Upconversion problem (1 Viewer)

[mrm1138]

TV: Olevia 237T
Home Theater: Samsung HT-X50

For those of you unfamiliar with the hardware, the HT-X50 is one of those home theater in a box things, so the DVD player and receiver are both the same unit.

Despite having had the DVD player hooked up to the TV via HDMI ever since I got it, I just recently realized how to select higher resolutions. The problem I have, however, is that on some DVDs, there occurs a strange glitch in the picture during 720p and 1080i modes. I will see a tiny square that blinks in the upper lefthand corner of the screen and, along the entire lefthand side, a slim line of discoloration (usually a magenta-ish color, about the same width as the blinking square). This will always occur after the screen saver comes on and I press a button to get back to the main screen, no matter which DVD I'm playing. (That leads me to believe that it's a problem with the DVD player rather than the TV, but I can't know for sure.) It only sometimes occurs during normal playback, and when it does, the movie will play normally at first and then the glitch will happen.

The discoloration only occurs during 1080i playback, however. In 720p mode, a different glitch plagues me. In this case, it's a slight problem with the framing of the image, similar to when you see a movie in the theater and the image is out of frame, i.e., the top part of the image is on the bottom of the screen and the bottom is on the top. In this case, it's once again on the lefthand side of the screen (in the exact same spot where the line of discoloration appears during 1080i playback). The slim line is not discolored, but I can tell that it should actually be on the far right of the screen, as it doesn't join seamlessly with the rest of the image.

Apart from that, I also notice a bit of a freezing problem in the higher resolution modes. The image will slow down for a few frames once every minute or two. It's just enough to be distracting.

I've updated the firmware for my home theater system—there doesn't appear to be a firmware upgrade for my TV—but that hasn't solved the problem. Does anyone have any idea why it's doing this or how I can get rid of it?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Hi Matt. Welcome to HTF!

I think your problem is the DVD player is a up-converting DVD player. It cannot really add more information to each screen to create a 720 or 1080 image. Instead it tries to magnify the image and fill in some spots.

This causes 'artifacts', and it more prone on LCD televisions because the LCD television also processes the video image in blocks and sometimes the lines where the up-converting DVD player and TV intersect.

(Example: "Oppo" makes some of the best up-converting players, but a few models are labeled not for use with LCD televisions).

My advice: Turn down the resolution on the DVD player to 480. Let the TV up-convert the image. This should remove the artifacts.

Then - budget for a BluRay or PS3. These machines provide true 720 or 1080 video.

Hope this helps.