[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] lower hardware MPEG decoder priority

[Thomas Orgis]

Am Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:44:41 +0200
schrieb Benjamin Zores <ben at geexbox.org>: 

> I guess there's even less chances one still has a 3dfx than an
> additional MPEG decoder card.

...while there are rather decent chances to see MPEG decoder cards like
the dxr3, also for some time to come (until PCI slots vanish).
Simple reason for me: On an analog TV setup, standard-def DVD and DVB
content has by far the best quality through my dxr3 card. The picture
area/overscan is "just right" and I don't get any trouble from
interlacing. Oh yeah, interlaced content looks so much better when it's
actually handled by the output device (who came up with the interlaced
1080i for digital TV? totally nuts).

As long as I have that big analog TV, I'd actually like to shove all
MPlayer output through the dxr3, but that doesn't work out for HD
content (without manual filter setup for downscaling for the
hardware, I guess).
I do have a setup with a VGA/S-Video converter, too ... and that's
always suboptimal: a hassle to tune the video mode to about fill the
screen, no natural deinterlacing, and generally ugly video performance
-- meaning, subtle large-scale block artefacts on moving scenes.
Perhaps that's because ATI video chips are crap, perhaps because that's
of the converter... but it seems to be fact that unless there's some
dedicated video output hardware that's not about MPEG/MJPEG
compression, I won't find anything better than a dxr3, before I at some
time get around a digital TV with HDMI (and actually offers a picture
that pleases). Or rather a beamer.

Well, it wasn't yet suggested to drop dxr3 output, so this speech might
be overreaction... but I felt like emphasizing that hardware like the
dxr3/H+ is important for good analog TV output.
Just change in the default codecs.conf shouldn't hurt.


Alrighty then,

Thomas.


PS: Of course, there once was splendit video out hardware... in form of
the Matrox G400, which sadly only worked out fully on Windows
(hassle-free DVDMax mode) and won't do it on a board without AGP.

PPS: Another point for the dxr3 is the excellent simple DVD player app
dxr3player ... which actually mostly is so nice because MPlayer couldn't
get proper DVD menu support for all the years:-/
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