Hi guys-
I've decided to abandon SDI for a while. I'm going to hold onto my player...mostly because I don't think it's worth anywhere near what I invested in it...but for the time being its being retired. I need a solid HDMI based player to pair with my Radiance which as we all know lacks SDI.

I've seen that Cal87 has had some success with the new Oppo 980 (vs the 971 which appears to have some problems) and that Sankar is using the HD-A2.

All things being equal, for SD-DVD playback, which is the preferred player these days for 480i over HDMI?

Keep the sdi player and get a sdi to hdmi conveter, lumagen i think is going to make one and gefen has them as well as TVone, SDI is stillt he best for sd dvd's.

Athanasios

if you are forced to not use SDI or can't or whatever the case, the only choice for me would be the Oppo 980 with 4:2:2 480i HDMI output, not SDI but darn close

-Gary

nashou66-
Maybe I should have but this in my original post - I've looked extensively into SDI-HDMI converters...

I tried the Algolith SDI -> HDMI converter. Besides not passing BTB, it converts to RGB color space.

The Gefen unit costs $1300...a bit more than I'm willing to spend on a legacy solution.
Options from both Aja and Black Magic don't pass 480i...they deinterlace to 480p.
I can only find one converter on TVOne's webpage and it doesn't pass interlaced video either.
The Lumagen unit isn't available yet (November'ish) and from what they have told me it's going to cost ~$700...again, more than I'm willing to pay for a legacy solution.
I have no doubt that Lumagen will do the job properly. I might consider it IF it has multiple SDI inputs - but for a single input for a legacy solution...it's just more than I can justify right now.

Until then I'd like a good way to take advantage of all the Radiance has to offer for SD-DVD...and as far as I can tell that's going to be a 480i HDMI DVD player.

Vigga,
i am in exactly the same situation as you. What I am doing while waiting for a Lumagen solution is to use my Toshiba HD-A2. You do have to go into the setup screen and select 480i output and then remember to switch it back to 1080i for HDDVD. Pretty quick to do and the quality of the 480i out as scaled by the Radiance looks good to my eyes.

The A2 seems like a really viable solution...it does 480i (reportedly well) and its obvious advantage over the Oppo is...well...when all said and done its a HD-DVD player.

Is there any advantage to the Oppo in this situation that I'm overlooking...price being equal?

The advantage of the Oppo is it is a nice, fast multi-format (PAL/NTSC, DVD-A,SACD) player. I still hate to wait 30 sec or so to play a simple CD or SD DVD. The HD DVD players are still too slow for me. I have the XA2 as well.

I think you want 1080p24 output for HD DVD for the same reason you want 480i to the Radiance. The A2 does not do this. The XA2 does not do 480i over HDMI. I am not sure about the A20/A30/A35 - you might look into these - they do 1080p24, but I am not sure about the 480i over HDMI.

Jim Peterson has posted that his preference with the Radiance line is to have 1080i input for all HD sources. The reason is that the Radiance will be able to optimize video or film sources and still output 24p when best.

Jim Peterson has posted that his preference with the Radiance line is to have 1080i input for all HD sources. The reason is that the Radiance will be able to optimize video or film sources and still output 24p when best.

Yes, I remember him saying that. That is assuming the player is not messing anything up in the original 24p->60i conversion. From my own experience with the PS3 and VP50, 24p->60p was the best quality. 60i or 60p from the PS3 to 24p from the VP50 was inferior, as was 60i or 60p to 60p. 24p->24p never worked right with the VP50. I still think 24p out of the player and letting the Radiance do whatever else you desire is the best.

Cal-
Thanks for the reply.
I think I'm trending towards the Oppo.
I like the idea of a standalone, no fuss SD-DVD solution. In addition I plan on upgrading my A1 to either the Xa2 (that review in WSR this month was really impressive) or one of the new players. The only thing that's been holding me off on an upgrade was waiting for an HD-DVD player that could actually read 1080p vs reading interlaced and the recombining (as in the Xa2) - I'll have to do some searching to see if the new crop does this or they are the same...if not, the Xa2 is looking mighty nice.

Vigga I think the new dual players fromLG and Samsung will output 108024p from HD-DVD's . At least my First generation LG BH100 does.

Athanasios

yes, the new Samsung 5000 will be 24p direct from both formats ;)

I agree with Cal on this also, I prefer the pure direct 1080p/24 signal from the BD/HD players, closest thing to HD-SDI, then let the scaler do what you want be it 60hz or 72hz output etc.

-Gary

Well I just pulled the trigger on an Oppo 980.
I'll wait and see how things shake out with the A35 vs Xa2 in the next couple of weeks.