htcz Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 In a strange glitch, video quality in VLC is way lower than in WMP. I can only describe it as the edges of letters in a picture being jaggy or something. Why is this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 ToneKnee Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 If by "letters" you mean "subtitles" then this is just the way subtitles are rendered giving the different players. With VLC you can customise the fonts etc. You could try that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Phouchg Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I'll take a guess for the sake of it. - built-in decoders might be out of date - free decoders might be less refined than the licensed ones of WMF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 ThaCrip Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 use 'pot player' and be done with it all. it's hands down the best x264 (h264) and .avi (XviD) player out there. it's the little things that make it better than the competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 x9248 Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I'd guess the video renderer (whatever it may be) in VLC is inferior to that of WMP. It's just an inferior player all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Ambroos Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 The good thing about VLC is that it plays everything. The bad thing about VLC is that it plays almost everything at horrible quality. VLC is good for some streaming stuff (I use it for streaming radio), but for everything else Media Player Classic Home Cinema + FFDShow = king for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 htcz Posted September 4, 2011 Author Share Posted September 4, 2011 If by "letters" you mean "subtitles" then this is just the way subtitles are rendered giving the different players. With VLC you can customise the fonts etc. You could try that. No, I ment for example a scene in a video file where a paper ad is shown on a store glass and the letters are jagged (just made up this example) I'll take a guess for the sake of it. - built-in decoders might be out of date - free decoders might be less refined than the licensed ones of WMF I thought VLC came with its own decoders.... use 'pot player' and be done with it all. it's hands down the best x264 (h264) and .avi (XviD) player out there. it's the little things that make it better than the competition. Never heard of pot player.... I'd guess the video renderer (whatever it may be) in VLC is inferior to that of WMP. It's just an inferior player all around. Thought it was generally still the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Slammers Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 Neowin i am disappointed!! Usually people here know what their talking about. VLC plays movies just as good as anything else. What your talking about is likely interlacing - you need to turn on de-interlacing in the vlc options. WMP does do a good job of automatically interlacing, but not all the time, it can make some files worse and you have no control over it. WMP also tends to automatically adjust the image whereas vlc just plays the file how it is. I find WMP usually ups the contrast and saturation quite abit. Of course all of this can be done in VLC, but only if you tell it to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 x9248 Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 Neowin i am disappointed!! Usually people here know what their talking about. VLC plays movies just as good as anything else. What your talking about is likely interlacing - you need to turn on de-interlacing in the vlc options. WMP does do a good job of automatically interlacing, but not all the time, it can make some files worse and you have no control over it. WMP also tends to automatically adjust the image whereas vlc just plays the file how it is. I find WMP usually ups the contrast and saturation quite abit. Of course all of this can be done in VLC, but only if you tell it to. Uh, all we have to go on is he said "lower quality". He says jaggy and you think interlacing, while I think aliasing, and someone else thinks something else. I guess a screenshot would help... a picture speaks a thousand words etc etc. Thought it was generally still the best. Absolutely not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Udedenkz Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 VLC is generally considered Internet Explorer 8 of the video player world: 1. It is popular and will do most things right. 2. It is not preferred for power users: 2a. It is not fast. 2b. It is not well customizable and doesn't have good options or good addon support. 2c. It won't play many things that superior video players will play. 2d. It doesn't offer best quality either. 