Upscaling/HDef DVD Player merged thread (1 Viewer)

[kurt_fire]

I'm getting a HDTV next week and I already have a Panasonic S35 progressive scan DVD player? Why would a DVI dvd player make movies look any better when they are only in 480p?? does this make sense to you guys? what's the point of DVI??

also, if you recommend I get one, what's a decent player for under $150?

 

[Mike:K]

Kurt,

Many people love the DVI output of a DVD player because many (if not all) of those DVD players do some type of upscaling to 720p or 1080i. This can lead many to believe that the players are producing an HD image. While it's not true HD, the quality can come VERY close depending on the player. And it's the closest thing you can get until the "true" HD players come out a few years from now.

Another factor is that when signals are going to your TV via DVI there is no digital to analog to digital conversions going on. It's simply digital all the way. When it's digital all the way, that can result in a cleaner, crisper picture. When the above-mentioned analog-digital coversions take place, this can result in some quality loss due to noise resulting from the conversion (if "noise" is even the right word).

I myself have a DVI DVD player, the Momitsu V880, and am VERY pleased with it. It ran me in the neighborhood of around $250 or so. I'm sure others will be able to mention some particular brands as well.

Prior to my current player, I had the Samsung HD931, and while the picture was pretty good, it did suffer from black crush and a slight lip sync issue that drove me crazy after awhile (more so the latter than the former).

 

[Andrew Beckmen]

OK, I think I understand. I am planning on getting a Pioneer DVR510HS to go with it because I can't find a DVD-Recorder with the 1080i thing. So for 4:3 material I can watch it on the Pioneer, via component with 3:2 pulldown.

 

[Don_Berg]

DVI (even in 480p format) supposedly looks better than component with fixed pixel displays like Plasma and LCD since they have to rescale all inputs to their native resolution anyway. With a CRT HDTV that supports a 480p native format, no rescaling is done so there is no noticeable difference between DVI and component with 480p format. I reserve the DVI port for an HD receiver where true HD video is possible!

 

[Don_Berg]

Unfortunately the Pioneer doesn't have the excellent Faroudja de-interlacer so for 4:3 videos the quality will be subpar. I prefer one good player thats good for all title types, not limit myself to only a few with the Zenith or have to use 2 players!

 

[NickSo]

Aight, ive created examples...

So, say this is non-anamorphic video:


This is fullscreen 4:3 content:


This is what happens when non-anamorphic video is fed to a TV that locks into 16:9:


Using the vertical stretch on the player will let you fix the 'squshing' of the image:

The light grey bars above and below are what are cut out of the image.

Different with fullscreen content:


When stretched:

 

[John Geelan]

Toshiba will soon release a Universal Player with HDMI/DVI later this month for a retail price of $199.

 

[EricRWem]

Zenith DVB 318, well under $200 from either http://www.gochnauers.com/ or www.wildwestelectronics.com

 

[Andrew Beckmen]

Yeah, that really clears it up. Thanks. 4:3 DVD make up like less than 1% of what I watch right now, and even if I bought a bunch of TV show DVDs most of the titles I want are 16X9. The the ones that are not, Progressive via Component instead of 1080i upconvert via DVI isn't that much of a downgrade.

 

[Don_Berg]

Unfortunately if use 480p mode from the zenith for the 4:3 titles reports are it has some defects like color bleeding in that mode.

 

[Nicholas R]

Yeah you and MOST people. Emjoy the Zenith with the excellent, top rated Farouuuuuuuuuuuuudja decoder. It's a great little player.

 

[Don_Berg]

I record a lot of 4:3 programs to DVD+RW and I expect my DVD player to play this material as good as possible with the FAroudja de-interlacer, unfortunately the Zenith's lack of capability in this area makes it a poor choice at this time for many people like me. I'll stay with my excellent XP30 until somebody makes a model that exceeds its quality in ALL areas, not just one.

 

[Andre Bijelic]

I found the Panasonic to be much better than the LG/Zenith at 480p on my set up.

The LG/Zenith has a colour bleeding problem at 480p. Actually, it isn't bleeding, exactly. It's more like a kind of blockiness. It's especially noticeable on red text, like the titles in "K-19". It almost looks like the kind of blockiness you see on a heavily compressed MPEG image. It's also apparent at 720p, though my Sony doesn't handle 720p natively, so that may be a display issue. But as soon as you switch to 1080i, the problem disappears.

 

[Andrew Beckmen]

Yeah, I read about the color bleeding, but I am plkanning on buying a Pioneer DVR510HS for recording, so that will be my 3:2 Component source for the rare occasion that I watch 4:3 DVDs and stuff.

Whatever I record with the Pioneer will of course not be playable in the Zenith unless it's WS, but I have analog non-HD cable, so I could watch the DVDs I make via RF and not really notcie a differance. I just want to switch to DVDs instead of VHS because it's more stable and non-degrading.

 

[Don_Berg]

Thanks for checking out the zenith's 480p mode Andrew. Based on your testing, I would say the Zenith's 480p mode defects makes it useless for those who want to use 4:3 titles as well as 16:9 titles since 480p mode would be needed for 4:3 titles to use the TV's display format modes - but I wouldn't want to suffer its 480p defects! My XP30 sounds much superior for ALL title types.

 

[Nicholas R]

That's a good plan because you'll get the far better PQ of the Zenith on what you tend to watch. My viewing of 4:3 is at 0%.

Nothing will touch the 1080i so enjoy it!

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I for one have not noticed any color bleeding at 480p on my Zenith with a crt based sony rptv. I didn't buy it for that anyway, I have a JVC with pillarboxing that does a much better job with 4/3 than the Panny anyway (yes, I also own a Panny CP-72 with Faroudja same as the XP-30). From what I've run at 480p on the Zenith I've seen no significant difference from the CP-72, and I have the advantage of being able to watch non-anamorphic widescreen at 1080i, something the Panny won't do.

For what the obsolete Panny Faroudjas cost on E-bay you can have a Zenith and a JVC and have the best of both worlds.

I'm going to be putting the JVC back in the system along with the Zenith and setting the fragile Panny aside. I don't dare sell it due to Pannys lousy reliability.

There are any number of former Panny enthusiasts over at AVS who sing the praises of the Zenith and have their obsolete Pannys up for sale. So if you must grasp at straws to find a way to proclaim the superiority of the obsolete, non scaling, non-upconverting, non-pillarboxing Pannys there should be plenty of them to choose from soon on E-bay.

 

[Andre Bijelic]

Actually, the new JVCs no longer scale or pillarbox. However, the new Panasonics (27 & 47) do.

Personally, I hold out high hopes for the upcoming Panasonic 97. Upscaling (though most likely only via DVI), pillarboxing and, according to the latest specs, Faroujda.

 

[Nicholas R]

Well put Steve.

 

[PaulDA]

Does anyone think that these upscaling DVD players (Zenith or otherwise), will dampen the enthusiasm for HD-DVDs? If the picture quality from an upscaling player approaches, say, 85% of a true HD picture, won't the public be less inclined to join the HD-DVD bandwagon (which, unless such players also include upscaling, would mean having to have multiple players (not a popular idea with the typical consumer) or re-acquiring one's entire DVD collection (a la vinyl to CD in the eighties--also unlikely to make the masses happy) )?

This appears to be the problem with hi-res music formats at present. A small number of enthusiasts (like me with two hi-res players) and a large segment of the population content with mp3 sound quality, and unwilling to jump on the hi-res bandwagon because they "can't hear the difference".

Just curious, as it will be at least 5 years before I have an HD rig.