when connected using my 3 year old dvd [standard] playing my 100s of dvds I have accumulated through the years look pretty bad. Is there something wrong I did or must I change my 3 year old player for the newer upscale players???? or those Bluray discs? or changing a dvd player with HDMI? What can I do. Will changing to those newer upscale DVD Players with DIVX, DVDRs, DVDs capability play my older dvds fine... not HD of course but better than what I currently have now?

when connected using my 3 year old dvd [standard] playing my 100s of dvds I have accumulated through the years look pretty bad. Is there something wrong I did or must I change my 3 year old player for the newer upscale players???? or those Bluray discs? or changing a dvd player with HDMI? What can I do. Will changing to those newer upscale DVD Players with DIVX, DVDRs, DVDs capability play my older dvds fine... not HD of course but better than what I currently have now?

In what way does the image look pretty bad?

How is it connected?

Have you tried a calibration disc?

-Bill

One more question, what size is your display? (make and model, too)

I just got a regular 47 inch Aquos LCD I think...1080p i just got 1 month ago. It plays the free Spiderman 3 movie on BluRay and the games are really astounding... so I thought the kids will enjoy their movies like Incredibles. I plugged it in using component and also tried SVid, etc.. all of them looked crappy. I know they are probably 480i or p... but never did I thought it would looked that bad. Should I upgrade the player. I have the Philips DVD player that plays divx, mp3 and standard dvds, it has component cable that the back and optical out. I do not care much for the sound seriously but the image quality looks bad. I changed [within the menu] to progressive and others..it look nicer but still far off. Some of the newer dvd players from Philips upscale it to 1080i or p.. are those better? Thanks

I just got a regular 47 inch Aquos LCD I think...1080p i just got 1 month ago. It plays the free Spiderman 3 movie on BluRay and the games are really astounding... so I thought the kids will enjoy their movies like Incredibles. I plugged it in using component and also tried SVid, etc.. all of them looked crappy. I know they are probably 480i or p... but never did I thought it would looked that bad. Should I upgrade the player. I have the Philips DVD player that plays divx, mp3 and standard dvds, it has component cable that the back and optical out. I do not care much for the sound seriously but the image quality looks bad. I changed [within the menu] to progressive and others..it look nicer but still far off. Some of the newer dvd players from Philips upscale it to 1080i or p.. are those better? Thanks

Again: in what way does it look crappy? If the problem is that your regular DVDs do not look as good as Blu-Ray: that cannot be helped. DVD is capable of fine images but cannot match a good HD source.

Component should be better than s-video or composite. HDMI might or might not be better than component, depending on the combination of gear. HDMI allows upscaled DVD images, but scaling in the player vs scaling in the display is another area where "it depends" which is better.

Always use a calibration disc for best results.

-Bill

I think what he is trying to figure out is how much better will an HDMI upconverting DVD player look on the Plasma.

I have the same question, I have a Pioneer 578 with progressive-scan, connected to my new Panasonic 50PZ85 plasma via component.

The picture looks pretty good, slight graininess to picture but colors are good because Plasma has been calibrated.

I'd like to hold off until Blu-ray but:

• I could buy a refurbished Samsung, Pioneer, or Philips right now for less than $75 of ebay, etc.

• Or if I save I could get a OPPO in a few months (probably the best option )

Just got a Plasma TV and the DVDs I got

I just got a regular 47 inch Aquos LCD I think...

Which is it? How do you make a $1000+ purchase and not know what you are buying?

Secondly, have you tried playing standard DVD's in your PS3???

I will try that. I also had some dvdrs of home videos during vacations... not sure if my PS3 will play those.. will test it tonight.