2e. It is bloated. Aethec, humcheepeng, Jen Smith and 1 other 4 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Phouchg Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I thought VLC came with its own decoders.... And that is what I meant with built-in. I still find it funny how people are ready to start player wars when a player is just a frontend and some config knobs. All the hard work is done by splitters, decoders and render filters, which are the same between them all (the exception being VLC). And even in all those crap packs they all use, ffdshow does five nines of the work. Please, people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 funkydude Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 VLC is good for some streaming stuff (I use it for streaming radio), but for everything else Media Player Classic Home Cinema + FFDShow = king for me. I use MPC-HC x64 and have yet to come across a video that won't play, why the need for installing FFDShow may I ask? Thanks. humcheepeng 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Raa Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I've always found WMP to have high quality playback, and it often looks better than other media players. I guess it's the renderers they use in it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Phouchg Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I use MPC-HC x64 and have yet to come across a video that won't play, why the need for installing FFDShow may I ask? Thanks. True. MPC-HC also has all the necessary stuff built-in. I'll take a doubt on deinterlacing, it's a rarity. Well, turning it to Auto won't hurt much. Maybe picture scaling, although only if picture is getting resized. Try using OpenGL output in this case. Before more "my player is longer than yours" posts spawn (and my stupid guessing), the OP could care to post more accurate descriptions and screenshots. Good night, everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Reacon Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 I recommend using the Combined Community Codec Pack over pretty much anything else. It's a pack of codecs (obviously) that has just about everything you will ever need for video playback in one bundle. It also includes MPC-HC as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 MS Bob 11 Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 As mentioned, the quality also depends on the DirectShow renderer being used, not just the decoder. On my comp, I don't find the quality of WMP12 (which uses the Media Foundation-based Enhanced Video Renderer) to be that great either. I don't think VLC lets you choose a renderer either. Use MPC-HC. Highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 ThaCrip Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 Never heard of pot player.... it's formerly called 'The KMPlayer' (basically The KMPlayer's original developer switched over to 'PotPlayer'. it also has a skin included with it which makes it look just like the classic skin for The KMPlayer to) which you might have heard about. http://goo.gl/GFOrM (download links there to it in x86 and x64 builds) one of the better things about Pot Player is it supports hardware acceleration of h264 video out of the box where as VLC needs to be turned on etc. plus it has alot of different configuration options and it's the little things that make it stand out over VLC etc. it's hands down my player of choice for .mkv (h264) / .avi (XviD) video playback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Xilo Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 VLC is a HORRIBLE media player. This is why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Copernic Reporter Posted September 5, 2011 Reporter Share Posted September 5, 2011 Wow! I'm glad that Pandora's box has been opened, finally. Remember when VLC was about 4.6 MB ? That's was about 6-7 years ago when was nothing except WMP, MPC, BS.Player and the infamous codec pack that we all know. VideoLan was great because of his partfile eMule plugin (it was the only media player capable to preview eMule temp files) that's why the huge popularity. With time, VLC transformed into a bloated, full with bugs media player. Leave it and search for an alternative; there is a lot of good, free stuff floating around the web like PotPlayer, KMPlayer, MPC-HC, MPlayer WW, SPlayer, Light Alloy, Zoom Player, SMPlayer, UMPlayer, RealPlayer Mini etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 articuno1au Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 I'll take a guess for the sake of it. - built-in decoders might be out of date - free decoders might be less refined than the licensed ones of WMF Not only that, but Microsoft are pretty decent coders. When they decide to do something they generally nail it.. They also understand the directshow layers pretty damn well ;) I've argued that as of Vista, WMP was the best playback client with proper codec support, but clearly it depends on the codec/file/setup. I'd guess the video renderer (whatever it may be) in VLC is inferior to that of WMP. It's just an inferior player all around. This, also there are a lot of default post-processing things going in with WMP in the background that you will never see. There are test videos designed to tell you what post processing is being done.. I only really saw them at university, but I'm sure you could find them if you looked long enough.. Neowin i am disappointed!! Usually people here know what their talking about. VLC plays movies just as good as anything else. What your talking about is likely interlacing - you need to turn on de-interlacing in the vlc options. WMP does do a good job of automatically interlacing, but not all the time, it can make some files worse and you have no control over it. WMP also tends to automatically adjust the image whereas vlc just plays the file how it is. I find WMP usually ups the contrast and saturation quite abit. Of course all of this can be done in VLC, but only if you tell it to. I agree kinda. Interlacing plays a HUGE part in perceived quality, and VLC is the literal player.. It plays EXACTLY what it sees.. I don't think it's a good tool anymore unless you are desperate.. VLC is generally considered Internet Explorer 8 of the video player world: 1. It is popular and will do most things right. 