RP91 help! (1 Viewer)

[Chris Pendergraft]

I just got my RP91, based on reviews I had read here about one month ago. I hooked it up and set everything up correctly. I have a 55' 16x9 television with the full surround setup. Now I could be wrong but I remeber people posting earlier that this unit converted older non-anamorphic discs to anamorphic. Was I just confused or did they mean the picture quality is improved because of the progressive scan properties of the player. Also, I noticed that the RP91 plays dvd audio, do I need anything else other than the player to play a dvd audio. According to the manual it doesn't look that way, however I thought I'd ask
Thanks for any and all responses.
Chris

 

[Dan Hitchman]

The way the Panny scales the non-anamorphic image to a fake anamorphic mode is better than most 16x9 TV's Zoom function. Just a better algorithm being used I guess. Plus the fact that it's progressive scanned (480p) where on some HDTV's that lock into FULL mode, in order to use the set's Zoom mode for non-anamorphic DVDs you have to go to interlaced (480i) mode on a regular progressive scan player.
For the DVD-Audio function to work you need A)a DVD-Audio disc (as an example: Steely Dan's Two Against Nature; they come in super sized jewel cases with the DVD-Audio logo on the cover), and B) 6 analog audio cables from the player to a receiver or processor's 5.1 analog bypass inputs.
Dan

 

[Chris Pendergraft]

So is there a zoom feature on the RP91? I looked at the manual but didn't read anything about it.
Anyone who owns this unit know exactly what has to be done to use this feature? Thanks, again
Chris

 

[george kaplan]

Hit the display twice and then cycle through to the video settings and go to U4 and then tab over a couple of more and there's a setting that cycles through auto-zoom-shrink-normal.
All of that is off the top of my head, so sorry if it's not clear.
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13-time NBA world champion Lakers: 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2000, 2001

 

[DanG]

No your not wrong, only close.
The RP91 will not convert non-anam discs to anam discs. What it does is similar to what a HTPC solution can do, that is it scales.
Take for example a non-anam 2.35:1 OAR disc. There are 272 scan lines of information on that disc, compared to 363 lines for an anam enhanced disc. If you ZOOM with most RPTV's they will separate the distance between scan lines until you have full screen height. This also means you've lost scan lines in this process and will degrade the picture quality.
What the RP91 does is to take the 272 lines and scale them to 480 lines in the player itself. These additional lines are not new lines of info but redundant ones of the original 272. It then outputs the proper sized image depending what ZOOM mode you've chosen. This is similar to the process used in making an anam enhanced disc except the telecine operator starts out with 480 lines of info and after stetching the image vertically ends up with 363.
There has been some discussion on AVS that upscaling to a higher line count can produce a somewhat better picture. I found this to be case when taking 480P content, upscaling it with my Radeon to 720P and got a picture that had more "apparent" resolution.
Remember to press the button on the front of the RP91 to be in Progressive mode. To enter the ZOOM mode press the "Display" button on the remote twice. Then joystick down three times. The icon on the right should be a projection TV. Use the joystick to arrow over to the right till you see the caption window read "4:3 Aspect". Joystick down till you get the ZOOM mode.
The 4:3 Aspect mode only works for non-anam discs. You cannot scale anam discs.
For me the feature works very well.
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[Ernest]

The JVC 723 will also re-format a 4 x 3 letterbox DVD to 16 x 9 giving the appearance of an anamorphic DVD. Does this process improve the picture quality? From my experience with the JVC 723 I would say yes the process does improve picture quality. It can't make a bad DVD, Born on the Fourth of July, better, but it can make Clear and Present Danger, Stargate and many others look very good. In fact on some DVD's, the Abyss, Dune 2000, you would swear you were watching an anamorphic DVD. Dune 2000 has an extreemly sharp, artifact free, film like picture.
I don't know if the R91 handles all letterbox DVD's by formatting them to 16 x 9. For the 723 unless the letterbox DVD includes the formatting instructions the picture will be windowed boxed. In that case you can use the player's zoom feature. The zoom feature is very easy to use, it has a direct button on the remote so it is not necessary to enter the menu.
This is a great feature and it would be helpful to know which other progressive scan players can re-format leterbox DVD's.

 

[DanG]

Yes it will scale all non-anamorphic letterbox formats, to either of three viewing modes. The normal non-anam letterbox mode, a 4:3 Shrink mode to view in 4:3, and a ZOOM that does scaling to produce an anamorphic looking image.
A snap of the scaling at work:
RP91 scaling
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[GlennH]

If I've been reading the forums correctly, I believe there is one difference between the JVC and Panasonic on this scaling.
From what I've read the JVC only scales non-anamorphic letterboxed DVDs automatically by reading the flags on the DVD. You can't override it manually (at least on one model, maybe the later ones fixed this).
The Panasonic (which I have) does it automatically too, but can also be put into ZOOM manually for when the DVD isn't flagged correctly. Titanic is a classic example of one that won't scale automatically -- the AUTO mode just windowboxes it.
The scaling really does make a good non-anamorphic transfer look much better than using the TV's ZOOM mode (interlaced) on my Elite 610. No scan lines!

