[gergtreble]

After reading this article. I feel the need to discuss the relative merits of using XBMC rather than my 360 to play DVD's.

It seems that the 360 is a particularly bad DVD player. But is XBMC any better? I would say yes. As it upscales to HDTV resolutions over component, where the 360 will only do that over VGA.

So. How do you guys feel? Do you use the 360 or XBMC to play DVDs? Or do you have a standalone DVD player instead?

[Simba7]

We're using S-Video, but our Xbox is the main DVD player in the living room. It definitely shoots out a better picture than our old DVD player with the same hook-ups.

[B4tm4n]

Theres no competition from the 360 compared to XBMC.

[gergtreble]

Just as I thought.

Anyone else hae anything to add?

[BaM]

I'd like to add that the 360 is a shitty DVD player. It's region locked, it doesn't upscale and the controls are horrible.

Is that enough?

[finas]

I'm going to run the HQV DVD ( silicon optix v1.4) on xbmc dvdx2 and default microsoft xbox dvd player and see how much they score

[elupus]

finas, if you have that disk give it a go on our dvdplayer to. remember that you might have to manually change the interlace handling on interlaced screens. (we do have very poor such detection).

[finas]

Elupus:

that was exactly what I am going to do later today: compare xbmc, dvdx2, geux dvdx2, and ms xbox dvdplayer.
I'm going to post detailed results as well as the total score for each software.
I'm also going to state the setup I am using ( conexant chip, etc) , disable the noise reduction stuff of my tv..

I'm going to do a clean xbmc install, with default everything ( like video calibration).

Besides interlace handling, if you think I should change any default setting please tell me.

[finas]

HQV DVD benchmark can be found on edonkey network by searching for silicon optix. it consists of 3 files. .iso, .mds and .nfo

.nfo as a link to the manual used to give scores to each benchmark


I bet that downloading this dvd is illegal in most countries, so for those interested, the original legal version can be bought from:

http://www.hqv.com/benchmark.cfm


this link also has the above stated manual, and can be freely downloaded.

[gergtreble]

Will you be testing the 360 too finas?

[finas]

No, I don't own a 360.
Anyway, the benchmark is supposed to be non-subjective, so if I would do the benchmark, I would have reached the same results as extremetech guys.

[finas]

The benchmark is here:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=25264

[gergtreble]

Oh ok.

Well cheers for doing this dude. Let us know how you get on.

[gergtreble]

I see from the link that you have done it!

great!