[H-GEN] dvd reccomendations?

[Paul Gearon]

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On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Tony Nugent wrote:

> If you have a video card with tv-out, then big bonus! -- if you have
> the tv-out working with linux (the nvidia drivers can do this), then
> you will have a way to play dvd movies on your computer and watch
> them on your tv (or record them on your vcr).  (Unlike the windows
> players, they refuse to play dvds if tv-out is enabled - linux
> doesn't give a... care :-)

Yes, Linux is a LOT nicer about things like CSS, Macrovision, etc, but I
don't understand what you mean about not being able to use Windows to
watch DVDs through the TV-out on your computer.  Until getting a component
player I always plugged my TV into my PC to watch DVDs, and back then it
wasn't possible to use Linux to view DVDs.  I've done this with both
nVidia and Matrox cards, and I've seen other people do it with other
brands.  It's marketted one of the main reasons for getting TV out on your
video card!

One of the (several) reasons nVidia haven't open sourced their video
drivers, and Matrox have only open sourced some of it, is because they
can't give away the details on the registers that control Macrovision.
If they did that then anyone could turn macrovision off and the video card
manufacturers would get into all sorts of licensing troubles.  (though now
that ripping is so easy, why anyone would want to tape a DVD onto VHS is
beyond me)

I'm only going on about playing DVDs onto your television under Windows
because I still find that the best players are under Windows.  I'm a big
fan of MPlayer, but I've found that some motion has issues, and Xine is
MUCH worse (after you've jumped through the hundred obstacles to get DeCSS
into Xine that is).  Anyway, if you find that you can't play a DVD with TV
out enabled, then I'd try and figure out what is wrong, because it ain't
supposed to be that way.

Regards,
Paul


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