Will a new player improve the picture? (1 Viewer)

[Holadem]

Not that it seems to need improving, I am extremely happy with my picture quality right now, just planning an upgrade path

Display is newly acquired Infocus SP4805 DLP projector (480p). It's claim to fame is the much praised Faroudja De-Interlacer it sports.

Source is an el-cheap $49.99 Magnavox DVD player. It can do 480p, but I output Interlaced because I doubt it's scaler is better than the Faroudja in the PJ. Output is component.

I understand that a higher end player with a better De-interterlacer than my PJ's Faroudja will result in a better picture if I set the player to 480p. It is also my understanding that I might have to spend quite a chunk of change for such a player, since the Faroudja is typically found in higher end players.

Now, how about 480i? If I want to use the Faroudja chip in the PJ, would a more reputable player (say... $200 price point) set to 480i result in a better picture? How? What do those players do for the picture quality that my el-cheapo Magnavox doesn't, since no de-interlacing or scaling of any kind is taking place in the player?

TIA.

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H

 

[John S]

If your happy with the $49 MPEG decoder (And many cheapie 480i players have pretty darn good MPEG decoders these days) I see no reason to change from that. many modern displays excel with using their own de-intlerlacer along with their own internal scalers these days.


You may never find a stand alone great DVD player to match what you can get with a cheapie and that displays internal DCDi and scaler in all honesty.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

There can still be significant improvement, as the decoders have improved, the DACs are designed better in better players, sometimes other problems like clipping and signal delays etc are fixed, chroma bug etc etc. There are all kinds of things that many cheapie players get wrong in outputting 480i. You'd have to examine the player's performance carefully using test material etc. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you made a significant improvement in PQ with a better player, even just outputting 480i. Whether that improvement is worth the significant cost to you is a different matter...

 

[John S]

And there you have it, to different opinions on it.


Chris is way correct, a better player should be better. It is just not such a given these days once you start hooking stuff up and experimenting some.

I have solved quite a few peoples DVD viewing woes these days, by making a change from there "Great higher End" players, back to some relative cheapies is all....

 

[James Phung]

A dvd player with faroudja can still look better than a 480i player paired with the 4805's faroudja. Using a faroudja dvd player with the 4805 over hdmi/dvi will allow a digital connection to the player to the projector, eliminating any analog to digital conversions that can degrade the picture quality.

 

[Holadem]

Sure, but I don't want to shell out for that sort of beast yet - kinda of defeats the purpose of the 4805 if you ask me. The faroudja chip was a big selling point for me and I intend to use it.

Thanks fellows.

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H

 

[ChrisWiggles]

The purpose of the display is to display as good a picture as possible. If you feed it from a poor quality source, you have failed the purpose of the display, regardless of what features you are using in it. In my opinion, you have not reached the full potential of any digital projector unless you are viewing the best possible image possible on that particular display. I would be willing to bet that the way to achieve the best image on this projector would be bypassing all internal processing, including the faroudja, and feeding it from a 1:1 mapped high-end processor or HTPC.

 

[John S]

I wish I had more experience with this projo, I'd bet, I'd bet you if so.

All that posted is the way it should be best, but in really hooking this stuff up, I'd say that only about 1/2 the time does that end up being true.

If you have an excellent transport and mpeg decoder, 480i being fed via the component video is still often best on just a ton of modern displays.

There is just to much invlolved here that can make 1:1 pixel mapping fed digitally have a quirk or another here and there. Often times it is going with the combo that has the least quirks, which is often 480i fed via component video.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Yes, but my point is that this is a lot more difficult to do than you might think. Consumer players, especially cheap ones, regularly and predictably screw up all kinds of things in outputting just plain-jane 480i. An cheapo $50 magnavox dvd player just reeks of something less-than-perfect in its 480i output. A well-chosen 100-200 dollar player might get you as reasonably good a 480i output as you are gonna get, and might provide a worthy improvement. A good idea would be to test something out and see if its worth it.

 

[John S]

I guess even good decent 480i isn't as standard as I have come to think it is yet. It's not like I get a ton of oppertunity to critically evaluate 480i cheapie players, that's for sure. Just seems most of them these days, do a decent job of it.. The Chroma bugs are gone for the most part, and the mpeg decoders have improved in the average under $100 player is all.