Progressive scan DVD player needed?

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Auric
Most DVD's are progressive so interlacing the output is one conversion and de-interlacing the input is another. TV's can have excellent de-interlacers but everything being equal the ideal is maintaining progressive.

I believe that actually DVD material is interlaced. The player creates progressive scan output by creating the frames from the pairs of interlaced fields and recreates an emulation of the original 24fps film. Here is a nice article on how progressive scan output is built from the interlaced material on the DVD. Link

 

[zephyrprime]

Since this is an LCD projectori, isn't it impossible for it to be anything but progressive? After all, and LCD doesn't scan like a CRT. That is to say, isn't an LCD intrinsicly a de-interlacer?

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: TheVoid

Originally posted by: Rio Rebel

Originally posted by: Concillian
All I can say is that my friend got an HDTV and has like a $300 DVD player. After we set up his TV, we were watching a DVD (Ronin) and turning on and off progressive scan.

We were saying things like 'over there... I think there's a difference over there' and 'Freeze it maybe we can see the difference better'

Yeah, I wouldn't knock myself out over progressive scan.

Some people might not care about the difference between 480i and 480p. But I can tell you one thing with certainty: if you don't think there is a significant difference between 480i and 480p, there's no way in hell you should be spending your money on an HDTV.

The difference between 480i and 480p is much greater than the difference between 480p and 1080i or 720p. If you can't see that, then don't throw away money on a high definition tv.

There is a big difference between 480i and 480p. But you seem to think that you HAVE to get a progressive scan DVD player to view a progressive, 480p image on an HDTV. Most TVs have built in deinterlacers that will convert a 480i signal to 480p. A cheap progressive scan player usually looks worse than using the TV's deinterlacer. Of course this depends on the TV and the DVD player being used. My point is that just because a DVD player is progressive scan, doesn't mean it will be an improvement. Basically, the salesman was right in this case. Almost any progressive scan DVD player you can buy at stores like Best Buy will not show any improvement over a good 480i player with the TV doing the deinterlacing.

I wouldn't bother getting a progressive scan player unless you get one with a Faroudja or Silicon Image deinterlacer. I have a 51" 16x9 Hitachi Rear projection(51S700) and cheaper DVD players actually looked worse when I ran them in progressive mode. The first DVD player to show an improvement on the 480p output was the Denon DVD-910 which uses the Faroudja DCDi chip. This player was about $300 when I tried it earlier this year. I returned the DVD-910 for a Denon DVD-2200 which used the Silicon Image Sil 504 deinterlacer. I liked the DVD-2200 much better overall and kept it.

I haven't read much about DVD players in the past few months. For a good comparisons of many different players check out the homtheaterhifi DVD Shootout http://www.hometheaterhifi.com...earch&articles=all

Also read avsforum.com, homtheaterspot.com, hometheaterforum.com for more advice on DVD players for your new TV.

You cannot truely view a 480p signal using an upconverted 480i signal. Its a fundamental limitation of the input signal. Essentially, in order to approximate the 480p signal from the 480 i signal, the DVD player "guesses" what the in between lines are during each screen redraw cycle. It guesses the info from the lines beside it and from the line that was drawn at its position previously. This works fantastic for large static images. It works pretty good for moving large images. An example by a large image would be a haed shot of a person. The difference in pixel color from line to line is very gradual. However, when your watching, for example football when from a modest distance, and the scalar is approximating the extra lines, it will guess incorrectly since certain image features are only the order of
a line (like the details of a football helmet). Since the image is moving it can't get the info from the previos line drawn there and since the detail doesn't shown up on its neighboring lines, it can't get it from them. So ultimately, a regular non progressive DVD player being approximated using an upconverter will look close to a progressive image for people or objects close to you on the image but will look quite a bit worse in the background. Also, certain types of TV's will do the scaling better, so the difference may be more pronounced on different TV's. However, you can get a progreessive DVD player for $50 bucks. Buy it, use the component input, and turn on the progressive output in the DVD menu. If you're not diong this then why would you even bother buying an HD capable TV? The cost increase is negligible and the visual quality goes up.

Anyway, hope this explanantion helps you to understand exactly why the up converter in certian situations will look noticeably worse while in others you won't be able to tell. But to say, that a there's no difference between a progressive output and non progressive output. Is plain wrong. If this were the case, you could enjoy HD quality broadcast from a standard TV signal. Which anyone can tell you is just plain wrong.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Very well stated, tss4. You articulated exactly what I was trying to say.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: Auric
Most DVD's are progressive so interlacing the output is one conversion and de-interlacing the input is another. TV's can have excellent de-interlacers but everything being equal the ideal is maintaining progressive.

I believe that actually DVD material is interlaced. The player creates progressive scan output by creating the frames from the pairs of interlaced fields and recreates an emulation of the original 24fps film. Here is a nice article on how progressive scan output is built from the interlaced material on the DVD. Link

I read that article a couple years back when researching a player purchase and hearing about the chroma defect present in many decoders. A related point mentioned about conversion is the analog to digital to analog necessary if the TV's de-interlacer is to be used (in OP's case). Although, if I recall from my Hitachi, it is possible that the "3:2 pulldown" feature is only active on component input anyway. Which leads to another point that regardless of whether the TV de-interlacer is slightly better or worse, a component connection will make a bigger difference over S-Video. Back to my original statement: in my experience with DVD2AVI, most films are indeed mostly progressive. The article does mention it is not a requirement but disregarding non-film content, I suppose progressive DVD's have naturally become even more common in the last few years as progressive output became standard on players.