If hdtv's upconvert everything,why buy a progressive scan dvd player? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Adams]

I am kind of confused about all of this upconversion stuff. Can someone point me in the right direction or give me some links about it? Like my question asks, why get a very good progressive scan dvd player if your hdtv upconverts to say 540p/720p/1080i? I know why I got a progressive scan player. Simply put, my JVC interlaced dvd player looked terrible on my 64 inch widescreen. Once I switched to a good progressive scan dvd player it was a night and day comparison. Is that because my set does not upconvert well? DirecTV signals do not look that good. I can see a ton of scan lines. Is that just because of DirecTV or is my tv not doing a good job of upconverting the 480i image?
I have also heard that it is a good idea to get a very good interlaced dvd player for fixed panel displays such as DLP/LCD AND LCOS and let the hdtv itself do the deinterlacing. Is this true? Thanks for the help.

 

[Shawn_MM]

Ive read that the DVI's out right now dont make that big a difference, and are quite buggy (Philips new 13 bit DVD with DVI). Also that DVI cables can only be run in a very short length or picture quality degrades due to some outside electrical disturbances. I never performed a blind study with the two sets of cables, but it would be fun.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Going progressive is more than just about scaling and 3:2 pulldown.

Progressive signals are typically cleaner than interlaced ones and have higher resolution than 480i on many units.

If you feed a TV with 480i ... you could be feeding it a degraded signal that not only has more noise, but also less resolution. At this point, it doesn't matter how good the TV's scaling/upsampling is ... as it will never give you back the extra resolution it never received.

Regards

 

[RoyGBiv]

The idea behind a progressive scan DVD player is that if it has a good D/A converter, all the conversion is done in the digital domain with only one conversion to analog to your TV. It still depends a great deal, though, on how well the DVD does this de-interlacing in comparison to how well the TV does it. With my previous Mitsubishi 46" TV, the difference was night and day with progressive scan inputs looking significantly better. OTOH, my year Mitsubishi was not known for its line doubler. I currently have a 50" Panasonic plasma, and I can barely tell the difference when it is fed a progressive signal and when it is not. So, a lot depends on the equipment you have: the TV and what is feeding it.

SMK

 

[Jeff Adams]

Thanks for the answers. I have another question. If you have a progressive scan dvd player and have it set to progressive and not interlaced, does it bypass your hdtv's upconversion and pass a pure progressive signal?

The idea behind a progressive scan DVD player is that if it has a good D/A converter, all the conversion is done in the digital domain with only one conversion to analog to your TV.

That was what I was getting at with DLP/LCD and LCOS. These new dvd players with DVI inputs hooked up to a fixed panel hdtv through DVI should have no converting to analog right? Isn't that a pure digital to digital signal path? So in theory you should get the absolute best picture. That is once they get all the bugs worked out.

 

[greg_t]

Thanks for the answers. I have another question. If you have a progressive scan dvd player and have it set to progressive and not interlaced, does it bypass your hdtv's upconversion and pass a pure progressive signal?

It varies from set to set. Most HDTV's nowdays upconvert both 480i and 480p to 540p. They don't differentiate between the two and just upconvert whatever comes in. This apparently is a cost cutting measure. Other sets do allow native 480p. I think Mits and Panasonic do, and Pioneer I know does for sure. For example, Pioneer's line doubler does 480p, not 540p. It will look at the incoming signal and convert 480i to 480p and allow native 480p from a dvd player to pass through untouched. This is the preferable way to do it.