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Best Blu-Ray players for upscaling SD DVDs (1 Viewer)

klipklopp

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I am considering a new BluRay player purchase. The top feature I am interested in is the best upscaling of SD DVDs for viewing on an HDTV. Other features I am interested in would include WiFi, a USB port for a pen drive with videos on it, and netflix streaming.

I believe most BluRay players can handle home videos burned on a DVD-R which is a priority as well.

Could anyone give me, say - a top three list of brands or models I should be looking at - and should I be considering a PS3?

Thanks!

Ted
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Your top 3 will likely include the Oppo BDP-83 and the PS3. The PS3 should give you all the features you mentioned so far on top of being a good performer at upscaling DVDs -- not sure if it's still a top competitive for upscaling, but I doubt it lags behind much, if at all. I haven't used my PS3 for DVDs quite that often, but the Secrets site (http://www.hometheaterhifi.com) did give it a poor grade on their deinterlacing/progressive scan benchmark -- it probably isn't the best at handling certain occasional transfer/encoding problems (in that regard) though I haven't noticed the typical artifacts from such problems.

_Man_
 

Ken_McAlinden

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FYI. As a rule of thumb, the BD/DVD players that do the best job of upscaling SD DVD materials are usually also the best at downscaling 1080p material. This is useful information for folks out there with 720p displays.

Regards,
 

ScottJH

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Originally Posted by Ken_McAlinden

FYI. As a rule of thumb, the BD/DVD players that do the best job of upscaling SD DVD materials are usually also the best at downscaling 1080p material. This is useful information for folks out there with 720p displays.

Regards,

Totally agree. My front projector is 720p and when I went from a PS3 to the Oppo 83 I noticed a difference right away.
 

LD9000

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Good question -- there are definitely differences in the upscaling between players. I've been through a few - and here are the ones that stand out to me:

1) Oppo Blu-Ray player - even the non-Blu Ray Oppos upscale better than any machine I've seen.

2) Panasonic DMP-BD60 - absolutely incredible Blu-Ray player, and even superior upscaling
3) Pioneer Elite - any of their Blu-Ray and non-Blu Ray players. Unfortunately, Pioneer gets a bad rep for slow loading times, and expensive players to boot. However, standard Pioneer Elite players (not the standard Pioneer players, but their Elite line) upscales just about as good as I've seen anywhere.

If you're looking to save a buck and get some bang -- the Pansonic Blu-Ray players are the way to go.
 

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