Playing 1080 content on Home Theater

[chavo]

Hi,

Right once again I have come to you fellas for some support. I have (legally) downloaded a sample of 1080 content. then sample was a fair few GB. i have a few questions so here they go

1. When playing in VLC i get frozen pictures, perfect sound/i believe this is to do with hardware and software decoding.
2. When playing in Mplayer i get perfect picture but out of sync sound
3. when trying to play MKV samples in PowerDVD 9 it wont recognise it.

The media PC specs are as follows. Intel core 2 duo E2180@2.0Ghz. 2 GB Ram and a 256mb 7800GT graphics card. I have no problems at all with 720 content.

My second question is relativly simple...

When using my HTPC i use a Res of about 1200x700 or there about as this custom res fits my screen size. when watching a 1080 am i actually only watching 1200x700 as thats what res i am on? or are these two resolutions unrelated... could i watch a 1080p Blu Ray if my res on my monitor was set at 800x600?!?!

Thanks

[Salazaar]

1080 is a count of the number of lines which make up the vertical height of the video image. If your screen is physically limited to 700 then that's all it'll ever display regardless how much higher the source video is, your PC will scale down anything you try to play at higher resolutions.

I'm not sure that's actually related to the problem you talk about first, more likely a codec issue, but it's not really worth making a lot of effort getting 1080p stuff running if you're limited to less than 720.

And yes, you could watch blu-rays with your screen set to 800x600 but it would be an utterly redundant thing to do since you'd lose all the picture quality you gain from blu-ray in the first place.

[chavo]

The Tv can display more, lets say i set it to 1280x1024 would this then be better? what is the correct ratio to display 1080p?

[Salazaar]

Full HD resolution is 1920x1080, the closer you get to that the closer you get to a full quality image.

[chavo]

Ok, well my TV doesnt support that kind of res through the HDMI HTPC, if it did i wouldnt be able to read the writing on the screen!! thanks for the help though, incidently whats the res of 720?

Any ideas for the rest of the stuff? VLC etc?

[Funkstar]

1080p and all the other HD resolutions are all 16:9 in nature. displaying them on anything else will require either scaling which will introduce black bars top and bottom, or stretching which will effect ovality (round things will no longer be round).

As for the 1080 on a 1200x700 screen you will be decoding the whole thing, then scaling it down, loosing detail and resolution. 1280x1024 is 4:3 so you will end up with a horribly silly picture or large black bars.

[shaithis]

There is no correct resolution for 1080p per se......the closest you can get would probably be 1920x1080, but not many devices will support that.

In the vast majority of cases you will have to scale but the trick is to only scale once. Therefore set your windows resolution to the default res of the display device (your TV).

I would install the shark007 codec pack, I recently did that and can play HD MKV files in mediaplayer and Media Center without issues.

[Terbinator]

1280*720 = 720p. If your trying to play 1080p content the greated Bitrates may be to demanding for your current setup in comparison to the bitrates of 720p content.

[chavo]

Thanks for the advice, I will download that codec pack. in advice to the 720 and 1080 thing. i am not sure if my tv is 16:9 or 16:10. but i do get black bars top and bottom. most of the content i watch is 720 to be honest as i find it to be a good trade off between quality and size. i will set my res as1280x720 and see how it looks.

I find i cant see the writing on the screen if i have it much higher!

For referance the TV is quite old now but it is a Samsung SP50 DLP on a pedastal, like the one below. it doesnt support decent res through the VGA socket so i use the HDMI via a Onkyo AMP.
http://objectstop.com/wp-content/upl...7HX_DLP_TV.jpg

[Rave]

There is no correct resolution for 1080p per se

Yes there is. 1920x1080 isn't closest, it's exactly right.

chavo, IIRC your screen is a native 1280x720 (I.E. 720p) display. If you set your desktop resolution to 1280x720, text should look perfect, pin sharp- (though some tellies- mine included- do funny scaling things so that their 'native res' doesn't actually look that good).

If I'm right that your TV is 1280x720 native res- and I'm pretty certain that I am- there's no point downloading 1280p content as your screen is not capable of displaying the extra detail. It might look a smidge better for footage that displays compression artefacts if you download it in 720p, but otherwise don't bother.

If I was getting smooth playback on 720p and jittery playback when downscaling 1080p, I'd overclock my processor and graphics card first to see if that makes any difference.

[Terbinator]

If your running at a native 720p and it looks un-sharp or fuzzy, it could be something related with the refresh rate.

[chavo]

well i have just checked when i run 1280 x720 i lose the outer edge of the screen, i tried 1920x1080 and the display appears but everything is tiny on my 50 inch display and again i lose the start butoon below the screen.

i notice that in 720 mode though watching 720 content i still get a black bar top and bottom.

[Terbinator]

well i have just checked when i run 1280 x720 i lose the outer edge of the screen, i tried 1920x1080 and the display appears but everything is tiny on my 50 inch display and again i lose the start butoon below the screen.

i notice that in 720 mode though watching 720 content i still get a black bar top and bottom.

That black bar is probably whats known as aspect ratio - if it only displays during the viewing of content and not when your running windows\playing games etc.

[Salazaar]

One other thing to remember is that a lot of films these days are shot at a 2.39:1 ratio, even wider than 16:9. So even if you had a full resolution HDTV you'd still get black bars along the top and bottom of a lot of films.

Unless you had one of these...

[Funkstar]

Unless you had one of these...

saw one of those in a store in Norway a few weeks back. They actually look a lot bigger and a lot more impressive than I was expecting.

[Salazaar]

saw one of those in a store in Norway a few weeks back. They actually look a lot bigger and a lot more impressive than I was expecting.

I'd like to see one then, cos I was expecting them to be really big and impressive, now I'm expecting to be blown away