DVD Ghosting On Vista

I recently noticed prominent ghosting on my Dell FPW2405, while, watching The Rock on my Vista (Home Premium) box. I hadn't watched a DVD on my PC in a while and I kept second-guessing myself as to whether it was a problem that already existed (with the display) or whether it was something new that I hadn't noticed until now. I was using a Sapphire ATI Radeon x1950 Pro graphics card.

After some cursory research, I came to the conclusion that my Dell FPW2405 was to blame. Strangely enough I didn't have any ghosting on the copious amounts of TV series I watch on a regular basis. Hmmm. I didn't know what was going on and decided to buy a new monitor when the time and price was right.

I recently stumbled across this post which alluded to a fix for problem I was having. After a quick registry hack, I noticed almost a 90% reduction in ghosting while watching DVDs! :) I have since installed the latest ATI drivers and catalyst centre for the graphics card and everything is still working very well!

In summary all you need to do is:

1. Launch regedit
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video. There should be a many subfolders beneath this key which have a "0000" subkey. Find the subkey that had child folders (expandable) and browse to 0000\UMD\DXVA.
3. Right-click on the view pane and choose New->String value and create the key values below:

TRDenoise = 0
DXVA_DetailEnhance = 0

4. Restart your computer.

If you have a copy of The Rock , have a look @ the first 10 minutes of the movie where the commandos break into the army artillery. There should be severe ghosting before the fix.