DVD playback on 360, terrible?

jayteecork

I got a Sony HDTV a couple of months ago and have only used the 360 to play DVDs on it.

It always struck me as being blurry, for example credits scrolling and when the camera pans the background just goes into a massive blur.

I was seriously thinking there's something wrong with my TV so I plugged in a regular philips DVD player with scart.

Perfect. No blur. Still images aren't as sharp but everything else is vastly superior.

So I take it the 360 is widely known as sh1te for DVD playback?

grizzly

Are you sure you've configured the display correctly in the dashboard options?

jayteecork

grizzly wrote: »

Are you sure you've configured the display correctly in the dashboard options?

Of course.
Only options are really reference(black) levels and screen resolution.

I've messed around with them all.

rizzla

I have my xbox hooked up via component and it looks great. Plus it's a cheap Mikomi brand HDTV, does the job though.

MarkR

Is it a projection Tv?

Kernel

rizzla wrote: »

I have my xbox hooked up via component and it looks great. Plus it's a cheap Mikomi brand HDTV, does the job though.

+1 here. 360 plays my dvds better than my samsung dvd player through component.

jayteecork

Did a google and a lot of people are saying the 360 is a terrible DVD player.

It's not my TV as it was fine with a Philip's DVD player.

It's too noisy anyway, don't think I'll be playing DVDs on the 360 anymore.

Alkers

Sure you've got it set to the HDTV settings and all that? Looks fine on both my tvs.

DeBeere

Works fine on my tvs too. Id say check your xbox display settings.

GrumPy

It's noisy sure, but dont know anyone with complaints over picture quality with dvds.

blah

Silly question, but have you put the switch on the component cable to HD? I know someone who missed that one.

jayteecork

I use a HDMI cable.

the playback isn't bad by any means, just backgrounds can be a little blurry, and it varies greatly between DVDs. DVDs that I burn myself from AVI files look fairly ****ty whereas original DVDs look a lot better.

Kernel

jayteecork wrote: »

I use a HDMI cable.

the playback isn't bad by any means, just backgrounds can be a little blurry, and it varies greatly between DVDs. DVDs that I burn myself from AVI files look fairly ****ty whereas original DVDs look a lot better.

AVIs are compressed video, so they'll always look worse. The 360 is very noisy, I agree with you there, but the picture is fine.

jayteecork

Ok. I hooked my laptop up to the HDTV with a VGA cable and the movies also run a lot better than the Xbox. No blur or jaggies at all.
SO my TV is ok.

It must be the settings of the xbox but I'm not sure what exactly I could change.
I tried all the resolutions already and it makes little differnece.

thenightrider

the 360's picture quility is 100% fine with dvd's and i have a few 360's conected up to diffent thing's if it is not your setings it could be down to a cheap hd lead that is not up to scratch or it could be your hd conection on your tv ive seen loads of people selling there tv's with bad hd conection's

Scruff

dvd playback is crap for me too. choppy scrolling and noisy as hell. No such problems playing avi files of a usb hd plugged into it.

jayteecork

Scruff wrote: »

dvd playback is crap for me too. choppy scrolling and noisy as hell. No such problems playing avi files of a usb hd plugged into it.

Bingo.

The scrolling is awful.
I have it on 720p now and it's a bit better.

Scruff

i have it on 720p too and still thinks its crap!

craze7

360 is dirt when it comes to dvd, interlaced lines all over the shop!!!!

jayteecork

Sometimes when the camera is panning stationery backgrounds like Buildings actually "wobble".

It's awful.

It's a sahme cause when you pause it the image is absolutely beautiful, not much different to Blu-Ray.

brennaldo

why watch dvd's on your 360 anyway, doesnt the noise of it drive ya crazy........ but i suppose its better than nothing

Hagakure_irl

brennaldo wrote: »

why watch dvd's on your 360 anyway, doesnt the noise of it drive ya crazy........ but i suppose its better than nothing

Couldn't agree more!

ROC1977

Any chance those lads here with bad dvd play back don't have Xbox live? Dvd play back was poor when the 360 first came out. But then there was an update on live that sorted it out. My 360 upscales dvd's to 576p. And has a great picture, also all my streaming avi's look great.
If you want it quiet flash dvd firmware so it only spins at x5 speed. Makes it a hell of a lot quieter.

Have you got your 360 set up at 50 or 60hz also I find 1080i is better for dvd playback than 720p.

mayordenis

jayteecork wrote: »

Did a google and a lot of people are saying the 360 is a terrible DVD player.

It's not my TV as it was fine with a Philip's DVD player.

It's too noisy anyway, don't think I'll be playing DVDs on the 360 anymore.

why are you even asking on here?? you've clearly already made your decision.
and it's an excellent dvd player.

Burning Eclipse

Mine upscales nicely through VGA, looks really well I have to say...

mayordenis

Hdmi 1080p looks perfect - probably the best colour coming through of any dvd player i've tried.

mcgovern

At one stage I had some artifacts and lines across the screen.
Changed the cable and it was fine, much better than my upscaling Samsung DVD player.

Biro

jayteecork wrote: »

Ok. I hooked my laptop up to the HDTV with a VGA cable and the movies also run a lot better than the Xbox. No blur or jaggies at all.
SO my TV is ok.

It must be the settings of the xbox but I'm not sure what exactly I could change.
I tried all the resolutions already and it makes little differnece.

I'm not so impressed with the 360's DVD playback either. I have a Philips Progressive Scan DVD player, and via component that was excellent for DVD's. On the 360 they're not quite as good.
However, I do find that the playback is better on the 360 than my other DVD player via SCART. So there is an improvement, but having said that it's still not as good as the progressive scan player.
On the other hand, when fiddling with the settings, I found that upscaling is part of the problem. The best quality I find with the 360 on DVD playback is 480p, which is basically sending an unmodified image from the DVD to your TV with progressive scan. I reckon that gets to within 90% of the quality of the Philips, only some differences noticable on certain scenes on a given movie. Try 480p first and see what you think.
Also, definately don't use upscaling for your AVI's, as the compressed image is bad enough without the 360 trying to invent lines that aren't there!

jayteecork

Ok I threw on Jericho season 1 orginal DVD last night on Xbox 360, output was 720p.

Looked absolutely incredible. A perfect picture.

It seems that newer DVDs released in the HDTV age have no problems, whereas the Xbox struggles with older DVDs/bad prints - probably the extra detail on HDTVs makes defects in DVD quality all the more noticable.

Still a noisy bugger though.

Draupnir

I think the 360 is an excellent DVD player in terms of picture quality myself, noise is another matter. Still, nothing compares to the Apple TV with well encoded files and an HDMI cable.

Furp

I find the DVD quality excellent and upscaled very well over my VGA cable, connected to a Samsung 40" LCD

From memeory I believe the 360 will not upscale DVDs past 480p over component something to do with licensing and Microsoft sticking to the license agreement for component connections but the DVD css license does not cover VGA so DVD's are upscaled over VGA.