Need DVD Player help

[jtvang125]

Originally posted by: giantpinkbunnyhead
Hmm... after looking around, I've yet to find an HD-DVD player that cranks out 1080p. THey also only upconvert to 1080i/720p or spit out the HD DVD itself at 1080i. I thought for sure the HDDVD players would be 1080p capable?

I believe later on it will start supporting 1080p but all players currently are only 1080i. I doubt most people can tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p on the same display.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Approximately how close is an upconverted-to-1080i image from a standard DVD to a true HD-DVD image?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: giantpinkbunnyhead
Approximately how close is an upconverted-to-1080i image from a standard DVD to a true HD-DVD image?

I don't have a blu-ray or HD-DVD player yet, but I can say that on my Samsung 1080p DLP, its own upconverting of the 480i signal from my old Sony DVD lookedpretty good.

Upconverting inside the DVD player will look a little better (at least on a good one like a $1xx Sony or Samsung) because it has access to the raw digital data instead of an analog 480i signal, but I could easily have lived with the picture from TV-upconverted 480i.

So using a plain DVD player or cheap upconverting one might make good sense while you wait to see whether HD-DVD or blu-ray wins.

If Sony execs cut back on the binge drinking and sober up long enough to fix blu-ray mastering and get the PS3 back on track blu-ray could still win.

If you must get HD-DVD you might want to use Netflix to rent discs instead of buying.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Hmm, good points. The nice thing is that my TV won't be here for a few weeks so I have the luxury of time on my side. I can get this figured out within that time.

 

[jcgrcm]

Not close at all. I have a couple of upscaling DVD players and the image quality difference between 480p/720p/1080i is barely perceptable. It mostly depends on whether the scaler in the DVD player is better or worse than the one in the TV.

Remember that no matter what the resolution you feed an lcd, plasma, or dlp based tv or projector, the display will scale to it's native resolution since it has a fixed number of pixels. So feeding a 1080i or 1080p signal to a display that has only 768 or 480 scanlines will result in it being downscaled again anyway.

For standard DVD, the key thing is the quality of the deinterlacer and even the output devices. I would generally stick to the better players like the before mentioned Oppo, the Panasonic S-97/S-77, or the better Denon models.

The other option is to use your PC, the quality of the deinterlacer available with an ATI x1000 series is supposed to surpase even the best standalone DVD players. Check out the article on firingsquad.com where they covered that; at the end of last year ATI released with their cat drivers an update that greatly improved their deinterlacing. It would also give you a chance to see how much of a difference that upscaling makes.

 

[randay]

Thats gotta be the dumbest term that someones come up with in a while.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Originally posted by: jcgrcm
Not close at all. I have a couple of upscaling DVD players and the image quality difference between 480p/720p/1080i is barely perceptable. It mostly depends on whether the scaler in the DVD player is better or worse than the one in the TV.

Remember that no matter what the resolution you feed an lcd, plasma, or dlp based tv or projector, the display will scale to it's native resolution since it has a fixed number of pixels. So feeding a 1080i or 1080p signal to a display that has only 768 or 480 scanlines will result in it being downscaled again anyway.

For standard DVD, the key thing is the quality of the deinterlacer and even the output devices. I would generally stick to the better players like the before mentioned Oppo, the Panasonic S-97/S-77, or the better Denon models.

The other option is to use your PC, the quality of the deinterlacer available with an ATI x1000 series is supposed to surpase even the best standalone DVD players. Check out the article on firingsquad.com where they covered that; at the end of last year ATI released with their cat drivers an update that greatly improved their deinterlacing. It would also give you a chance to see how much of a difference that upscaling makes.

So when we talk of native resolution... is that the TV's max capability? For instance... mine will do 1080p or 1920x1080. so if a DVD player upconverts a movie to 1080p and sends it to my TV..... the TV should leave the singal alone, yes?

What happens if my player only upconverts to 1080i? Will the TV further up it to 1080p? If I don't even use an upconverting DVD player... will the TV do the same thing?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: jtvang125

Originally posted by: giantpinkbunnyhead
Hmm... after looking around, I've yet to find an HD-DVD player that cranks out 1080p. THey also only upconvert to 1080i/720p or spit out the HD DVD itself at 1080i. I thought for sure the HDDVD players would be 1080p capable?

I believe later on it will start supporting 1080p but all players currently are only 1080i. I doubt most people can tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p on the same display.

Link

Toshiba's HD DVD press conference at CEDIA 2006 just ended and the first big news is out. It appears we will be getting the same players announced in Europe recently, named the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, this fall. They both feature the new slim design -- hopefully a sign of dedicated hardware as opposed to the stripped-down laptop that made up the HD-A1 -- and the XA2 will feature an HDMI 1.3 output with 1080p. The A2 will start shipping in October for a price of $499, while the HD-XA2 will debut in December with a price-tag of $999. No other specifics were available, but we would not be surprised if the HD-A2 matched its European cousin in losing the analog 5.1 output present on current HD-A1s.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: giantpinkbunnyhead

Originally posted by: jcgrcm
Not close at all. I have a couple of upscaling DVD players and the image quality difference between 480p/720p/1080i is barely perceptable. It mostly depends on whether the scaler in the DVD player is better or worse than the one in the TV.

Remember that no matter what the resolution you feed an lcd, plasma, or dlp based tv or projector, the display will scale to it's native resolution since it has a fixed number of pixels. So feeding a 1080i or 1080p signal to a display that has only 768 or 480 scanlines will result in it being downscaled again anyway.

For standard DVD, the key thing is the quality of the deinterlacer and even the output devices. I would generally stick to the better players like the before mentioned Oppo, the Panasonic S-97/S-77, or the better Denon models.

The other option is to use your PC, the quality of the deinterlacer available with an ATI x1000 series is supposed to surpase even the best standalone DVD players. Check out the article on firingsquad.com where they covered that; at the end of last year ATI released with their cat drivers an update that greatly improved their deinterlacing. It would also give you a chance to see how much of a difference that upscaling makes.

So when we talk of native resolution... is that the TV's max capability? For instance... mine will do 1080p or 1920x1080. so if a DVD player upconverts a movie to 1080p and sends it to my TV..... the TV should leave the singal alone, yes?

What happens if my player only upconverts to 1080i? Will the TV further up it to 1080p? If I don't even use an upconverting DVD player... will the TV do the same thing?

You will be looking at a 1080p output no matter what the input is on that TV.

If it gets a 1080i signal, it will end up being converted to 1080p by the TV.

I wish I could tell you for sure that if it gets a 1080p signal it will keep it 1080p, but I think some 1080p models in the past have managed to fvck that up and even if they get 1080p, they will convert that to 1080i and then back to 1080p. I haven't actually paid close attention to the issues as I've kind of turned into a front projection guy.

You might want to look if there's a thread on AVSforum about your specific model to make sure it doesn't mess up 1080p input.