Sage DVD Player......Best or OK ?

[Fluffdaddy]

Hi Guys

Had my HTPC for 6 months now and Finally I have the time to play with an tweak my HTPC and 57" DLP.

I Have my DVE an tweaked the PQ the best I could with that. Now I need to know if the DVD player that comes with Sage 2.0 is as good as the 3rd party software. Powerdvd, TheaterTek WinDVD6. Are they so much better that it's worth buying. Bang for my buck is what I'm asking.

And what's this FFDshow ? The more I read the more I don't know

Thx

[Fluffdaddy]

Just found this link.
Nice little review on FFDshow. So even I can understand

http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1

[stanger89]

First, it's important to separate the Player's interface from it's decoders. Both are important, but if you look at Theatertek and Zoomplayer (two very popular packages) neither have their own decoders, with TT you are supplied Sonic Cineplayer decoders (and it only works with them), with ZP you supply your own (Sage is the same way), PDVD, WinDVD, etc, obviously supply their own decoders.

Both are important, but when including apps like Sage, ZP, and TT (since it's decoders are available separately), I would say consider the UI, and decoders separately.

Interface:
This is largely dependent on your needs and/or goals.
From an HTPC user perspective (usage by remote from couch):
1) Theatertek - hard to argue, it has an exceptional full-screen UI
2) Sage - not quite the refinement, but very useful full-screen UI (this is what I use)
3) Zoomplayer - Poor fullscreen UI, but the UI can be gotten out of the way
4) Everything else - they're all designed for PC use, and as such have horid fullscreen interface, not terribly remote friendly.

From a configurability standpoint:
1) Zoomplayer - if it's adjustable, you can change it
2) Sage - your choice of decoders, renderers, ffdshow, 4 AR settings
3) TT - great AR adjustments, bookmarks, ffdshow
20+) The rest - generally locked down pretty tight.

On to decoders, the other half of the DVD Player equation. Not nearly as easy to pin down, everybody seems to have their own favorite, so this is my opinion mixed with a bit of what I've gathered reading here and AVS:
1) nVidia Forceware Multimedia aka nVDVD 3 - the decoder for the upcomming TT 2.0 (a high honor if you're familiar with TT), also has many glowing user accounts, easy to configure in external players (Sage), and one of my 2 favorites.
2) Sonic Cineplayer - used by TT 1.5, been a HTPC favorite for a long time, my other favorite, also easy to configure
3) WinDVD 5/6 - Some have reported it to be better than CP, v6 adds Trimention DNM (love it or hate it), requires reg-diving+trial and error to configure
4) Elecard - Some report it looks better than WinDVD/CP, but no CSS support so must decrypt DVDs to use it
5) PowerDVD - Comes free with everything, but I have yet to see anyone prefer it, doesn't work with VMR9

Now, Sage being a choose your own decoders app, you're free to pick the decoders you like best. Given that, by pairing Sage with Sonic Cineplayer decoders (currently the best value at $15 for the decoder pack) you should get PQ equivalent to that of Theatertek (same decoders). If you don't have any DVD decoders, this would be my recommendation until the Forceware decoders are released. If you already have some decoders then I'd think about waiting for the Forceware release (I'm actually pondering buying TT 2 just to get the Forceware Decoders).

As for what I use currently, I use nVDVD 3 + ffdshow for my Sage recordings and Sonic Cineplayer in DXVA mode (with my Radeon 9500) for DVDs.

[Fluffdaddy]

Thanks for spending the time an posting. At $15 I think I will give Sonic Cineplayer decoders a try an use with Sage. and wait for TT 2

the guys over at AVSforums are talking about TT 2.......Like it's going to be a big leep for Htpc dvd playback also.

[stanger89]

Yeah, it does sound like it will be a very nice program, but about the only thing it will gain you over Sage is the WMV support. Sage already plays standard media, HDTV (not great mind you), DVDs, and it can use the same decoders so there should be no PQ difference. I guess from my perspective it won't gain me anything worth abandoning my unified Sage interface.