You Can Still Use VLC to Play DVDs in Windows 8 for Free

By Nazmus Shakib Khandaker
in Microsoft (Windows)

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Neowinian

JOHNIELb

Posted
Posted

I'm quite sure many OEM's will include the necessary codecs for you anyway. Anyone who doesn't buy an OEM-PC will be smart enough to install a proper video player themselves.

I know that Toshiba does. My Toshiba laptop has their DVD laptop

Contributor

WaveZero

Posted
Posted
SK[' timestamp=1336245621' post='594847075]

Or install VLC and have an awesome player that will never fail you!

If it works for you, then by all means use it. I was just trying to state the facts, but didn't have enough time to explain why. But VLC is open source and I respect that =)

VLC plays everything, but VLC plays a lot of things badly. It screws up the luma range quite often, which makes blacks look gray. It does a crappy job at upscaling or downscaling content. Doesn't matter very much on DVD-like content, but when watching 720p or BluRay content the difference isn't hard to see.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema with MadVR is the best quality you can possibly get for playback. If your PC can't handle MadVR (it requires some power) then you'd be best off with Haali renderer. Very efficient and still good quality, better than you'll ever get with VLC.

Seriously, just Google "VLC vs MPC" and you'll see tons of examples that show how VLC messes up files all the time.

This one for example: https://forums.playf...8607c5800bfe1e3

You can see how blacks turn gray in VLC, and how whites (look at the clouds) get less bright. This results in a loss of contrast, and VLC does it on a lot of videos.

Then we have this one: http://i90.photobuck...tdizzle/2-2.png

It's not hard to see that about every single line in the image lost a lot of sharpness, and that's because VLC is utter crap at upscaling or downscaling video. In MPC-HC it depends on what renderer you use, but even with the default settings it'll look a lot better than it ever does in VLC.

VLC fails me all the time. It's slow and it's quality sucks. MPC-HC plays about everything and is a lot more stable. The only thing MPC-HC doesn't do as well as VLC is streaming. But I can't imagine many people using that a lot.

Exactly, also has trouble decoding 10bit video files, plus doesn't work very well when using it with mini H.264 videos from what I notice. VLC scaling isn't all that great, I did do a comparison a few months ago, but didn't do VLC but I bet the quality wouldn't be up to scratch as these other decoders.

Comparison:

From what I noticed CCCP (FFDShow), CoreAVC and MadVR are almost same in terms of quality, if you are outputting the file at its native video file resolution. As seen here:

Hi10P 720p Heaven's Lost Property - CCCP vs MadVR:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101595

Hi10P 720p Heaven's Lost Property - CCCP vs CoreAVC:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101598

Hi10P 720p Heaven's Lost Property - CoreAVC vs MadVR:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101601

For the 480p to 720p upscale you can notice a slight difference with MadVR (more sharper) and while CCCP and CoreAVC looks the same.

480p Durarara!! - CCCP vs MadVR:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101602

480p Durarara!! - CCCP vs CoreAVC:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101603

480p Durarara!! - CoreAVC vs MadVR:

http://screenshotcom...mparison/101604

Keep in mind that these are default settings, straight from installation. If you tinker with the settings in CCCP and MadVR I'm sure you could get better quality. Not sure about CoreAVC.

Media Player Classic is the way to go.

EDIT: VLC might be a good idea for Linux, but for Windows... no, thats like arguing that Open Office is better then MS Office 2010.

CCCP does the same thing as LAV, just LAV gets updated more often; installing both is dumb practice.

MadVR is fully irrelevant to any normal person. EVR:CP is the way to go.

MavVR requires more CPU and GPU power and is just a bad idea on W8 tablets.

It also makes no sense to advise "LAV filters, or MadVR" considering that one is a performance destroying renderer (MadVR) while the other is a collection of AV codecs and a splitter (LAV).

Lol I never said anything about tablets, and I don't recall this thread being all about tablets (Was strictly speaking quality and performance wise). But I can definitely see your point, I prefer FFDShow filters over LAV but from what I heard LAV are apparently better. But nothing tops MadVR IMO, though I don't use it as my main decoder, I currently use CoreAVC (but that costs money) it uses less CPU usage while playing back 8bit video files, but playing back 10bit (or some people call it Hi10p) it actually uses more CPU usage compared to other decoders. Also VLC isn't that much of a good idea for linux, MPlayer2 is a lot better if you want the best quality.

So because I'm a quality freak and like to use MadVR I'm not a normal person :p ? MadVR runs just fine on my laptop, the only downside is it drains the battery in half an hour. Haali still beats EVR:CP in my opinion. But EVR:CP isn't too bad and is probably the way to go for most people.

Lol I don't see the point of running it while on battery, since quality gains from up-scaling DVDs would be quite minimal considering the battery life you get. Try using CoreAVC, very light on CPU (assuming you're not playing 10bit videos of course).

Anyways here is the irony, CCCP, MadVR and I think CoreAVC, they can't play DVD from my understanding ROFL!!

Veteran

Wakers

Posted
Posted

Really not many people use Media Center as a well..Media Center.

Some people here seem to complain that the average user won't know what VLC is or how to use a third party program to play DVDs, and then go on to say that these people will be upset because they have to pay for Media Center? No, they won't even know it exists.

The only people who use Media Center are power users, and a lot of power users don't use Media Center because of it's inherent flaws.

Grand Master

Growled Member

Posted
  • Member
Posted

VLC is utter crap, use MPC-HC with CCCP, LAV filters, or MadVR and you have yourself an awesome player that will never fail you!

Yeah, I would never use VLC. I also agree that Media Player Classic is the way to go.

Mentor

SharpGreen

Posted
Posted

So MS ships VLC with windows now? I didn't think so.

The point is not that third party apps exist to watch DVDs, the point is (at least for me) is that I shouldn't have to go dig up third party apps to do something other OSes do out of the box.

Mentor

ArialBlue

Posted
Posted

So MS ships VLC with windows now? I didn't think so.

The point is not that third party apps exist to watch DVDs, the point is (at least for me) is that I shouldn't have to go dig up third party apps to do something other OSes do out of the box.

Ain't the point is that phasing out old technologies in favor of new ones is a good thing - DVD is a dead end.

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

So MS ships VLC with windows now? I didn't think so.

The point is not that third party apps exist to watch DVDs, the point is (at least for me) is that I shouldn't have to go dig up third party apps to do something other OSes do out of the box.

the point is OEMs already include 3rd party DVD playback software that's usually better than WMP anyway

and no, most other OSs don't play DVDs out-of-the-box. OSX will be the last one after Windows 8 RTMs

so the point is, you're not holding up a very strong point for most people unless you/they are building a custom tower

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

Strange to see you guys are able to play DVDs on the consumer preview's Media Center. My Media center is reporting codec errors...

maybe they did an upgrade from windows 7 and not a clean install of the CP?
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