Best quality player for DVDs?

I've always found the DVD player built into OS X to be of decent quality, but I'm not picky in that regard. You can use other programs to play DVDs–Mplayer and VLC come to mind–but it comes down to personal preference in the end.

estutmirleid said:

Hi,

Not having owned many DVD players in my time, I was wondering if anyone could tell me whether the DVD Player.app with Mountain Lion is actually of comparable quality to a decent DVD player? Are there any DVD player applications for the Mac that have been shown to offer higher-quality video playback?

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OS X's DVD Player plays DVDs and .iso disc images of DVDs. A DVD player app has to play the video and audio of a DVD. It cannot brush your teeth. It cannot cook your breakfast. In the case of DVD Player, it displays DVD video with no visible pixelation on my 23" Apple Cinema Display. My TOSLINK-connected Logitech 5.1 audio system handles the audio with aplomb. What more can you ask for?

DVD is 720 x 480p, hardly hi-res but perfectly good for most viewing. Any upconverting DVD player is smoke and mirrors.

I'm sure this is also not helpful, but Optical media is dying.

You could try running your DVD's through Handbrake and see if you can tweak the interpolation to something that's pleasing. That said a 27" iMac display will show off just how dated 480p source material is no matter what, there's just not enough data in the original image.

Go back a few years and folks were asking the same thing about VHS and how lousy it looks when digitized.

estutmirleid said:

Hi,

Not having owned many DVD players in my time, I was wondering if anyone could tell me whether the DVD Player.app with Mountain Lion is actually of comparable quality to a decent DVD player? Are there any DVD player applications for the Mac that have been shown to offer higher-quality video playback?

Click to expand...

If you are talking about software - there are many players and some have features others do not. The dvd.app is a fine player for the computer screen. Also VLC, mplayer for Mac, Plex, XBMC, and a couple of others.

Unfortunately, some people consider just resolution to be the issue/solution when there are other facets to include such as some dvd material that is not progressive and requires some adjustments to view without the break up zigzags etc. VLC as example does this well enough and so does PLEX and XBMC.

If you are planning to use your Mac with a TV, I suggest you look at PLEX and XBMC. They both offer some additional tweaks as well as a nice interface. Both are free software.

Btw, it will be years before media discs are entirely obsolete (if at all). Those that suggest its early demise are just silly. Given that millions of DVD and Blu ray are sold and rented the facts suggest that while companies are pushing streaming, the disc is still here to stay for a few years at minimum.