HD DVD player's upconversion quality? (1 Viewer)

[Joseph Bolus]

Ron,
As far as I'm aware neither HD-DVD or Blu-ray decks will upscale DVD's with CSS digital "protection" via component. (In order to display a DVD logo on their respective decks they have to perform in this manner.) Since 95% of all commercially available DVD's utilize CSS, you're (mostly) out of luck ...

Now ... What you may have heard is that you can *backup* a DVD and then view it upscaled via component. This will work since the backup process will typically remove the CSS "protection". But, IMO, it's not particulary convenient to have to make a copy of a DVD just to be able to view it upscaled.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

I think the culprit here is Macrovision, not CSS, but the bottom line is that upconversion of DVD to 1080i is prevented on the Toshiba player via component video if the media has content protection enabled. Any player following DVD Forum specs has to do this.

Upconversion is available for standard definition DVD in two scenarios:

1) You connect with HDMI
2) You reauthor the media you own and eliminate the content protection. It is not as hard as it sounds, but as Joseph says it may be more trouble than it is worth.

PQ of standard definition DVD, even restricted to 480p, is quite good on the Toshiba player.

- Steve

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Hey Ron,

The only upconverting the Toshiba is going to do via component video is with burned discs. Strip out the copy protection and it will upconvert via component.

Great if you routinely rip discs ... not so great if you don't.

The HX81 set is one of the two generations of sets where the picture quality of the 480i/p fell a big notch compared to the previous 3 years worth of sets. It took them about 3 generations to fix this issue. The 83 series fixed it finally.

Unfortunately, it does not help you here as you have a 81 series. The only way to avoid the image degradation is to get the image into the 1080 realm.

More to come ...

Regards

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Ron, I can't recall if your set has a DVI input or not. The 81 series units started to incorporate that input ... and that is where the Toshiba promise appeared many years ago. Some of the units did not have DVI so there was some promise that Toshiba made about upgrading some of the sets ...

(The upgrade turned out to be a complete replacement of the TV with a new one ... That offer is no longer available though.)

Please confirm if you have DVI or not.

Although even with DVI ... it might not be HDCP compatible ... but let's take it one step at a time.

regards

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Michael,

Only S-Video and Component inputs.

As long as I can view HD-DVD at 1080i with this connection
I am happy for now. I can live without upconverting SD-DVD
as I am only 7-9 months away from a new 1080p TV.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

If only you had known about the DVI promise ... then Toshiba would have given you a new set a couple of years ago.

While upconverting is nice ... you don't get more detail out of it compared to a good 480p signal. What you get is an image that is denser and finer. Less coarse.

It may still be possible for you to find one of those Zenith DV318 upconverting players on Ebay as they will upconvert over component without regard for copy protection. Think of it as a cheap experiment if you ever feel that you "gots ta know."

Regards

 

[LaMarcus]

You know what Ron? That's the only thing I DIDN'T DO!! But I did everything from changing res, to calibration. I figured (or hoped) that it was because of the hdmi to dvi convert that made it not look good. I also thought maybe because I have an old bulp that it didn't look good. But HD net etc looks great on my pj, so I can't explain it man. Now what I saw on the 52" was what I expected, Riddick never looked so good. Granted the 52" is DILA (lCOS) and my pj is lcd, but hey, I expected it to look as good as to better hd net.
I know my feelings were truely hurt that it did not look good to me, I was sooo looking forward to it. It was the first time I felt like my pj was "old", "inadequate". But hey, I have Riddick HD DVD for sale $20 bucks brand new, only watched once if anyone is interested

 

[MTrotter]

Ron, I am just using the component connection from my HD-A1 to my Mits 55613, and the 480p is remarkable, compared to my previous DVD players. I don't really see any scan lines from my viewing distance with 480p(getting old, I guess), and if you don't either, I don't think upconverting it to 1080 is going to make a big difference on SD DVDs.

