Given the Following Criteria...Can Someone Recommend a BD Player? - Page 3

Paul Kemp · 07-13-2008, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panevino

I just have a feeling that the Realta design inside the flagship Denon would outperform the Anchor Bay chipset in the 983; what else is Denon charging for in this player? There has to be some step up in some kind of performance...

And we are back to square one. If you are prepared to purchase based on your own 'feelings' and not based on any qualified analysis (either lab tests or direct experience) then why bother consulting anybody? Pay the premium if you are prepared to fall for the marketing guff.

The Denon has a very high price and you are paying for things other than the chip sets - high quality DAC board & analogue sections, better build quality, Blu Ray compatibility, the Denon badge, the cost of importing...

You want a good Blu Ray player with decent scaling/deinterlacing - the only proven option for me is the Playstation 3. Perhaps the Denon will be good at this - there is no evidence to confirm this however - but you are paying, what, a 500% premium over the PS3. If you can justify that sort of expense based solely on a product leaflet and advertisement literature then you must have money to burn.

Me, I'd rather keep my pennies and make an informed purchase

Panevino · 07-13-2008, 08:39 PM

And we are back to square one. If you are prepared to purchase based on your own 'feelings' and not based on any qualified analysis (either lab tests or direct experience) then why bother consulting anybody? Pay the premium if you are prepared to fall for the marketing guff.

Okay -- understandable what you're saying here; perhaps there's just a bit of miscommunication going on here between us...happens on an Internet forum! I am not disregarding any viable information from direct experience or professional reviews, etc; I'm just trying to balance all the information I'm getting with my own feelings about investing in such high priced gear.

The Denon has a very high price and you are paying for things other than the chip sets - high quality DAC board & analogue sections, better build quality, Blu Ray compatibility, the Denon badge, the cost of importing...

These are the kinds of bits of information that are important to me, and I thank you for that...in your opinion, would spending the 2K on the Denon pretty much guarantee, to a point, that I would be satisfied with the upscaling to 1080p and its Blu ray performance? I know you said in your earlier reply that I would NEVER be satisfied with any standard DVD player in this regard if the Oppo didn't make me happy, but that's not really so -- I just want elimination or reduction of obvious, distracting artifacts like jagged edges, macroblocking and pixelation breakup which seems to be introduced by my Panasonic '10A...could, in theory at least, the Denon clear some of these things up?

You want a good Blu Ray player with decent scaling/deinterlacing - the only proven option for me is the Playstation 3. Perhaps the Denon will be good at this - there is no evidence to confirm this however - but you are paying, what, a 500% premium over the PS3. If you can justify that sort of expense based solely on a product leaflet and advertisement literature then you must have money to burn.

Okay; I suppose I see where you stand on the Denon now -- so I guess you can forget my above query; I didn't see this information on advertisement literature or product leaflet -- it was actually just posted in one of the last issues of Crutchfield and that's where I noticed it; they simply stated the specs of the player and I noticed it mentioned "Realta chip"...am I to take it you think this is a waste of money?

And aside from the PS3 -- what "informed" decision would you suggest me to make, in keeping with the theme of the thread?

TheBat · 07-13-2008, 09:10 PM

I was out of town on a trip. I am back now. .you asked about what kind of image problems tv have. the rear projection tv.. its hard to get good detail when you are very close. do you stand close to the tv and see the image being a bit differnt. and when you are more back from the tv.. that the image is much better? I notice that on mine. if I was able to get another tv.. probably go with an LCD.

Jacob

Panevino · 07-13-2008, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBat

I was out of town on a trip. I am back now. .you asked about what kind of image problems tv have. the rear projection tv.. its hard to get good detail when you are very close. do you stand close to the tv and see the image being a bit differnt. and when you are more back from the tv.. that the image is much better? I notice that on mine. if I was able to get another tv.. probably go with an LCD.

Jacob

Yes, I suppose the quality is improved if we're far back from it.

TheBat · 07-13-2008, 10:43 PM

I was over at walmart.. they had some LCD widescreen tv sets.. some real nice ones too.. you could be a very close to it and still get a fine picture..

