HD-A2 Video Scaling Question (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Cooper]

I have the Toshiba HD-A2 player, and currently have on order the Optoma HD70, which is a 720p native projector.

I will be using a HDMI connection for video, and was looking for opinions on which produces a better picture:

Should I have the HD-A2 downconvert to 720p and pass that natively to the projector, or Should I have the HD-A2 output 1080i and have the projector downconvert that to 720p?

I guess it comes down to which has a better downconverter, the HD-A2 or the HD70 projector.

Thanks for any opinons.

 

[Cees Alons]

Jeff,

Of the first firmware version of the HD-A1 problems were reported with the "720p"-output. This was solved by a next firmware upgrade, so it might be expected that the A2 doesn't exhibit those problems.

Personally, I think your remark about "who has the better downconverter" is right. I would certainly compare both options with my own eyes and choose accordingly.
(And, please, let us know your verdict. )


Cees

 

[Jack Gilvey]

I posted in your other thread:

As far as I know, the Optoma will not deinterlace 1080i, so it'll use a single field and scale up to 720p from 540p. 720p should be better, but it's the lesser of the two outputs based on my viewing them natively on my CRT (perhaps since it's easier to get 1080i than 720p from 1080p), text is especially rough with 720p, so...



...try them both.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

My projector is scheduled for delivery on Wednesday the 10th, so i'll certainly let you know how it turns out.

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to believe that outputting 720p from the player is the way to go.

If I set the player to output 1080i, then for HD DVD's the player would have to convert from 1080p -> 1080i, and then the projector would have to convert from 1080i -> 720p. For SD DVD's the player would have to convert from 480p -> 1080i, and then the projector would have to convert from 1080i -> 720p. In both cases there are two conversion processes going on.

If I set the player to output 720p, then there is only one conversion going on, and the projector can accept a native signal and not have to do anything.

Of course, this is all in theory, I guess. Who knows whats really going on inside?

 

[Jack Gilvey]

I think your theory is accurate. While I found the 1080i to be better veiwed natively, my AE900 causes it to look slightly softer than the 720p feed. Text is very choppy, though, as I mentioned.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

I'll be getting either the Optoma or the Mitsubishi HD1000u very soon, so I'm interested in the answer to this question also. I've read that it's better to leave the HD DVD player at 1080i and let the projector do the scaling, but that was back when the 720p output on the HDA1 was broken. Leaving the settings on the player at 720p seems to make more sense now.

 

[Bob_L]

On my Mits 3000, 1080i looks slightly sharper than native 720p.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Well I finally got the projector in, and it's extremely difficult to tell the difference between having the player output 1080i and 720p. Overall, i couldn't really see any difference at all in general picture, and I think text looked a little less choppy with the player outputting 1080i, but it was so slight, I think it may just be a psycological 'perception' thing, where I know it's 1080i, and my brain just thinks it's sharper.

Ultimately, I left the player to output 720p, because in this way, I can press the 'Native' scaling button on the projector and have peace of mind that the projector is doing 1-1 mapping with absolutely no scaling. If I set the projector to 'Native' when the player is outputting 1080i, the image is about half the size of normal, where if the player is outputting 720p, the image is the same size in 'Native' mode, as '16:9' scaling mode.