DVD Player not SHARP...why

Question

DVD Player not SHARP...why

This may be a dumb question, but it's something that has always bothered me. Why is it when I watch DVDs (using DVD Player) or TV (Miglia Box) on my iMacs (old and new), the picture is not clean and clear....like watching it on my TV. I KNOW the quality is there, becuase when I watch Apple trailers, especially HD trailers, they play just as if I am watching a DVD on a High Def TV.

How is it that trailers online give me better quality then an actual DVD (or TV feed)? I know someone will give me some great reason, and I'd like to know, but it doesn't make sense that files off the internet will/can play better, clearer and crisper then an actual DVD!

Thanks to all who answer!

iMac Intel 20", Mac OS X (10.4.8), 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - 2 GB Ram

Posted on Jun 24, 2007 6:30 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 5, 2007 8:50 PM in response to Michael Taggart

Nobody was willing to take a stab at this. If I had to venture a guess I would think it has to do either with resolution or rescaling. You would think that playing a DVD should look the same no matter where you view it, but the DVD content may get upscaled on some equipment and blurred on others because it wasn't correctly scaled and the monitor you're using is at a different resolution than the resolution of the DVD.

As for playing certain files (trailers) on your Mac - some content creators actually know what they're doing in the encoding step.

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Answer 2

Jul 5, 2007 9:14 PM in response to Michael Taggart

A DVD or TV can't provide more than 720 x 480. HD may be up to 1920 x 1080. A file on the internet can be any resolution, even greater than 1920x1080 (but that is unlikely because most users don't have larger screens, and downloading would be slow).

When watching a DVD on the computer, you are probably much closer to the screen, so notice the limited resolution.

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