Granted I am somwehat new to the world of HD television but I was shocked to see how poor the pic is from my new Sonny-77 player.
I have it hooked up to my new Panny 75u via HDMI, and I have the player set to 1920x1080 output (auto).
Went through the entire instruction manual and made sure to tweak every setting appropriately.
Threw in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which I imagined would look stunning.
The pic is terrible.
Very grainy, not sharp-equivalent to an SD picture on a plasma!
Also, the movie is in letterbox (i have output set to 16:9) and there are still black bars on the top and bottom?

Is a DVD picture suppossed to look better than SD?
Am I missing something here?

(BTW: the DVD says its presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2:35:1)

The native resolution (number of pixels) of your 42" plasma is 1024x768. Set the Sony to 720p output, it will probably look a little better that way (closer to your display's actual resolution and your set won't have to de-interlace and downscale from 1080i)

Have you tried adjusting the set with a calibration disc (DVE, Avia or the THX Optimizer patterns on some DVD's like Monsters Inc, Star Wars, etc.) You may have the settings out of whack for HDMI. Turn off any picture enhancements, too (Sharpening, Noise Reduction, Dynamic/Vivid mode, etc.)

2.35:1 widescreen movies will always have letterbox bars on a 16:9 screen... the aspect ratio is wider than 16:9 (which is 1.78:1). Your TV probably has a zoom function to eliminate the bars if they bother you.

DVD's are standard definition (720x480). High quality usually, but still standard definition. Upscaling does not change or add anything to that.

Granted I am somwehat new to the world of HD television but I was shocked to see how poor the pic is from my new Sonny-77 player.
I have it hooked up to my new Panny 75u via HDMI, and I have the player set to 1920x1080 output (auto).
Went through the entire instruction manual and made sure to tweak every setting appropriately.
Threw in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which I imagined would look stunning.
The pic is terrible.
Very grainy, not sharp-equivalent to an SD picture on a plasma!
Also, the movie is in letterbox (i have output set to 16:9) and there are still black bars on the top and bottom?

Is a DVD picture suppossed to look better than SD?
Am I missing something here?

(BTW: the DVD says its presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2:35:1)

Of course you will have black bars when viewing a 2.35:1 picture on a 16:9 TV. That's like duh.

I don't know what you mean by SD, but DVD should look better than any broadcast SD TV picture by a wide margin. It should come fairly close to broadcast HD with a good DVD player.

Sounds like you have a lot of reading about how to setup your TV to do. One thing for sure is that out of the box picture adjustments are very bad. Also I'd bet the scaler in your TV will do a better job than the scaler in a budget DVD player. I'd try just feeding the TV the basic 480p signal from your player.

Thats like duh

Am I on a elementary school board here? If i need 10 year old responses to my questions i'll talk to my niece. As a matter of fact, I did NOT know about the black bar issue, hence my mentioning that I am new to this in my original post. I could have sworn the point of a forum was to be able to have a place where you could ask questions freely and not be judged on your limited knowledge in a particular area?
Guess I was wrong.

As for the rest of your invaluable response-I have callibrated my TV and the pic from DVD player is still terrible. Please let me know if you have any other genius, helpful responses for me.

I am in a similar boat as you. I purchased a new plasma and am unhappy with DVD playback and SD viewing. Playing DVDs on my plasma do not look anywhere as good as on my RP CRT. Also try another disc, I recently purchased "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the picture quality is not good. A newer release such as "Casino Royale" looks quite a bit better.

I am in a similar boat as you. I purchased a new plasma and am unhappy with DVD playback and SD viewing. Playing DVDs on my plasma do not look anywhere as good as on my RP CRT. Also try another disc, I recently purchased "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the picture quality is not good. A newer release such as "Casino Royale" looks quite a bit better.

Thanks for the response-helps to know that its probably not my setup but what seems to be the unfortunate reality of SD and DVD viewing.
Such a shame Crouching Tiger looks poor-such a visually beautiful movie.

You might want to visit the plasma HDTV section of the forum to see if there are some suggestions for picture improvement for your particular model over there. Upscaled DVD's (the better looking ones, anyway) look outstanding on my 62" 1920x1080 DLP. There must be some way to tweak your set to dial in the picture so it looks better than what you are seeing. That Sony 77 is supposed to have pretty good PQ.

Granted I am somwehat new to the world of HD television but I was shocked to see how poor the pic is from my new Sonny-77 player.
I have it hooked up to my new Panny 75u via HDMI, and I have the player set to 1920x1080 output (auto).
Went through the entire instruction manual and made sure to tweak every setting appropriately.
Threw in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which I imagined would look stunning.
The pic is terrible.
Very grainy, not sharp-equivalent to an SD picture on a plasma!
Also, the movie is in letterbox (i have output set to 16:9) and there are still black bars on the top and bottom?

Is a DVD picture suppossed to look better than SD?
Am I missing something here?

(BTW: the DVD says its presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2:35:1)Hows the HDMI set from auto to 720P working out? You had originally had it set to a resolution which is not native to your display.

Yes a upconverted SD-DVD should look better on your Plasma. The image at 720P should show no noise and be nice and sharp.

Aspect Ratio's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29) greater then your 1.78:1 (16x9) would show bars above and below video.

Hows the HDMI set from auto to 720P working out? You had originally had it set to a resolution which is not native to your display.

Yes a upconverted SD-DVD should look better on your Plasma. The image at 720P should show no noise and be nice and sharp.

Aspect Ratio's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29) greater then your 1.78:1 (16x9) would show bars above and below video.

John-should I cahnge the output resolution on my player from 1920x1080 (auto) to 720?

John-should I cahnge the output resolution on my player from 1920x1080 (auto) to 720?If you are not using a 1080P display then you need to change from auto to 720P to match your 1024 x 768 pixels resolution.

I also observed that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon video quality suffers from film artifacts and small amount of film grain that becomes more visible when upscaled. This film was distributed as other formats (VCD) in China before Sony finally had it distributed in the states.

If you are not using a 1080P display then you need to change from auto to 720P to match your 1024 x 768 pixels resolution.

I also observed that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon video quality suffers from film artifacts and small amount of film grain that becomes more visible when upscaled. This film was distributed as other formats (VCD) in China before Sony finally had it distributed in the states.

Thanx John.
I did watch another video yesterday and it looked ALOT better.
I will change the out put to 720, but what then is the point o fthe AUTO function?
I thought it will automatically adjust to your screen's native resolution?

Thanx John.
I did watch another video yesterday and it looked ALOT better.
I will change the out put to 720, but what then is the point o fthe AUTO function?
I thought it will automatically adjust to your screen's native resolution?You don't have deviate from Auto if it is truly working correctly with your set, that is sensing the native resolution of your set.
If it turns out that the HDMI output is higher then your native resolution of your set then a manual tweek is in order, that was my concern.
Cheers!