 

[Edwin-S]

This is too funny. If I have a legitimate copy of the movie and buy one of these machines then I cannot watch an upconverted image via component. But if I rent the disc and illegally rip off a copy then I can watch an upconverted image over component. So basically, a pirate can watch his stolen movie with improved picture quality, but I cannot watch my legally acquired copy with that same improved PQ. Who are the f***ing morons who think up this ridiculous s***!!!???

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Edwin,

I agree!

The industry has totally F'd up any possible incentive for consumers
to run out and buy into what could have been a single format with
great promise.

All this greed has led to all these incompatability problems.

There are many like me who bough a HDTV years ago thinking
we put a fullproof on future technologies and now we can't even
upconvert our standard DVDs let alone take full advantage of
these new HD formats.

Had everyone agreed to share the pie with this new HD technology
there would be a hell of a lot more players sold and a lot more money
being earned for the industry.

 

[Edwin-S]

How can you find out about a supposed "promise" when the company that makes it cannot be bothered to inform registered owners of their sets that the promise even existed.

 

[Edwin-S]

I absolutely agree with everything you just posted. What is amazing is that these guys are managing to make a confused situation even worse. First they start a format war because of greed, and now one of the main participants is stating in the media that, "they still want to negotiate a format with unified standards". Uh......news flash, geniuses.........but I would say that it is just a little too late for that. Maybe you (meaning Toshiba or Sony...I don't care which) should have done that before creating the ridiculous mess that is passing for an introduction of HD disc players.

I find it interesting that Toshiba is the one that is now talking about "unification". That tells me something......it tells me that they are hurting on the bottom line with every unit they sell. Of course, this talk of "unification" cannot make anyone who purchased an HD DVD feel too comfortable about their decision....especially if it leads to them being stranded. Unless Toshiba makes a "promise" to replace everyone's HD A1 or AX1 with a new unified player and then "forgets" to actually tell anyone about it.

Edit: I took the laugh smiley out because, frankly, this situation isn't funny. It borders on sick.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Or (third scenario) if you have a legitimate copy of the movie, and you legally burn your own copy of that, you can watch an upconverted image over component.

The "no upconverting over an analog connection" rule has been around since the inception of DVD. You can not foist it upon the high definition optical disc manufacturers, except to say that they are continuing to follow the DVD Forum rules.

(Fourth scenario: buy a DVD player that does not subscribe to the rules, like ones by Zenith, NeuNeo, etc., and you can upconvert DVD without the interim remastering step.)

- Steve

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Edwin,

Yup ... it was the 540p upconversion that was the source of the image degradation. Those with upconversion capability would bypass it and send 1080i direct to the TV.

The Toshiba upgrade promise was pretty prominent on the web at the time that set was on the market. People were talking about it a lot on web sites like this one. It wasn't that much of a secret.

Regards

 

[Edwin-S]

It is the height of stupidity to continue enforcing an ineffective security measure on the new formats for owners of legitimate copies of movies, especially if it is well known that the "security" measure is completely ineffective at actually providing the security that it was designed for.

 

[Harminder]

I was just wondering, other than the great PQ upconverting of SD-DVD's on the Toshiba HD-DVD players, does anyone also think there is a significant audio quality upconversion as well?

Since I've been using my HD-A1 and playing SD-DVD's on it, I noticed that my LFE channel and the surround channels are much much more active than before on my previous DVD player (Pioneer DV-656A). On both I've been using the 5.1 analog channels.

So is it just me, or are others noticing this SQ improvement as well?

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Harminder, did you calibrate your audio system using test tones and the A1 setup menu?

- Steve

 

[Harminder]

I didn't. I only calibrated PQ with DVE.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

I found the player's audio settings to be out-of-whack on the discrete inputs. (Technical term. ) I had to make adjustments in my receiver, then even more adjustments in the setup menu of the player. The end result was a little less punch to the sound.

There's a great thread on adjusting LFE... I believe it is in this subforum.

- Steve

 

[Harminder]

Thanks for the heads up on adjusting the sound. After doing the calibrations, I STILL hear a significant improvement in SQ. Rears are still more active then before (with my previous DVD player), but with the adjustments made, I find the LFE to me more tight and controlled now, which is even better.