Video quality looks bad in monitor compared to tv?

nmwido

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Nov 2, 2012
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So I was watching this movie, it was a .avi format, if it matters. I put it on a USB then plugged it on my 32" TV so the built-in player can run it and I can watch it in my room. It's a 720p quality, and it was really smooth. I had zero problems aside from the lack of subtitle option.

I then tried to watch the movie again on my computer with a 21.5" monitor using VLC player. And the quality difference is quite relative when I switch it to full screen. I can't really put the description into words but it's so bad that I feel like I'm watching a 240 or 360p video.

It can't be my graphics card since I'm on a Radeon HD 7950. It can't be my CPU either since it's an i7-3770k. And even if for some reason it's using onboard graphics, it still shouldnt be that bad since the 3770K's iGPU is an HD4000.

Any thoughts please?
 
More than likely your laptop has a better screen .... in other words, greater than 720p resolution and when you stretch to full screen, the interpolation makes it look crappy .... which is expected. Try watching the movie in windowed mode at the 720 resolution
 

_kaos_

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Nov 20, 2012
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^+1
Also, you watch the TV over a larger distance than a computer monitor
Since you are watching TV from a distance your eyes cannot distinguish between individual pixels(despite the low ppi) which gives the illusion that the picture is much smoother
 

nmwido

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Yeah but... isn't my monitor's size wasted by playing the video on windowed mode? :(
And yes, I've tried it on windowed mode and it looks fine. I don't get why the monitor can't do it on full screen though while the tv can.

The TV btw, when I bought it, it was advertised as full HD 1080p, so both tv and monitor should have a native 1080p?

@_kaos_ - That sounds plausible, but should the diffference be really this big? :/
 
the difference due to interpolation can definitely be a noticible difference.

there is less of a difference when dealing with even multiples than odd multiples and less of a difference when using the same aspect ratio then stretching or zooming to fit/fill a different ratio.

are you sure your monitor is 1080p? not all are. if you are sure both are the same then perhaps something else is going on. interpolation is just the most common issue but there are other issues which can be an issue.
 

_kaos_

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I believe this depends on a variety of factors like the resolution of the video, native resolution of the display, the viewing distance, color depth etc. But I am not an expert...

I suggest you experiment:
Try getting a video/image having the exact resolution as your computer monitor.
Also get the same video/image in exact resolution as your TV monitor.
Play that video/image full screen (don't use those those video options like strech to fit, crop etc.) on your PC and TV.
Watch the video/image from the "same" distance.
If possible, place the TV and monitor side by side so that you can compare them easily.