classic and a 5m S-Video Cable between my GeForce 6600GT and Sony KV-29FX66 (4:3). I'm using DualView in the driver, so I can drag the started video window (MPC) to the TV screen, the manually turn off the monitor. The only problem with the geforce drivers is that it's vertically push the screen on tv, but MPC is great here, in which you can easily fix this with the numeric part of the keyboard.
I'm using this setup for 4 years now (since I had a GeForce2 MX), that time there wasn't dualview, I have used TVTool for the output.

[Skelsgard]

But I have had success doing what you are saying with BSPlayer. I would not say the quality is better from the PC, on mine it is slightly worse, but that could be because of my 25ft S-Video cable.
It may the the S-video output, not the length of the cable, if the cable is properly protected by the rubber. I´ve tested both and I get better quality with RCA input than S-video input (using a s-video cable with a S-video-to-RCA converter pin). It also depends of your TV. I have a 29-inch TV for quite some time and the quality is let say normal but plug into a Sony Wega 21-inch it looks f*****g awesome. (Using BSPlayer with XFX Geforce FX 5200, Video Overlay set to Fullscreen on Secondary Monitor, Clone Mode).
Also, your screen settings for your monitor when using clone, has a lot of importance since even the crapiest-cheapest 14-inch monitor has much more pixel quality than the most expensive plasma TV in the universe (U$S 80 14-inches monitors can be at 1024*768, the biggest U$S 7.000 dollars 42-inches plasma TV has only 852*480, funny, isn´t it?). Then, when in Clone Mode, it´s better to use low resolution for the monitor (800*600, or even 640*480), wich increases definition on the TV (NTSC 525 scan lines, PAL 576 lines).
With all this said, people who spend more than U$S 6.000 on plasma TVs, instead of buying a $ 1.800 digital proyector (and converting their homes into truly personal home-theaters) and another U$S 1.800 on good loudspeakers should be filled with gasoline through their asses and set on fire, in public.
Sorry about that.

[bigbull]

Most of the AGP cards I see come with an S video out only. Am unable to get any with an RCA out. ( single yellow pin). Is the RCA out models outdated now. My Tv has some probs with its S video input pins. So have to depend on RCA only. Any solution for this

Bigbull

[spolja]

@wonderbra
You have better picture with RCA cable because it is more resistant to EM noise (better S-Video cable gives much better picture then RCA - S-Video separates chroma and luminance unlike RCA)
@bigbull
Use S-Video to RCA adapter. It's cheap and doesn't hurt picture quality. Most of the cards have that adapter included in the package

[Skelsgard]

(better S-Video cable gives much better picture then RCA - S-Video separates chroma and luminance unlike RCA)
no, i know, but I was reffering to what works betst for me and how he should try until finding what´s best for him.
My s-video cable better be a good quality one, or i´m gonna kill the guy who sold it to me, considering what i paid.
I´ve tested both and I get better quality with RCA input than S-video input (using a s-video cable with a S-video-to-RCA converter pin). It also depends of your TV.
In my TV I get better better quality with RCA, never tried to say that RCA was better than S-video (i would be a dumbass to say so).
The TV encoder in the videoboard has also importance, i´ve seen some not outputting s-video as good as they should.

[FlimsyFeet]

I have a PAL TV, and using the PC -> TV out lets me watch 23.976fps AVIs with perfectly smooth motion.

The method uses the Reclock filter to speed up playback to 25fps, and output in PAL. (But this only works if the audio is MP3, AC3 (over SPDIF) cannot be resampled that way.)

I don't know how hardware players would cope with 23.976fps AVIs.

[Skelsgard]

A NTSC player is more likely to be able to perform 3:2 pulldown on playback for 23.976 fps sources (wich outputs 29.97 fps on playback) than a PAL one.
I have a PAL TV, and using the PC -> TV out lets me watch 23.976fps AVIs with perfectly smooth motion.
Is your TV PAL-only? Even a 10-year old TV it´s more likely to support both (PAL and NTSC), and the RCA inputs accept whatever standard your TV can handle. I.e. my TV handles PAL-N (my country´s TV system) with coaxial but NTSC with the RCA input (for satellite TV).

[FlimsyFeet]

The TV supports PAL-60, but I never figured out how to set my graphics card to output that format thro' the TV out. I thnik it needs a BIOS flash.

Still, even if I was able to do that, it would still be 29.97fps and I don't know how to do 3:2 pulldown on the fly with a PC-based player. (I use MPC).

So if hardware DivX players do this 3:2 pulldown I might consider getting one.

[Skelsgard]

What graphic card do u have? ATI or NVidia?

DivX players are DVD players with DivX decoding capabilities, I believe (might be wrong) most DVD players do 3:2 pulldown by default (the 29.97 fps is created on output by the player itself). Also PC-based DVD players.