Got Questions? Ask our resident expert, Robert Zohn - Page 5

Paul.S · 08-21-2007, 05:25 PM

Robert:

Have any HD-D1 owners reported back to you that their machine is turning OFF during playback? No stuttering, pixelation or audio dropouts beforehand, and not even during advanced feature (i.e., U-Control) playback. Just all of a sudden after approximately four minutes of playback of The Bourne Identity, the player shuts off.

I know Identity is a very recent title with advanced content; I need to do the firmware upgrade. I'm on fw 2.0 and am variously trying to update it: The player is not connecting to the 'Net (after trying various configurations of the Ethernet port: DHCP and DNS on, then off and manual entry of IP address, subnet mask, etc.). The player similarly shuts down between 20 and 40% completion upon attempting to use the 2.2 disc I have. It's possible that the disc is corrupt so I've requested another from Tosh; I was informed this morning when I called to follow up on my request yesterday that 2.2 (the latest fw available on disc; 2.3 is only available online) is on backorder.

And I'm about to try my third program (ImgBurn, NTI DVD-Maker and now Nero) to create an image of the 2.3 ISO after downloading it.

But I'm concerned any upgrade discs will cause the player to shutdown the same way Identity--and, curiously enough since it is not an advanced content title, Supremacy--did.

Any of your clients reporting player shutdown issues?

James L White · 08-21-2007, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert_Zohn

James, I'm back in Vegas a a major CE buying group show and will return this Thursday. My office is staffed with very limited resource as we have some folks out on personal issues. I'll get your receipt out this Thursday.

Ok, thanks

John Dirk · 09-12-2007, 10:42 PM

Hi Robert;

I have a Sanyo PLV-Z5 [native 720P] projector and am currently evaluating HD and up-converting DVD players. Since I have a large SD DVD library, my primary concern is the picture quality of these titles in the new player.

I have tried the Toshiba HD-A2 and the Sony DVPNS75H up-converting players with unimpressive results. I suspect this is because my projector already includes a quality scaler that does just as good of a job as that built into these DVD players. My question is this. Should I expect significantly better up-conversion from the Toshiba HD-XA2 [or A35] than the PLV-Z5's internal scaler can produce?

Thanks in advance

Gunny

Robert_Zohn · 09-13-2007, 11:41 PM

Gunny ^^ Yes, I would think you would get better up-conversion on the HD-XA2, however, not with the HD-A35 as the A35 does not share the Silicon Oprix, Reon video processor that the XA2 boasts.

I'll stand behind my good guess and guaranty your happiness with the SD up-conversion of the XA2.

Let us know if I'm right. I know you'll be telling me if I'm wrong

-Robert

Robert Crawford · 09-14-2007, 06:27 AM

Robert,
When will you have the Samsung combo up for preorder?

Crawdaddy

Robert_Zohn · 09-14-2007, 02:54 PM

Robert, Sorry to say, I'm not sure. We are Samsung dealers and will have a Home Theater Forum offer, but I do not have any information to share at this moment. Soon hopefully as I would like to see this offer available as well.

BTW, I am expecting to have an aggressive HTF deal for Sharp's low profile, BD-HP20U BD player.

-Robert

Randy123 · 09-24-2007, 10:50 AM

Robert, I have a question about DVD players. I am getting ready to purchase either the Sony KDF46E3000 or possibly the same model in the 50" size. As you probably already know, it is an LCD rear projection, 1080p. I'm considering the Sony upconversion DVD player at $99.00 while waiting for something more definite with the format war between HD and BluRay.

My question is this. Will the picture from the upconversion DVD player be nearly as good as BluRay or HD? How will it compare? I read things that say the pic will be upconverted to 1080p. Is this possible with a standard DVD?

Also do I even need a player that good since the TV itself will upconvert to 1080p? Would a $59 progressive scan player give me the same picture as the upconversion player, eventhough they don't have an HDMI output?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Randy123 · 09-24-2007, 05:46 PM

Robert, I have a question about DVD players. I am getting ready to purchase either the Sony KDF46E3000 or possibly the same model in the 50" size. As you probably already know, it is an LCD rear projection, 1080p. I'm considering the Sony upconversion DVD player at $99.00 while waiting for something more definite with the format war between HD and BluRay.

