Slide show low picture quality, pictures look unsharp

[Selti]

I'd like to use the MCE Slide show function to view my digital photos. But if
I compare the displayed quality with other slide show programs or picture
viewers on the same PC, the MCE picture quality is much worse than in the
other programs.

My pictures files are in perfect 3072x2048 JPEG quality from a digital SLR,
the monitor is a 24" 1920x1200 DELL Ultrasharp LCD connected via DVI and the
graphics mode is true 1920x1200, so there is no scaling or something similar
happening in the monitor.

The sharpness of the Windows desktop is absolutely immaculate and the MCE is
configured to use the 1920x1200 resolution, too. The MCE menu screens look
perfect, only the displayed photos in the slide shows are somewhat unsharp.
The problem occurs with and without the MCE Slide show animation function.

Is it possible that the MCE reduces the picture resolution for viewing? But
why should it do this? Or are the algorithms for the scaling from 3072x2048
to 1920x1200 not good enough? But even the Windows JPEG preview in the
explorer displays the same pictures sharp and clear.

Any hint how to fix the problem would help. Any freeware viewer shows my
pictures with much better quality than the MCE at the moment:-(

Selti

[rjory]

I don't really have an answer for you but on a side note, how is the Dell 24"
monitor. Is it as clear as a 20". I was thinking of getting a 34 or 30.

I use an HD 1080i for my slides and they look pretty good. Adobe PhotoShop
Elements 4 also has an MCE interface and slide show that is accessed through
the more programs after installation. I think it is better then Microsoft as
usual.
--
MCE 2005 PC HP Vectra, 400GB HD, 384MB Ram, ATI 9600 Video, Media Player 10,
Xbox 360 connected, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX external

[RalfG]

The images have to be scaled to 1920x1200 in the software or else they'd
scroll off of the screen. Your screen resolution is an absolute value 1920
pixels by 1200 pixels, no more, so without scaling only part of the whole
image could be displayed. One way or another the excess pixels have to be
disposed of in order to display 3072x2048 images in full screen. There are
different ways of doing that and the quality of the finished image varies. I
just did a quick comparison on my own monitor and I have to agree with you
that the picture quality is noticeably lower in MCE. Less sharp and more
bright are two very obvious differences.

I was going to suggest that your best bet is to archive the images in their
original resolutions and resize the collection on harddrive, or CD/DVD, to
1920x1200 for display on your monitor. Software like Irfanview which has
batch conversion capability eliminates most of the tedium, and time, from
the process. Unfortunately when I did a test conversion just now it didn't
make any difference in MCE. The image quality when viewed in MCE was
degraded even with the picture resized to match the LCD screen. Whatever MCE
is doing to the images before displaying them it isn't just limited to
scaling and it isn't very well done either. I suspect that it is related to
the intent to display the pictures on low resolution (approx. 640x480
interlaced) CRT televisions and a trade off in image quality on monitors is
the result.

"Selti" <Se...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:68A61B51-44C5-45A0...@microsoft.com...

[Tom Scales]

I suspect the real problem is that MCE isn't using the full 1920x1200. It's
scaled back to something crappy.
"RalfG" <g...@whiz.com> wrote in message
news:O0U3S%23yhGH...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[RalfG]

It seems to be just the same at 1280x1024, which is what my LCD is. Looks
fine on the TV though. Even scaled back there's no reason that the images
shouldn't look respectable on the LCD.. other software can do it down to
quite a lot lower resolutions.

I noticed a while ago that if I set up MCE for display on my TV over
S-Video, which is where I normally run it, and then drag MC over to the LCD
and maximize, the MC interface looks absolutely awful. Much worse than the
pictures do. MC doesn't automatically adjust itself to match the display
resolution. I have to either run MC in a window or resize it in its settings
to 1280x1024 to make the interface look crisp and sharp on the monitor.

"Tom Scales" <tjsc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Wkkgg.16641$cB3....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...

[Selti]

Hi ppl,
thank you very much for the comments and for the tests. It was clear, that
one scaling step must occur (from 3072x2048 to 1920x1200). All programs that
I have tested can do this with excellent quality. Only MCE can't. It looks
like MCE is scaling down to something much lower than 1920 x 1200 and then up
again. So it seems to me that MCE has a real problem there. I think when more
and more hi-res monitors find their way into the living rooms of the
customers, Microsoft has to fix this.
Until then using a plugin like Adobe Photoshop Elements will be tho only
solution. I'm downloading the trial at the moment...

Rjory:
Yes, the Dell 24" is excellent. High resolution, very brilliant colors and
reasonable price. I love it. You think of a 30" model? I saw the Dell 30" at
a show some weeks ago. Very very nice, but you need a dual link DVI card to
use the full 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA) resolution.
34"? is there a real computer display (not a TV) with a resolution at least
like the 30" Dell on the market? I didn't find one. And the LCD-TVs have only
1920 x 1080 or even 1366 x 768. A bit too low for my Digital SLR pics.

Regards
Selti