It's the same player as a V, Inc. Bravo D1 and is also marketed under no fewer than 9 other brand names. There have been a number of reports about that player on this forum and others. Basically, the real advantage of these players is with a fixed pixel display (DLP, LCD or plasma)that has a DVI input. The picture quality improvement through component on a direct view or RPTV will likely not be very noticeable and with some DVDs, the PQ on a player with superior deinterlacing will be better.
Mikes, no offense, but your statement does not make sense.
Your statement implies that the component-out only output 480p (just like Bravo player). However, you failed to take into consideration that this player is being advertised to actually output 720p and also 1080i using its component output.
Going back to what you said, if the component may look worse than regular progressive player, that means you've assumed (or know for a fact) that this particular player will only output 480p exactly like the Bravo player.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I was talking about 720p or 1080i through the component outputs, compared to 480p from a different DVD player. The upconversion PQ increase is not that noticeable on CRT-based displays and because the Sigma Designs 8500 chip used in these players does not have the best deinterlacing going, many discs would look better on a Sage/Faroudja equipped player. While the Bravo does not advertise the ability to output 720p and 1080i through the component outputs, it is able to do so (or at least the first versions were able to).
That's not to say that there won't be any improvement over 480p on a CRT-based display, just don't expect it to be a drastic one.
aaaaah, thank you for the clarification. So do you think i'd be better off buying a $400 line interpolator from Viewsonic to upconvert my 480p to 960i ?
I don't have any experience with the Viewsonic, so I can't say how much of an improvement it may or may not make. In general, there's not a big difference with upconverted DVDs. The exception occurs in the cases I mentioned previously, especially if the display can natively display 720p or 1080i, due to the direct digital path and one-to-one pixel mapping.