Sony XBR2 - DVD Quality Question (1 Viewer)

[Kevin_M_M]

Got my XBR2 and love it beyond reason when I'm watching HDTV.
I am, however, hugely dissappointed with regular DVD. I know the wave of the future is the HD and BlueRay but I'm not quite there yet.

My questions is, my DVD player is from 1999. Should I upgrade to one that does some kind of upconvert to 1080i? Will that improve the picture? Do these usually come with an HDMI hookup? Havent needed a new DVD player until maybe now so I'm not familiar with the technology as it stands.

And if I'm out of luck and should just suck it up until I pick an HD brand DVD player, let me know that too.

 

[mdprince]

Yes - go out and get a progressive scan dvd player that can up-convert. Also, if your display has an HDMI input make sure the dvd player does as well. I have been very impressed with most of the SD DVDs we have watched on our new HD display. I bought the Denon DVD-1730 player as mine was an old one too. It's a great choice as we wait for the HD - DVD wars to wage. mp

 

[Alon Goldberg]

Hi Kevin - I would definately recommend purchasing a new Progressive Scan or HDMI Upconverting DVD Player, this will make a world of difference. Here are the best budget DVD players on the market: Oppo 970, Denon DVD-1730, Oppo 971. Either Oppo model would be my pick.

Enjoy!

 

[Kevin_M_M]

thanks guys, exactly what i wanted to hear! heading to circuit city to pick one out now.

 

[Scott_lb]

I also agree, however, I sometimes think that regular progressive scan looks better than upconverted DVD's. That might depend highly on the player, though.

 

[David Ruiz]

Not too long ago I bought a Sony NC85H that upconverts to either 720p or 1080i (only through HDMI) and also features progressive scan. Since my current display doesn't have an HDMI input, I decided to turn on the progressive scan feature. Unfortunately, this Sony DVD player has the chroma bug. :frowning: You'd think that after all of these years, Sony would have figured out a way to get rid of the stupid chroma bug. Needless to say, I had to set it back to interlaced mode. :frowning: Two thumbs down for this stupid DVD player.

Does anyone know if it will have the chroma bug when upscaling the picture to 720p through HDMI? I wonder...

Kevin, make sure not to buy any Sony DVD players. Every single one I have tried have all had the chroma bugs. I wonder why I keep getting Sony! I should switch to something else!

 

[Roger Mathus]

I have been considering the Sony XBR2 and have read several reviews that also point out that HD source material is superb but that SD sources do not look very good. The reviews also state that the XBR2 has a lot of control flexibility but I could not find whether this can improve the picture. The Samsung 40 inch and 46 inch 1080p models use the same display panel as the XBR2 (comes from the Samsung/Sony JV in Korea) but the electronics differ. Reviews I have read seem to indicate that the Samsung is also superb at HD and that it does a good job on SD also.

HD player reviews also indicate that both the Toshiba HD-DVD and Samsung Blu-ray players are also excellent up-converting players. This is also supported by several HTF posts in other threads. I own both the Toshiba and Samsung and I can confirm. With the Toshiba HD DVD player now readily available for about $ 400, it might be good to purchase this player instead of up-converting SD player and start enjoying HD discs with your superb XBR2.

 

[Arthur Legardo]

I just received my 46" XBR2 yesterday and I was thoroughly impressed. I have yet to test it out with various DVDs, but when I popped in a DVD last night to test out if I had connected everything correctly I received an odd message on the TV screen. It mentioned something about an "unsupported HDMI audio signal". My DVD player is a Samsung, one that upconverts, I forget the model number, but it is connected to the XBR via HDMI (and optical cable to my receiver). I was under the impression that an HDMI cable also carries the audio signal, but since my receiver (Denon AVR-2805, I believe) doesn't have any HDMI inputs, I connect them in this manner. Does anyone know how to to prevent that message from popping up on the TV screen?

TIA

 

[RomanSohor]

don't own any HDMI equipment myself, but is it possible to go into the setup of the DVD player and tell it not to pass any audio through the HDMI cable?

 

[Arthur Legardo]

Unfortunately, I didn't see a setting for that anywhere.

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

I just bought an upconverting to 1080p (Samsung) DVD player. Attached it to my 40" XBR2 via HDMI and the optical audio out to my A/V receiver. No sound. Turns out the Sony doesn't pass the digital audio from the HDMI through the optical audio out. Only thing output through it is digital TV channels. Kinda disappointed that Sony would do that. So I was forced to ouput the optical audio out from the DVD player directly to the receiver. Now, everything's fine. Picture's great; sound's great.

 

[Marty M]

Could someone give me a refresher on the chroma bug issue. I wasn't paying attention to that issue when it first came out since I had an SD TV at the time. I have the Sony 755. Does anyone know if that model is prone to the bug?