Progressive vs. interlaced
 

I know that progressive is supposed to give you a better picture, but how noticeable is it? Is it subtle, like the whole DD vs. DTS debate, or is it a no question about it type of thing?
I have a 55" HDTV with a good old fashioned Sony interlaced DVD player. It's going to be a tough sell on the wife of why we need a different DVD player, and I know she will be really unhappy if I get it, and the difference is barely noticeable.
So I guess the real question is, is the difference big enough for the wife to notice, and to think it was worth upgrading?

I think it depends on the quality of your TV's line doubler. I have a 55" Mitsubishi and recently upgraded to a JVC XV-S60BK progressive scan DVD player. I could notice the difference on colors and movement. It seems more film-like, clearer. I got the player for $220 and I think it was worth it. You can always go to Best Buy and try one out. If you don't notice a difference, take it back.

I agree. I have a Pioneer Elite and progressive is a fairly subtle improvement from interlaced. You can see it but you have to really look for it and A-B it. The interlaced is still very good. For most other sets progressive is probably worth it.

I definitely notice a big difference. I have a DVD player that has a switch for progressive and interlaced and there is no comparison between the two.

As others have said though it depends on the quality of the line doubler in your TV. I have a Mits widescreen as well and the line doubler is not that great. Also progressive scanning is not just about having a line doubler built into it. The line doubler also needs to do 3:2 pulldown and it also needs to be able to correct for DVDs that are not encoded properly. Sometimes when the DVD is encoded the flags are not encoded in the right sequence and a good progressive scan player will correct for that. Also a progressive player will properly convert the chroma information from the compressed 4:2:0 to the uncompressed 4:4:4 information. Now I know the Pioneer TV has a great line doubler built into it, but I would be suprised if it had all those capabilities.

One thing to make sure of is your TV should have a "video" mode and a "film" mode. Make sure when you are watching a DVD you are in film mode as that utlizes any 3:2 pulldown dection that may be present in the line doubler.

I know the Pioneer has 3:2 pulldown, but how could I check to see if it has those other capabilities? If it's just visual recognition I sure haven't seen any problem.

X, I don't know if there is anything that you could visibly check. I just know a lot of those capabilities are built into the actual progressive chip itself and has nothing to do with the line doubler. The better of these chips are made by Genesis, Faroudja, Silicon Image, etc.

I do know the line doubler in the Pioneer is very good so progressive scan probably isn't that much of an improvement.

I just got the Toshiba SD5700 progressive and it has a much better image over my previous progressive scan player(Toshiba 5109), so the technology seems to always be improving, and on my TV progressive definitely makes a difference.

I'm running a 32' VVega with a Pioneer 333 that I can set progressive...

should I run the player progressive, or interlaced... as I don't have the XBR model of VVega???

-k
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The Pioneer DV-333 is an interlaced player only, not progressive. You only see the results of progressive scan if your set can handle it.

That's what I thought, but in my menus there is a progressive, and interlaced setting. Why is that there if the player can't do progressive?

From what little I knew about the player, I was told that it did a 'fake' progressive for what that's worth.

I just got the player because it's wired "region free" so I can watch my import dvds.

-k
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Good to see this started some discussion. I have a Mits 55807. From the sounds of it, I think i'll stick with my current player for the time being. Of course, when the time comes to replace it, I'll obviously get a progressive scan.

I have the same TV...you will definitely notice a big difference with a progressive scan player on the Mits.