My question is this. Will the picture from the upconversion DVD player be nearly as good as BluRay or HD? How will it compare? I read things that say the pic will be upconverted to 1080p. Is this possible with a standard DVD?

Also do I even need a player that good since the TV itself will upconvert to 1080p? Would a $59 progressive scan player give me the same picture as the upconversion player, eventhough they don't have an HDMI output?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Paul.S · 09-24-2007, 07:27 PM

And if I might piggyback off of Randy's question to pose a related one: Robert, would you mind commenting on whether the kind of upconversion available via HDMI from high def DVD players is only possible with certain kinds of displays. I've read that that kind of upconversion is not possible with fixed pixel displays. Is that true? Can Randy get the benefits of HDMI upconversion with that Sony LCD, or must he be watching a CRT or projector? Plasma?

Also, how does any internal scaling a display might do work with (or not) HDMI upconversion?

Robert_Zohn · 09-24-2007, 09:52 PM

Randy, HD DVD and Blu-ray (BD) are HD optical disc technologies that are authored and replicated from their original sources (film or video) to a digital fixed pixel array with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. An HD DVD or BD player passes the native 1080p signal directly off the disc and passes it to your modern 1080p HDTV so no video processing is done to the signal and it is kept in its pure HD quality with most of the original cinematography detail of the original film.

SD DVD discs have a maximum resolution of 720 × 480 pixels. So a standard definition DVD does not have the data (information) on the disc to provide a image with the fine resolution, detail, and accuracy that can be rendered from the very high resolution of a full, true HD signal.

Some up-converting DVD players do a pretty good job of enhancing a standard definition signal, by smoothing out lines through an edge enhancement process, increasing the resolution and some can actually do a frame rate conversion. But no SD DVD can be up-converted to the same image quality of a HD DVD or BD disc; the information is just not their on the 720 x 480 resolution SD DVD disc. You can't create what not actually there and SD discs are missing the fine detail that is present in the HD medium.

Your second question is hard to answer. Most experts would likely say your best SD DVD up-conversion would come through a good up-converting SD DVD player's HDMI output, but that may not be true. A good progressive component video DVD player might do as well or even better as you would be using the video-processor built-into your TV to scale and up-convert the image to your maximum screen resolution.

Randy, I strongly recommend paring your beautiful new 1080p HDTV with a new HD-A3, because for $249, free shipping, no tax and 7 free HD DVD titles you get a great up-converting SD DVD player and a heck of an full tru HD player to boot.

-Robert

Robert_Zohn · 09-24-2007, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul.S

And if I might piggyback off of Randy's question to pose a related one: Robert, would you mind commenting on whether the kind of upconversion available via HDMI from high def DVD players is only possible with certain kinds of displays. I've read that that kind of upconversion is not possible with fixed pixel displays. Is that true? Can Randy get the benefits of HDMI upconversion with that Sony LCD, or must he be watching a CRT or projector? Plasma?

Also, how does any internal scaling a display might do work with (or not) HDMI upconversion?

Paul, fixed pixel displays are LCD and plasma. Fixed pixel displays are digital displays. CRT is an analog device that is made up of vertical and horizontal illuminated scan lines. All HD DVD and BD players do a good job of up-converting SD DVDs and work equally well for CRT, LCD and plasma technologies. What you may have heard is that up-converting players can pass a signal above 480p through the HDMI connection, as no 1080 signal can be passed via component video to protect the copyrights of the recorded discs.

Some HD DVD and BD players do a better job of up-converting than others. In fact, Toshiba's flagship model HD-XA2 has the best SD DVD up-converting video processor and an excellent set of image enhancement tools to peak the SD image quality. Samsung's BD players use the same high quality video processor that Toshiba's XA2 employs, but unfortunately, lack the excellent image enhancement management tools of the XA2.

-Robert