Thread: DVD Watermark?
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Old 2005-01-17, 02:36 PM
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RainDawg RainDawg is offline
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Re: DVD Watermark?

A few years ago when DVDRs were still high priced and I was a poor college student, I got into the habit of ripping DVDs to high quality SVCD. Yeah, it looks OK, but it's really easy to tell the difference, epsecially when you look at moving portions of the background...it gets very blocky. Sure, you can convince your mind that it looks fine, but if pressured, I'd bet 90% of people here could spot the SVCD vs. the DVD upon a close inspect. Mp3...I'd bet almost no one could do it with better than 50% (random guess) accuracy. And that's my point...the mp3 is much, much better at perceptual coding than lowering the res/bitrate of an MPEG, yet we seem to want to excuse it more.

Now, with the incredibly low cost of bandwidth, writers, and media, there is no reason for anyone to trade anything other than full DVD quality. If you're making a rip from an original DVD for your own use, I might be able to see it. For distribution, DVD is the only way to go.

By the way, I watch almost all my boots on my computer, which is setup with a dual monitor. A 19" screen is on port#2, which automatically detects when video is being played and renders is full screen. VCD boosted to full screen on a computer monitor looks like shit, no matter how "well" it was done. DVDs, especially ultra-crisp low-gan captures, look great as the resolution of the screen is only slightly larger than the resolution of the video itself, and very little dithering needs to be done. Keep in mind that most TVs have quite a bit less resolution (unless you own an HD) than a computer screen, so these differences may be less noticable, even on a semi-large screen like a 27". It's immediately recognizable when played on a computer...
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