Significant update to NVDVD

**Bing Fung** · 24 May 2003, 08:53 Saturday

Jon, does Nvidia offer a free version of this for Nvidia card owners? You would think that it should come bundled with Nvidia graphics cards.

For the ATI player you must insert you orignal ATI driver disk before the DVD player will install. I don't use the ATI play myself for I find the control interface clunky to use. Right now I use Power DVD, WinDVD or Windows Media player 9.

I will try the NVDVD....

Bing

**JonMarsh** · 24 May 2003, 09:33 Saturday

It's up to the card manufacturer. Some do offer bundles with NVDVD with the card, especially the more deluxe models. Some don't.

The only "catch" to buying NVDVD is that you must have an internet conection (at least temporarily) to do the online transaction to purchase the license. Once the license is purchased, you can just install the updates over your original purchase.

If you chose NOT to buy it, uninstall it before the 14 day free trial expires; otherwise, you won't be able to install the trial and purchase a license later if you change your mind.

Some folks have complained about these licensing techniques, but I find them much less onerous than what Sonic (formerly Ravisent) or WINDVD put you through- the NVDVD licensing has always been very reliable for me. :B

Watched Spiderman last night (go figure, just hadn't gotten around to it on DVD yet!), on my NEC presentation monitor with the 30" Toshiba micofilter tube; the picture was great; since I can't do a side by side, I cant' comment fairly, but Spidey seemed to be in Superbit territory compared with what I've previously seen. The operational fixes are definitly in place, and what was one of the more robust players (partly why I picked it and switched to GF440MX cards) is even better.

Also tried a little SW:AOTC, and here the 3D sort of effect (more accurate color gradient rendition?) is quite apparent. :banana:

If not the top player, certainly in the top tier. BTW, I've used WINDVD, Ravisent/Sonic, the ATI, and PowerDVD, so it's not like I'm a total newbie... :W

~Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Bing Fung** · 25 May 2003, 19:08 Sunday

Well I tried the NvDVD and I have to say I certainly like it's control panel. Its one of the nicer one I have seen during DVD playback. It is very unobtrusive.

Image quality it looked pretty good in it's default settings. I noticed that the over all the image was a bit lighter in NvDVD when compared to Power DVD and WinDVD. I watched Star Trek Nemises on it and compared images from the wedding scene and the Romulan senate. While all 3 players had some noticable differences, I could not decide if I liked one over the other. I tended to like the contrast of Power DVD more, and I do like the control interface of PowerDVD the most.

It's too bad Nvidia charges a person for this player. You would think by having 2 Nvidia graphics cards that I would get it gratus.

It may present itself more worthy on a bigger screen, however in my limited scope of use, $39 bucks is pretty steep considering I own two versions of Power DVD, 1 version of WinDVD, 1 version of ATI DVD and then there is Windows Media Player 9.... Now if it was free....

oh BTW Jon, if your were a Newbie, you would be the most experianced Newbie I knew..heheh :rollhead:

Bing

**JonMarsh** · 26 May 2003, 09:11 Monday

Hi Bing!

Just for grins, was your viewing done on an LCD screen or CRT?

Re contrast, lighting, etc, I always do a quick check with AVIA on most software DVD players before watching- in an earlier post (months ago) I mentioned another cool feature of NVDVD, built in calibration screens for video setup! So, if you can't find your copy of Avia, or don't have one, here's another reason to go NVDVD.

I've bought two copies of NVDVD, one for my bedroom HTPC, one for one of the desktops (unfortunately, the one residing in my daughter's room now!). Both of those systems use NV17 based hardware, with 10 bit DACs and pretty complete MPEG support; they're the only nVidia cards over six months old with those feattures. I'm still considering getting it for my Sony, though it came with WINDVD 4 built in; I like the UI better, it's more stable with quirky menu systems, and it seems to be rock stable about not having skipped frames or sync problems.

I have a bought copy of PowerDVD 4, and a couple of bought copies of Ravisent/Sonic (one on my audio test PC, which was a "backup" for the living room HTPC which doesn't exist except as a collection of parts right now- need to rebuild). Plus copies of ATI's player that came free with the card... well, often you do get what you pay for- though they use Ravisent filters in the past, and now PowerDVD, the UI and menu stuff is home grown and it showed- the buggiest software DVD player I've had.

I think the UI is a lot cleaner and more straightforward than most. YMMV, that's strictly personal preference.

BTW, every day I get up I remind myself I'm a newbie, and want to learn something new today... :W

~Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Bing Fung** · 26 May 2003, 17:31 Monday

Jon, I had just viewed it on my Notebook's LCD monitor. I will have to do more extensive comparisions, however I guess the point I was trying to get across was that I so seldom used PC DVD players and that I have so many software ones already that the finer qualities are lost on my equipment and viewing habits.

Still I do like the NvDVD and will have to explore it more indepth.

I agree on Power DVD 4. I have the Asus Bundled version of that and hated it so much in control execution that I reverted back to my Bundled Hercules Power DVD 3. I just like the way it works.

I don't mind what I have seen of WinDVD so far and the controls arn't bad. What I don't like is how it always plaes the control panel in about the middle of my screen. I wish it would dock it to the lower right corner independant of window size, but no, it always places it somewhere dependant on window size and placement.

The ATI player I plain out Hate! I don't care how good it may look (or not), I hate it's controls and the way it executes control functions... Period!

The NvDVD has a very nice control and I absolutely love the fullscreen control bar. About the only thing I wished it had was a capture button in the mini control panel. The calibration sounds cool and I will have to explore it a bit more.

I guess we all can always learn something or another.. I just remembered, one test, does not make a representitive sample...

Bing

Significant update to NVDVD

Significant update to NVDVD

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