I have a Sony Bravia xbr 40 1080P LCD HD TV and blue ray, games and hd cable looks great...but whenever i play a standard dvd in my ps3 or thru my regular dvd player it really looks like crap....It looks almost as bad as a bootleg dvd is playing. I know HD is the best picture but i didnt know that it would make my standard dvds look bad. Am i doing something wrong? I have ps3 hooked up with digtal op cable and HDMI and the dvd player (sony 5disc) is set to 16:9 and S video.

Your s-video connection is killing you. You are losing 120 lines of resolution - you're down from 480 to 360. Switch to component video, or better yet get a progressive scan dvd player, or better than that, get an upconverting dvd player.

Actually, while the above may be true, it's not the real problem in this case. The PS3 is actually a terrible SD DVD player. Read some of the reviews. OP, you'd be better off just using a solid SD player for SD DVDs, or better yet, get yourself an A2.

The PS3 doesn't upconvert? I had the same problem until I got a VGA cable for my 360.

I have a standard dvd player. sony 5 disc and it has progresive scan. So i should just use progresive scan and also get component cables?

Yes. S-Video is shit.

Where did this come from (that S-Video cuts the lines of resolution)?

So, say I were transferring some things from S-VHS to DVD. S-VHS will CUT the lines of resolution??? I always thought it gave you BETTER resolution.

Get component cables fr your Sony changer. You will then send an analog signal to your monitor and the Sony TV will upconvert it for you.

Get an upconverting player.

True. The Sony does not upconvert SD dvds. Yes, you should get a proper upconverting DVD player and component cables.

No. He was wrong. It transfers a full 720x480.

The problem of the OP is, as mentioned, that he has no decent player. The PS's suck as DVD players, and he probably has a cheap standalone. None of those are going to do well on a 1080p. Although I'm a little surprised that a Bravia doesn't look a bit better than he describes.

That all depends on the scaler in your television. Any progressive scan DVD player output can look exceptional on a 1080p display that has a better than average scaler, as a Bravia should have. On my TV, there is no difference in image quality between SD discs I play on my Toshiba A1, versus the same discs played on my (relatively old, non-upscaling) Panny progressive scan player. Both look excellent.

Are ya sure? This isn't the first time I've heard that S-video doesn't do 720. I don't understand why it wouldn't since S-video has always (supposedly) been better than composite.

You would think a $600 piece of equipment would upconvert....but no. Buy an A2 or an upconverting DVD player. I'm leaning towards an A2 right now.

S-Video transfers less chroma resolution. Here's a link to a lengthy and technical post on another board about it: http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsth...?Number=179156

BTW, the PS3 is supposed to get the capability to upscale DVDs at some point. The rumor is that it would be part of a big March update. You might want to wait until at least then to see if that pans out.

I'm looking more for a comparison between composite and s-video

I don't think so. I was talking about his Sony 5 disc changer, NOT his PS3.

My dvd player only puts out 360 lines over s-video. I assumed his does, too.

I believe composite and Svideo are the same, except that Svideo splits out the luminance signal. This is why component is truly what you want, and what the OP should try as the cheapest upgrade if he doesn't want to get a new player.

And that post at HTS gives details on why this is true. The post I was first responding to was talking about vertical resolution, that has never been an issue and that's why I posted. Horizontal is admittedly a bit tougher. 20 years ago when all the expensive TVs were claiming 700 line resolution, it was talking about horizontal and hardly mattered since none of the sources really took advantage of it. LD sorta.

At the very least it should be doing ~500h by 480v, which is basic NTSC. Where do you get 360? Officially, it would call it 525i, although only 480 are visible lines.

I kind of have the same problem as the original poster. How do the players that upconvert do it? The DVD player I have is supposed to upconvert - is it automatic or do I have to set it to do so?

I'm not being an apologist, but I don't see why. It's a next-gen gaming machine and a BD player. SD DVD doesn't factor into that.

In any event, the PS3 will upconvert in the near future via FW upgrade.

I wouldn't call the stand alone cheap. it's a sony 5 disc and has progresive scan. It's the model that came out right before the new 5 disc upconverting dvd players.

What connections are you using? I know my Oppo won't upconvert over component, only HDMI.

There are 480 lines on the DVD disc (if anamorphically encoded).

When displaying component, 16x9 mode, the dvd player puts out all 480 lines from the disc. The tv squeezes this back into a 16x9 image.

When displaying s-video, it ignores 16x9 mode, and removes every 4th line from the disc. It still puts out 480 lines so it can be compliant with NTSC, but only 360 lines come from the dvd disc.

hook it up with component cables and let the tv upconvert it.

is there an echo in here?