I have a Sony KDS 50 A2000 TV, and a Phillips upconverting DVD player. I have the DVD player hooked up via HDMI. When I set it on 720p or 1080i and watch a 1.85:1 movie, I get a small, uneven letterbox on the top of the screen. When I set it on 480p, it looks fine. I run my Xbox 360 on 1080i via component inputs, and have no problems at all. Is this just a result of upconversion, or a crappy dvd player? I am sure it isn't a problem with the TV. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem.

I don't have your DVD player, so I can't answer that part. I do have the 60" version of your TV and the Oppo 981 and I do not have the same problem.

If this is the Philips 5960, then like most mediatek-based players there is some vertical compression on upscaled resolutions (though I would have expected the black bar to be at the bottom of the picture instead of the top). This is a signature flaw in the decoding/scaling chipset. A couple of mediatek-based players do extra postprocessing to re-expand the picture, but at the expense of sharpness. - DR