 

[Wayne_T]

Hey Dan, we watched the first DVD on the RP91 last night - MI2 - and it was displayed on our 16X9 TV like the top left image in your link. My understanding from the above posts is that I can change that to a full screen display like the top right image. Is that correct?
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[Dan A]

I also just bought a RP-91 and I have a Toshiba tn50x81 TV. It does not do the squeeze, at least not without going into the service menu. I have not had much time to experiment with the set, but I wanted to know if the features discussed above have any relevance to my set and how I might watch movies--letterboxed, letterboxed and zoomed (ie somewhere btwn letterbox and pan & scan.) And whether I too should always try to get the anamorphic version. (are there often different versions?)
thanks

 

[Chris Pendergraft]

Thanks for all the replies I'm going to go try it right now, I'll post back in a bit about my results.
Chris

 

[Chris Pendergraft]

Sweet, that looks so good I just tried it on Titanic and you guys are so right, it looks fabulous. Also a couple of more questions. What should I have my digital picture mode set to? Should I also leave the transfer mode on auto1? Thanks, you guys have been alot of help
Chris

 

[DanG]

Permit me to address you informally, Wayne. Sorry for the late response but I was phasing my surrounds and setting up the MA-500 amp.
But is this a test?
Regardless, I owe you one
If memory serves me correct MI2(Mission Impossible II) is a "Anamorphically Enhanced" DVD with an OAR of 2.40:1, gives you some pretty thick black bars. The topleft image of the graphic I posted is a non-anamorphic DVD. Yours should not look like that graphic. It should look like the top or bottom right.
The RP91 scales ONLY in Progressive mode(the blue light on the front panel should be on).
Is it possible you have left the RP91 in interlace mode and your Toshiba is doing some kind of squeeze.
Give me more info and if its still doing it, I'll hunt up my copy.
Dan
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[DanG]

Digital Picture mode and the transfer have their largest effect on how this player deals with 3:2 pulldown. As we all know the datastream on a DVD is stored as 24fps. Your TV needs 29.97(30) fps to display properly. So the progreesive scan RP91 will weave the two interlaced fields into one video frame and then repeat the frames in the standard 3:2 pattern.
Where you have the settings depends a lot on how the DVD was produced. Only because of lack of time on my part I use Normal for the digital mode and Auto2 for any film based DVD's, this covers the occasional flag error better than Auto1 does. But if you use these settings and spot motion artifacting you should experiment with those settings to see if you can reduce it.
If you like "boat" movies, check out U-571. I am becoming more and more impressed on a daily basis, by the RP91's audio abilites.
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[Chris Pendergraft]

Thanks Dan I set just like you said. When you say audio capabilities what exactly do you mean? I have it hooked up to my avr3300 with digital coaxial, which sounds great imo. I do have 6 channel inputs on my receiver also, should I hook it up that way instead? Thanks
Chris

 

[Wayne_T]

Thanks Dan. I did experiment a little more last night and I think that all is well. MI2 is probably playing as it should. Yes, we are in progressive mode - the blue light is on. We watched the Matrix last night and it looked terrific. Even the better half is making comments about the improved picture, and thats a surprise because "there was nothing wrong with the old one" would be more in character. Appreciate your help.
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[DanG]

Since DVD-AUDIO discs are protected in digital audio mode by downconverting to a 2ch 16bit/48kHz output, this is not necessarily the best sound. By using the 6ch analogue, there is no copy protection involved and you get the maximum audio quality from the disc in this mode, usually 5-6ch 24bit/96kHz output. The drawback to this is there is no bass mangement from either the RP91 or current receivers.
As for DVD-Video discs that are audio, I've found the RP91 plays them very well in audio mode. I'll be doing a more critical audio test by setting the RP91 to PCM thereby forcing its DAC to the do decoding on a DVD-V DTS 6ch audio disc and then switch it back to BITSTREAM to let the Denon's DAC's do the decoding and compare the results.
Dan
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[DanG]

quote: Originally posted by: Wayne_T
Even the better half is making comments about the improved picture, and thats a surprise because "there was nothing wrong with the old one" would be more in character
[/quote]
I was going to email you that there is an imposter cutting and pasting your posts over at AVS, but the latest post solved that issue
To impress the better half rent "Fifth Element" and "The Replacements", the colour is spectacular in these.
Also I believe that Rogers Video has a DVD called " Over Canada". It is the closest thing you will see to HDTV coming out of a DVD player!
Heres the link:http://www.overcanada.com/products.htm
Dan
[Edited last by DanG on July 13, 2001 at 12:18 PM]