Improve DVD Quality on Mac Mini?

Hello,
I just purchased a brand-new Mac Mini from my local Apple Store. My goal is to get it all set up as a media center.
OK, I hoked it up to my 42" Sony Bravia via the HDMI cable, and it works just like a computer monitor. Excellent!
But I am wondering if there's a way to improve the quality of the DVD play.
When I put the DVD in the drive, it is really easy to start playing through the DVD Player app (which comes with OS X). However, I'm noticing that the video playback is not as "smooth" as it would be through a DVD player hooked directly to the TV set. Some scenes where there is action look just a bit choppy.
Are there settings I could play with to improve this?
Also, does anyone have suggestions for better DVD-playing software?
Thanks,
Matthew

mattschenker wrote:
Hello,
I just purchased a brand-new Mac Mini from my local Apple Store. My goal is to get it all set up as a media center.
OK, I hoked it up to my 42" Sony Bravia via the HDMI cable, and it works just like a computer monitor. Excellent!
But I am wondering if there's a way to improve the quality of the DVD play.
When I put the DVD in the drive, it is really easy to start playing through the DVD Player app (which comes with OS X). However, I'm noticing that the video playback is not as "smooth" as it would be through a DVD player hooked directly to the TV set. Some scenes where there is action look just a bit choppy.
Are there settings I could play with to improve this?
Also, does anyone have suggestions for better DVD-playing software?
In terms of DVD playing software for the Mac, there is -
Apple DVD Player
Front Row
VLC
XBMC
However an area you might want to investigate is the display refresh rate your Mac mini is using to talk to your Sony TV. DVDs come with one of three refresh rates, these are -
24 frames per second (or 23.976), this is what movies are filmed at and is also used on some NTSC DVDs
30 frames per second (or 29.97), this is what NTSC TV broadcasts use, and is also used on many NTSC DVDs
25 frames per second, this is what PAL TV broadcasts and all PAL DVDs use.
If you are playing a 24fps DVD on a TV running at 30fps, then this mis-match can result in the image appearing to jerk slightly every second or so. Similarly for other mis-matched refresh rates. Newer higher end TVs including most newer Bravias can run at all three of these rates, however your Mac mini video card needs to be configured to the appropriate settings which is not always easy. Furthermore, some of your DVDs might be at one refresh rate and some at a different one meaning you would have to keep changing. Dedicated hardware DVD players might do this automatically.
Some software like XBMC can automatically do this refreshrate switching, but possibly only for Linux or Windows. This is an area that is currently not well served on the Mac.
PS. A disappointingly large number of NTSC 30fps DVDs have errors in them such that the pattern (order) of frames is messed up. The process of converting a film from 24fps to a video (on a DVD) at 30fps is called 'Telecine'. If after this conversion, the video is then edited, this breaks the conversion pattern so the sequence of frames is disrupted resulting in jaggy images every five frames. The process of converting back from 30fps to 24fps is called inverse-telecine. This sort of error is easiest to see when single-stepping through frames one at a time.

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