PowerDVD Downscaling my HD DVD output?!

[Crusey]

Hi there,

Firstly I must apologise that my first post on this forum is one asking for assistance but you all seem like a friendly bunch!

Ok, I have PowerDVD 7.1 installed along with AnyDVD version 6.1.2.5. I have a HDCP graphics card so I'm pretty sure I don't need AnyDVD but that's beside the point.

After finally getting my 360 HD DVD drive working on my PC I got some movies and tried watching them. I was viewing the movies thinking, "well the colours are a lot more vibrant but it doesn't seem too much sharper". Then I went in to windowed mode and the player screen was only slighty bigger than a regular DVD, almost as if PowerDVD was downscaling the movie.

I can't see any options in PowerDVD to change settings or anything. Has anyone else noticed this or am I missing something obvious?! I can post pictures if it helps...

Many thanks for your help!

Edit - Maybe I'm mistaken as when I play an .avi HD video file in PowerDVD it does the same yet in other programs it runs it at it's native size. Is there anyway to check what resolution PowerDVD is displaying?!

 

[wdgoldstein]

More info needed

Hey Guy,

I may be out of my area of expertise here but I don't believe PowerDVD can play a movie at a greater resolution than your monitor is capable of. 1080P is like 1950*1050 or somewhere in that area. Is your monitor capable of that type of resolution?

In windowed mode a software player has to downscale. If you only give the player 800 pixels of width how do you expect it to display 1950 witout downscaling.

Anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

 

[Crusey]

Hi goldstein,

Thanks for your reply. My resolution is currently set to 1680 x 1050. 1080p is 1920 x 1080 so I'm not expecting it to run at 1080p but it should run at 1280 x 720 (720p), at least.

I understand that PowerDVD will downscale in windowed mode; it has to. However, usually when you run something windowed in media applications it plays them at their native resolutions, if you follow. Obviously you can stretch the window to make it bigger but when I do that it doesn't seem as sharp as it should.

If I take a screenshot from PowerDVD it should create an image at the resolution the video is running at, right? I'll give that a try shortly.

 

[wdgoldstein]

No problem here

Running in 1680*1050 on my monitor the HD-DVD images look exceedingly sharp as do windowed displays. I have an ATI X1950 card and LG 22" HDCP compliant monitor connected via DVI-D. running on Vista.

Prior to getting this monitor I was unable to watch via DVI even with AnyDVD-HD running in Vista but could in XP. Tey connecting in Analog mode and see it there is any differance. It appears that PowerDVD, Vista or the compination of both has a problem with Digital connections on non-HDCP monitors (though not Video cards for some reason (worked just fine with a non-hdcp video card and DVI connected monitor in XP)

As a comparison try running a Universal DVD and look carefully at the Universal Logo and globe, then do the same with the HD-DVD. On my system the differance is Drastic.

 

[Crusey]

Thanks for the reply, Goldstein.

I have, like you, an ATI X1950. I have a 21" Samsung LCD and it's all connected via DVI-D. I am using XP.

I'm just worried as the difference, while noticable, doesn't seem drastic. I have an HD version of an episode of BBC's Planet Earth on my HDD (encoded as an .ts file) and that is stunning. Which is why I'm worried I have something setup wrong.

I have an DVI-D to HDMI cable coming soon so that I can connect to my 26" HD TV hopefully the difference will be more notable on a bigger display.