Jacob

Panevino · 07-13-2008, 11:16 PM

Wish I would have known that before I bought my rear projection SXRD...

John Wielgosz · 07-13-2008, 11:56 PM

I have to interject and say that I sit about 6.5 feet from a Sony 50" SXRD display and don't see massive artifacting on a regular basis, not that it isn't kind to all SD DVDs. Some titles that were state of the art as little as four-five years ago reveal their flaws on a display like that. I typically ride my Sharpness around the '15' mark, with Brightness at '41' and Contrast at '83' with the iris setting on 'Auto 2' and Power Saving set to 'On'. My display is an A3000 series, so your settings may vary depending on the model. I believe the screens on the A2000 and A2020 series weren't as high gain as the A3000s. What is your exact model number?

Panevino · 07-14-2008, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wielgosz

I have to interject and say that I sit about 6.5 feet from a Sony 50" SXRD display and don't see massive artifacting on a regular basis, not that it isn't kind to all SD DVDs. Some titles that were state of the art as little as four-five years ago reveal their flaws on a display like that. I typically ride my Sharpness around the '15' mark, with Brightness at '41' and Contrast at '83' with the iris setting on 'Auto 2' and Power Saving set to 'On'. My display is an A3000 series, so your settings may vary depending on the model. I believe the screens on the A2000 and A2020 series weren't as high gain as the A3000s. What is your exact model number?

John,

My model is a KDS-50A2020, a 50" SXRD Grand Wega. Funny thing about the differences of our settings...

I recently purchased an HD Basics Blu ray calibration disc, but found that the values were not far off, if at all, from the settings I got using my "DiscWasher" brand DVD calibration disc...using that disc, these were my overall settings (I explain why with each value below) running in the set's STANDARD picture mode:

-Auto Iris: AUTO 1 (better "punch" than Auto 2)
-Picture: 80 (my DVD calibration disc's vocal prompt system claimed "If you do not see the white contrast box in the middle of the screen changing in any way, reduce your contrast to approximately 80 percent of maximum and stop..." So I did.)
-Brightness: 53 (the pluge pattern brightness tests confirmed this was the correct setting for my set, as did the THX Optimizer disc -- PERHAPS I could have dropped this to 52, based on the HD Essentials Blu ray, but it didn't seem to matter all that much)
-Color Temp: Neutral (only this and COOL are available in Standard mode)
-Color: 50 (this seemed to be just right no matter what disc I played so I just left it in Sony's default of 50)
-Tint/Hue: 0 (again, this seemed right, confirmed by running the THX Optimizer and seeing that indeed Magenta and Cyan were accurate)
-Sharpness: 50 (okay -- this was VERY tricky on my set. It seems that no matter what sharpness pattern I use, nothing seems to make a difference with sharpness, either lower or higher; it doesn't seem to change. I think there may be an "artificial sharpness and edge enhancement" that's added in the Standard picture mode, but I can't confirm it and that may be why my sharpness control doesn't really work in this mode. I just leave it on Sony's default of "50")
-Noise Reduction: Low

There are no other settings to make in Standard -- those Advanced Settings don't open on my set unless you access the "Custom" picture mode, but it seemed too daunting and I just settled on the Standard mode as a comprimise between Vivid and Custom.

TheBat · 07-14-2008, 01:03 AM

my setting is at:
contract is 50. brightness is at 30. sharpness at 25 and color at 35.

Jacob

Panevino · 07-14-2008, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBat

my setting is at:
contract is 50. brightness is at 30. sharpness at 25 and color at 35.

Jacob

Wow Jake,

Those values are pretty low...do you like watching films on the dim side? What picture mode are you running?

TheBat · 07-14-2008, 01:58 AM

I use dynamic.. if I did your settings.. it would be too bright.. do you have the lights on when you watch a movie or something.. because when I went with your settings.. I could see where you were having problems.. they seem a bit high. specially for color. people will look sunburned.

Jacob

Panevino · 07-14-2008, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Poste