Brent Hutto
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2001
- Messages
- 532
Let's say you're watching a Toy Story DVD on a direct-view HDTV monitor. It's my understanding that the Toy Story movies were created and the DVD's mastered completely in the digital domain, so it would be safe to say that up until the point where you bring the DVD home the movie has so far always been represented by digital codes. I also understand that the signals modulating the light beam illuminating the screen are analog in nature.
So my question concerns how many times does that picture go back and forth between digital and analog representation. I'll further specify that you're using component video cables and a progressive-scan DVD player, although a second question is about the difference in that and a regular 480i-output player.
So is the 480p signal that comes out of the DVD player and travels down the component cables analog or digital? I figure it must be analog so there's a D-A step right there.
Then the HDTV monitor will digitize it to do whatever upconversion and so forth it needs to get to its native resolution. That's an A-D step there.
Finally, the monitor has to generate analog signals to drive the CRT. That's another D-A.
In real world, are there more A-D and D-A operations than this? How about if you use a regular old interlaced DVD player, does that effect how many conversions between digital and analog domains?
So my question concerns how many times does that picture go back and forth between digital and analog representation. I'll further specify that you're using component video cables and a progressive-scan DVD player, although a second question is about the difference in that and a regular 480i-output player.
So is the 480p signal that comes out of the DVD player and travels down the component cables analog or digital? I figure it must be analog so there's a D-A step right there.
Then the HDTV monitor will digitize it to do whatever upconversion and so forth it needs to get to its native resolution. That's an A-D step there.
Finally, the monitor has to generate analog signals to drive the CRT. That's another D-A.
In real world, are there more A-D and D-A operations than this? How about if you use a regular old interlaced DVD player, does that effect how many conversions between digital and analog domains?