Will HD Players show SD-DVD as we've never seen before?? (natively) (1 Viewer)

[Michael Osadciw]

While speaking with Toshiba at their IMAGETOUR last night, the gentleman claimed the player does not decode SD-DVDs at 480i then convert them using a scaler...he said it takes 480p directly off of the disc and then does upconvering to other from there (720p/1080i). I'm still not entirely convinced on this yet until I get a player in my hands. I'm not sure he know exactly what I was asking.

Mike

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Michael Osadciw wrote:Mike I think you are misinterpreting what was said.

As I understand the technology, (NTSC) DVD's are native 480i. Movies are natively "progressive" and that is why they can be reconstructed as 480P.

The videophile longs for SDI connections for input/output of the native 480i bit stream on DVD's because quality deinterlacers and scalers can then be used, before the signal is tampered with.
SDI is also the professional broadcasting connection standard.

I invite the technically knowledgeable to correct any errors for the sake of accuracy.

Paul

 

[Jordan_E]

Nope, POTO absolutely CRANKED as well on my system. I have not experienced any of the so-called lower db that others have been posting about, and that's what I'm puzzled about, as I had to turn down POTO than what I listened to it on SD DVD (and I've watched that one plenty of times, as my wife LOVES POTO).

 

[Mark Lucas]

Who cares about SD-DVDs anymore?

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Well, Mark, I do. I'm not going to replace my entire collection with HD/BD-DVD.

- Steve

 

[RickER]

I care about standard DVD too. Some of the movies i have on DVD wouldnt look better than they do now. I watched my "Fiend Without A Face" DVD this week on my Tosh 50 inch plasma, and it is what it is. Picture is what you would think a 50 year old B movie would be. Anamorpic and widescreen works for me. Cant see how a movie like this would be better in HD DVD. Now some of my old non animorpic DVDs could use a HD DVD upgrade.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Jordan, are you using HDMI for the audio? My understanding is that the -10db issue on the Warner discs only happens if you're using the optical or coax outputs for audio; HDMI does, as you say, crank. I expect you are using HDMI, since you say you're upconverting and you can't do that without an HDMI connection.

Using the coax output on the HD-A1, I also experience the lower volume levels, but I seldom can stand to listen long at reference anyway so I still had plenty of headroom for POTO when I got the volume up to standard levels.

One key point is that the bass management in the HD-A1 player is set for large speakers and a 120Hz crossover by default; most everyone will want to both change that to small speakers and alter the crossover to match the crossover in your receiver (or bypass its bass management altogether) lest you lost substantial bass. I was initially puzzled at the weak sound until I did some fooling around in the audio section and realized that there were more settings than appeared in an obvious manner.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Isn't the HD A1's bass mangement for the 5.1 anolog outputs only?

I'm keeping the 5.1 analog settings at their defaults and letting my Lexicon handle the analog input management digitally and converting the signals to 7.1 Logic seven.

Did you find a way to "bypass its bass management altogether"?
It's looks like the crossover setting can't be removed from the signal path (it remains available for change), even when setting all speakers to "Large", so I would like to find a way to disable it in the player.

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Mark Zimmer]

No, I don't think there's a way to shut off the bass management functions of the A1. I meant bypass your receiver's bass mgmt (if you can).

 

[Max Leung]

How good is the deinterlacer of the A1? Will it match the Oppo's Faroudja?

I'm hoping you guys can test this with anime TV shows...I would like to know how the A1 handles upconverting the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig Volume 4 disc, especially the scenes with the Tachikomas. That is a deinterlacing nightmare for an HTPC, but my Panasonic S97 upconverting player has no trouble with it (Faroudja chip).

Oh heck - just throw in the HQV Benchmark DVD at it too...I'm sure all true videophiles have that disc.

 

[Jordan_E]

No, I'm using the optical for sound right now (too lazy to pull out my receiver and connect the analogs) and I have to turn it down from my usual DVD listening level while watching HD DVDs. I do not have my sub connected in the bedroom yet (my good one is in my HT) and have the receiver set to L. Very interesting.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Paul is absolutely correct. You have to remember that video can be stored in different ways, regardless of what it represents. Most film-based DVDs you can think of really as being 480p24 content, even though it's not really described that way on the disc. It can be reassembled that way by competent scalers etc, and fed to a display at a correct multiple of a film-rate 24. People have been doing this for many years already, so to answer the original question, no you will not be seeing anything radically new or different from regular DVD content. You may see an improvement if you aren't already using quality scaling to HD resolution for display, but as this has been available for a long time those who are already doing this will not see much difference.

I run all my DVDs at 1440x720p @72hz to a CRT display, and it's about as good as you're reasonably ever going to get from DVD now or in the future. Obviously people who are looking at DVD at only 480p or something may see significant improvements if they choose to scale up DVD playback, but that's not something unique to HD-DVD or BRD players by any means. The benefits there are really (obviously) native HD content encoded very well at high bitrates relative to the codec.

 

[BrettB]

A co-worker of my wife asked a sort of oddball question.

Will SD DVDs (and HD DVDs) played through an HD DVD player with an SD tv look better than if played through a DVD player?

He doesn't have an HD tv yet but I guess he would consider buying into HD DVD if there was a noticeable improvement in video. I found an FAQ that suggested there is an improvement.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

I defer to the more technically saavy members of the forum, but I cannot imagine that he'd get better picture quality on his standard TV, unless perhaps the new HD-DVD disc was made using a better transfer that its SDVD counterpart. However, such an improvement would have nothing to do with HD-DVD, per se.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

i have a feeling you'd see a little improvement if taking an HD signal down to SD - it may all depend on the player's down-rezing ability. Assuming it is good, I think it will look a bit better since there is more information there to begin with. As we know, not all SD-DVDs look great and don't seem to take advantage of full DVD resolution...however that came to be.

We shall see...

Mike