DVD Playback

Performance

ATI won the support of many OEMs a few years ago with their Rage Pro graphics technology which was one of the first graphics adapters to offer motion compensation which offloaded the MPEG-2 processing burden from the host CPU. The Rage128 continues the ATI tradition of DVD playback with a full complement of DVD performance and quality features.

The All-in-Wonder 128 includes Motion Compensation, which offloads the bulk of processing burden required by the host CPU for MPEG-2/DVD decompression, similar to the S3 Savage2000 and NVIDIA GeForce256, and the Rage 128 includes hardware iDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform), which frees the CPU load by a few more percent which offloads anywhere from 5-15% of the CPU burden. On a 450MHz system, DVD playback usually requires less than 25% of the CPU power. Neither the Marvel G400-TV nor the V3 3500 TV offer either type of hardware acceleration.

Quality

The All-in-Wonder 128 offers high quality 4-tap horizontal and vertical filter and is able to upscale even anamorphic DVD titles without any slowdown or significant visual degradation. The G400, for example, only offers a 3x5 video scalar. The full-screen video has excellent color saturation on the monitor, and provides an excellent "dorm-theater" experience when combined with a good set of speakers. Videophiles may want to take note that the downcoversion of the Rage128 is unfortunately not as impressive as its upscaling quality and so it's best to stay at resolutions higher than the DVD's native 720x480.

Additionally, the All-in-Wonder 128 offers support for alpha-blended sub-picture display, which is also shared by the Marvel G400-TV. Whereas subtitles and DVD menus on the V3 3500 TV are reproduced with heavy dithering, the All-in-Wonder 128 offers multiple levels of transparency for the same effects as stand-alone DVD players. Hardware sub-picture blending is not only limited to subtitles but is also extremely important for displaying the buttons found on the numerous navigation menus found on DVD accurately.

The bundled ATI DVD Player is based on the same Cinemaster technology as Matrox's player which means that you'll get top-quality DVD support. Whereas many other software DVD technologies have had trouble playing The Matrix on DVD, the ATI player had no problems. Unfortunately, digital S/PDIF output for the audio is not yet supported.