James Lee

Progressive Scan DVD and Sony 36XBR400

I've spent a good week or so researching various progressive scan DVD players, and I think I have settled on the Denon 1600.

The question I have relates to the TV I have which is the Sony 36" XBR400. I currently have an old Sony model 330 player hooked up via S-video. It's a pretty basic player, but it's been rock solid for several years. As I've become more immersed in home theater hardware, I've noticed that on every DVD that I watch, I get a halo effect around any text that appears on screen. Usually when you see cast and title text at the beginning of movies. It's not nearly as noticeable around people and objects, but I can see the halos as well particularly when there is a contrast of dark objects against a light background, and vice versa. While the picture in general is pretty good, this haloing effect, particularly around text, is really bothersome.

Can anyone offer any insight as to whether or not this a condition of the player, the TV, or both? My suspicion is that this is a problem with the DVD player, hence my interest in getting a progressive scan player to try an eliminate the halo effect. The TV would not by my first inclination because the halo effect seems to vary from DVD to DVD, with on-screen text being the only consistent issue regardless.

Any advice from anyone would be most appreciated before I drop $400 on the Denon 1600. Thanks!

Grant B

James
I have the same TV - have you set it up using an Avia Disc?
The Halo sometimes happens when the sharpness is up too high. Most of my settings for sharpness is around the midpoint.
My DVD player came out before progressive scan so I always wondered how much better it would look.
A friend got a new Prog scan and we found no difference between the 2. We used the component outputs of both.
Hope that helps

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James Lee

Hmmm, I do have the Avia disc but have not gotten around to calibrating the TV yet. I'll try that, although, the sharpness setting I have set is already pretty low. It's maybe 1/4 of the way up the slider.

John Royster

Try component cable and progressive scan as well.

Use avia to set sharpness, etc.

There may be some extra processing/SVM going on (I have a xbr450 and can turn it off in the menu)

Reginald Trent

I also compared progressive and interlaced DVD images on my 36XBR400. I preferred the interlaced image and found the progressive image looked dull and too soft for my liking.

James Lee

Well, I ended up calibrating the TV with the Avia disc and, while the overall picture looks slightly better, the halo/ringing effect is still there. However, it is not quite as obnoxious as it was pre-calibration. Still noticeable though.

Also, just for kicks, I hooked up an Xbox via component cables. It's not the greatest quality DVD player, but I was curious to see if the same haloing effect would exist, and it does. So, based on that, it seems the TV itself is the source of the problem. At this point, I guess I am willing to live with it. Although, it didn't stop me from checking out the Sony Grand Wega 50" LCD rear projection set at various stores this week. Nice TV, but I can't justify dropping almost $5000 on a new TV after only owning the 36XBR400 for a year and three months.

The good thing is that the problem is not my Sony 330 DVD player. It's been an excellent workhorse player for me and it would have been a shame to have to replace it.

JamesHl

Odd, I have the 32 and I don't have this problem; I have a Panasonic DV-37 and the only problem I have is nasty bleeding red when there is a profusion of a certain bright shade, I think this is mostly due to the dvd player...