Upconverting DVD Players

Supafreak

Senior member
Feb 1, 2001
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Howdy,
Im in the market for an upconverting DVD player but I am a confused if the upconversion is supported on both component video output and hdmi or just on hdmi. I saw a few different models at BestBuy but dont remember which ones.

I need an upconverting player that supports upconversion over component video because the projector I intend to use it on does not support hdmi or dvi.

Suggestions/Experience on upconverting DVD players?
Prefer not to spend more than $400 but all suggestions will be looked into.

Thanx in advance,
Freak
 
Mar 11, 2004
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I think all of them only do it through HDMI (because of copy protection). There might be one or two that doesn't, but I don't know of any.

What projector are you intending to buy? If its something like the Infocus 4805, then it already has a video processing chip (Faroudja, which is actually what some of the upconverting DVD players use).
 

bob4432

Lifer
Sep 6, 2003
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why do you need it to upconvert? can't you just feed it a 480p signal? won't the upconverting induce noise? you are still starting with a 480p source....
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
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I kinda have to agree that it won't be worth it.

I had a Samsung one, and while there is no question that the picture looked the best through upconversion on the HDMI, its not that big of a difference. The biggest change is that colors seemed a lot deeper (black are really black). On a projector I think that the color reproduction would be lost anyways.

You'd be better off getting a newer projector I would think.
 

Supafreak

Senior member
Feb 1, 2001
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Originally posted by: bob4432
why do you need it to upconvert? can't you just feed it a 480p signal? won't the upconverting induce noise? you are still starting with a 480p source....


I would like the upconversion because these new upconverting dvd players upconvert 480i/p to 720p/1080i which theoretically is a big difference in picture quality. But I also assumed these players do this without the noise you referred to. If there is a significant amount of noise introduced, I definitely would not make this purchase.

Perhaps someone with an upconverting player can shed some knowledge for us...

Freak
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
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The affordable popular upconverting DVD players based on the faroudja chip all suffer from the macroblocking problem.

Like:
Panasonic s77/s97
Oppo 971

Those are some good $200/$300 options, but I think they only upconvert through DVI or HDMI and not component.

EDIT: Your projector is going to be doing basically the same thing these players would do because it has to get the image onto its 1024x768 res. The quality change here is if your scaling/deinterlacing chip sucks on your projector and the chip on the DVD player would do a better job at it.
So these players aren't going to be introducing more quality necessarily by feeding a 720p / 1080i signal to your projector. Your projector is going to have to scale that upconverter signal back to 1024x768 anyway so it's going to be used too.

 

bob4432

Lifer
Sep 6, 2003
11,726
45
91
Originally posted by: Supafreak
Originally posted by: bob4432
why do you need it to upconvert? can't you just feed it a 480p signal? won't the upconverting induce noise? you are still starting with a 480p source....


I would like the upconversion because these new upconverting dvd players upconvert 480i/p to 720p/1080i which theoretically is a big difference in picture quality. But I also assumed these players do this without the noise you referred to. If there is a significant amount of noise introduced, I definitely would not make this purchase.

Perhaps someone with an upconverting player can shed some knowledge for us...

Freak

yes, please enlighten us.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,342
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I have a Toshiba upconverting DVD player & according to the manual it works with HDMI or component, although I've only used HDMI so far.. best picture quality is at 720p & yes its noticably better then 480p & 1080i on my Sony HDTV, the only negative thing about it is that its picky & won't play all DVD's, so I still need my old Panasonic connected as well.
 

jammur21

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2004
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I think there is an old panasonic that upconverts over component, head over to AVS and check it out
 

Dulanic

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2000
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Ive seen the Sony, Samsung, LG, and Panasonic. All of them work with both Component or HDMI.