sao

I just brought my very first hdtv and i have about 500 dvds should i upgrade my 3 yrs old dvd player to a upconverting dvd player??

Sanitarium

What's your current player? IMO upconverting does next to nothing. It does help a little depending on your TV's scaler but in the end you're still looking at a 720x480 image.

mbs

IMO, you are very wrong. Regardless of how it is done, upscaling does a LOT. If your TV scales well, then yes, a DVDp with a scaler won't mean much. But the image is still scaled and the picture you are seeing is upconverted.

You are certainly NOT looking at a 720x480 image. The source is still 480i, but there is no way you can say that an upscaled image doesn't look better than the source image. The processing done (by television or player) is a strikingly noticible increase and the post-processing result is NOT a 720x480 image.

sao, my best advice would be to test out an upconverting player and see what you think. I love my OPPO (upconverting and R0/PAL->NTSC), but there are plenty of players on the market that accomplish this task. You can try a return friendly store and test-drive a player. If you don't think it improves anything, take it back. No one but you will be able to decide whether the ~$150-200 is worth it to you. It was unquestionably worth it in my case, but everyone's mileage (and setups) will vary.

darkside

I was fairly impressed the first time I saw the difference of an upconverted DVD on my TV. At first I didn't think it would make much of a difference since I have a CRT RPTV, but the difference was easily noticable and the 1080i upconverted picture is definitely my choice now when I watch DVDs. Even my wife who isn't picky about picture quality could tell the difference.

Not sure what your budget is, but I've definitely heard good things about the Oppo at $200. If you are planning to upgrade and spend some money you might want to consider an HD DVD player because as good as DVDs look on an HDTV, HD DVDs are much better.

mbs

Actually, a very good point. You've said the upconversion on that player is good (probably as good as most ~$200 DVD players). Another $300 for HD-DVD would make it a no brainer.

I'd trade in my Oppo and $300 for a HD-DVDp.

mrhan

If I were you I'd wait until the format war is over or at least until the end of the year when the dual format players come out.

Sanitarium

How is it not a 720x480 image when that's all the source is? The TV may display it at 1280x720 or 1920x1080 but it's still just a 720x480 image regardless. Upconverting doesn't magically remaster the image. Yes, as I said before, it does help a little but it isn't such a drastic improvement over 480p that it's going to make you think you're watching high def. And it's not certainly not striking to me.

OP, yes if you are going to buy a player it might as well be an upconverting player as they're relatively cheap now and the Oppo would be the one to get. However if you already have a progressive scan player it would make more sense to wait and buy a true HD player that plays HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

Chew

I just bought the new upconverting Sony DVD changer (was on sale at CC for $137.99). I really don't see a big clarity difference, but the colors are certainly more vibrant.

In fact, I think I need to pull out my Avia disc and do some tweaking. The TV settings I had for my previous changer need to be redone for the new player.

mbs

Because processing is being done to make the image 720p or 1080i or whatever. The image is scaled and de-interlaced, simple as that. The source is 480i, but what you are viewing (the image) is now 720p.

Does 480p look better than 480i? Yes, definately. Well, the source is still 480i. So, you would still say the picture is interlaced? The player is processing the image to make it progressive, that information is not on the disc. So, using your argument above, both 480i and 480p are the same image because the source for both is 480i material. But then why do they look so different? Because they are different.

I think your issue is that it sounds like with your setup, you are unable to isolate the variables. Your TV set will ALWAYS scale to its native resolution and it sounds like your TV does a good job with that. That is why you are seeing little benefit from an upconverting DVDp. To say that 480p looks as good as a scaled 720p image seems absurd to me, if you have seen a real comparison.

Spiky

You both really need to define what you are arguing about. A 720p LCD TV can NEVER display 1080i or 480p. Unless it shows 480p in a window-box. The only kind of TV that can actually compare 480 vs an HD res is an older CRT HDTV with both 480p and 1080i native output. (newer ones have dropped the 480 capability) Or CRT front PJs with multi-scan capability, but I don't think that's an issue in this thread.

Any other comparison is really a comparison of the scaler in the upconverting DVDp vs the scaler in the TV. It's not that "720p looks better than 480p", it's that your TV has a scaler that isn't worth it compared to the one in the DVDp. And if they are identical scalers, it is probably better to have it in the player since that will likely give you fewer digital <-> analog conversions.

mbs

This was my point, but you said it better than I.

My argument was simply with "upscaling does next to nothing". Because even if the scaler in the DVDp isn't doing much, the image is still scaled by the TV.

chipmac

I'm very happy with the 480p image that my Mits CRT RPTV is capable of displaying from the 480p output from my Panny RP56. So happy in fact that I have no intention of changing players just to get fake 1080i.

I'm sitting 8 feet back from a calibrated 55" screen and can only see scan lines if I'm looking for them. Does 1080i look more detailed? Yes of course it does. But upscaling from 480i to 1080i adds no real detail it only adds what the processing thinks the detail should be and for my set up would only reduce scan lines and over process the image.

For others that own displays that can't show 480p natively I can understand buying a player that upscales to see if it's better than the scaling of the display but for me I'll take native every time.

Grateful11

My plan was to get an Oppo Player but after reading about the new Toshiba and
it's upconverting capability I think that's the way I'm going to go and I'll be one
step ahead.
Grateful11