2. It is not preferred for power users: 2a. It is not fast. 2b. It is not well customizable and doesn't have good options or good addon support. 2c. It won't play many things that superior video players will play. 2d. It doesn't offer best quality either. 2e. It is bloated. Bahaha, beautiful. True to boot :p As mentioned, the quality also depends on the DirectShow renderer being used, not just the decoder. On my comp, I don't find the quality of WMP12 (which uses the Media Foundation-based Enhanced Video Renderer) to be that great either. I don't think VLC lets you choose a renderer either. Use MPC-HC. Highly recommended. I think it's more that they are using a bastardized version of MF and DirectShow.. I think once MF comes out in it's own right and DirectShow support is removed that EVR will be the "bombdiggity" :p Wow! I'm glad that Pandora's box has been opened, finally. Remember when VLC was about 4.6 MB ? That's was about 6-7 years ago when was nothing except WMP, MPC, BS.Player and the infamous codec pack that we all know. VideoLan was great because of his partfile eMule plugin (it was the only media player capable to preview eMule temp files) that's why the huge popularity. With time, VLC transformed into a bloated, full with bugs media player. Leave it and search for an alternative; there is a lot of good, free stuff floating around the web like PotPlayer, KMPlayer, MPC-HC, MPlayer WW, SPlayer, Light Alloy, Zoom Player, SMPlayer, UMPlayer, RealPlayer Mini etc.... Yeah, it's in DESPERATE need of a rewrite. Like most projects, with progressive changes and modifications, the code base is all kinds of ****ed up >.< It could be a brilliant player again, they have the expertise to really nail it. Their x264 codec is one of the best you will ever see, just a pity it shows so poorly on screen >.< EDIT:: For those that are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Foundation Benefits over DirectShowMedia Foundation offers the following benefits: Is scalable for high-definition content and DRM-protected content. Allows DirectX Video Acceleration to be used outside of the DirectShow infrastructure. DXVA 2.0 is available to user-mode components without using the DirectShow video renderer. Provides better resilience to CPU, I/O, and memory stress for low-latency glitch-free playback of audio and video. Video tearing has been minimized. The improved video processing support also enables high color spaces and enhanced full-screen playback. Enhanced video renderer (EVR) which is also available for DirectShow, offers better timing support and improved video processing. Media Foundation extensibility enables different content protection systems to operate together. Media Foundation uses the Multimedia Class Scheduler Service (MMCSS), a new system service in Windows Vista, Windows 7 & Windows 8. MMCSS enables multimedia applications to ensure that their time-sensitive processing receives prioritized access to CPU resources. [edit]Application support Media Foundation, for this initial release in Windows Vista and later release in Windows 7 & Windows 8, finds use in media playback applications. Until now, mainly internal or bundled Windows services and applications are using Media Foundation. Windows Media Player 11 in Windows Vista relies on Media Foundation for playing ASF (WMA and WMV) content and protected content, but can also use DirectShow or the Windows Media Format SDK instead. In the case of WMV9 playback, this also implies using DXVA 2.0 instead of DXVA 1.0 when the video hardware supports WMV9/VC-1 decoding acceleration. Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7. Windows Media Player in Windows 8. Windows Media Center in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and later. Any application that uses Windows Protected Media Path (PMP), relies completely on Media Foundation. The updated Home Cinema fork of Media Player Classic supports EVR. GoldWave 5.60 and later relies on Media Foundation for importing and exporting audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 funkydude Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 That's great and all but until WMP can play my mkv files natively I'll stick to MPC-HC. (Hopefully with Windows 8?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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htcz
In a strange glitch, video quality in VLC is way lower than in WMP. I can only describe it as the edges of letters in a picture being jaggy or something. Why is this?
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