I just purchased a panasonic 50PZ77u and have a question regarding upscaling DVD players: Am I correct to understand that the plasma display will also upscale the signal from a standard progressive scan DVD player and may actually do a better job upscaling the signal than a relatively inexpensive ($100) upscaling player?

In short, will an upscaling player (w/ HDMI) offer an advantage over a progressive scan player connected with component? Thanks

Ditch the upscaling DVD with a Toshiba HD-A3. If you want True HD check out the HD-A30 or HD-A35.

Chris

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was thinking about waiting on a HD or blu-ray player until the prices came down or there was a decision on the format.

I have the 50PZ77U and a Toshiba A3 and a Philips DiVX upconverting DVD player. Standard DVDs look near HD on this panel when using either player, but the edge goes to the A3 due to its superior upscaler.

After reviewing way too many discussions on 1080i vs 1080p, almost everyone agrees you won't see any difference at all between the two, and you certainly won't while watching standard definition dvds.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was thinking about waiting on a HD or blu-ray player until the prices came down or there was a decision on the format.

There are some displays that do upconverstion well, but typically a decent $100 upconverting DVD player will do better.

FYI, excellent upconverting DVD players have been selling below $100 each that have HD DVD play capability thrown in, under $200 including 10 free HD DVDs. It that the kind of price drop are you waiting for?

You may be waiting several years for a single format. HD DVD PQ on a 1080 native set is so much better than 480 DVDs.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was thinking about waiting on a HD or blu-ray player until the prices came down or there was a decision on the format.
In my opinion, it makes no sense to spend money on an upscaling DVD player. The money you spend will give you nothing more than an incremental step up in picture quality. Even if you buy a high end (something with the HQV chip perhaps) upscaling player, the picture quality improvement will not be very dramatic. If you plan on spending money, I'd support one of the two blue laser formats. With any one of these players, you'll get decent upscaling for your DVDs, plus you can buy new releases in HD. The increase in picture quality with the two HD formats is indeed dramatic.

Thanks for your thoughts. You make a good argument.

I`m a newbie to HD!!! There I`ve said it...Nevertheless I am about to take the plunge with a Sammy 5054. I also have alot of sd dvd's. If one buys an hd dvd player as cjm7c suggests..will it "upconvert" in any sense or fashion all those sd dvd's we newbies have sitting on our shelves? If not, then it seems that Coldcase's suggestion makes more sense. And btw Coldcase..can you throw out a few brand names of those hundred dollar players that have upconvert capability and are hd ready? Please and thanks...

I`m a newbie to HD!!! There I`ve said it...Nevertheless I am about to take the plunge with a Sammy 5054. I also have alot of sd dvd's. If one buys an hd dvd player as cjm7c suggests..will it "upconvert" in any sense or fashion all those sd dvd's we newbies have sitting on our shelves? If not, then it seems that Coldcase's suggestion makes more sense. And btw Coldcase..can you throw out a few brand names of those hundred dollar players that have upconvert capability and are hd ready? Please and thanks...

Yes, a Blu-ray disc or HD DVD player will upconvert all your standard definition DVDs. However, don't expect miracles. You cannot get something for nothing, i.e. there is only so much video information stored on a DVD, so upconversion will never make your standard definition material look like HD.

If you're super concerned with you DVDs, try to get a player with the Silicon Optix HQV Reon chip. This seems to be the current standard to which all other upconverting chips are judged. Toshiba's HD DVD player the HD-XA2, and Samsung's Blu-ray player the BD-P1200 both include this processor. If you want to spend less, the cheaper HD players include chips that do a fine job also.

Thanks cjm7c..I don`t expect miracles. But after reading a few reviews..it seems that the upconverted pq is "somewhat" better than the sd dvd pq. I`ve been looking at the Toshiba A3, but couldn`t find a tech review, but found one of the A30 which seems to be very similar. Haven`t priced them either. If anyone can suggest a bargain basement unit that uses the chip you mentioned...please chime in.

As a sidenote..AVSForums needs a page with definitions of all the acronyms used here. My head is swimming..:confused:

Thanks cjm7c..I don`t expect miracles. But after reading a few reviews..it seems that the upconverted pq is "somewhat" better than the sd dvd pq. I`ve been looking at the Toshiba A3, but couldn`t find a tech review, but found one of the A30 which seems to be very similar. Haven`t priced them either. If anyone can suggest a bargain basement unit that uses the chip you mentioned...please chime in.

As a sidenote..AVSForums needs a page with definitions of all the acronyms used here. My head is swimming..:confused:

The A2/A3 while reportedly decent at upconverting are inferior to the A20/A30 which have the Anchor Bay chip. I would probably stick with one of those. The XA2 has the Reon chip which is supposed to be awesome, but it's expen$ive!

FWIW...Cnet thinks the A30 is not much of an upgrade over the A3. And the user reviews there were not too good...

I have an A2 (very similar to the A3) and the upscaling works well. It's not a perfect player. The load times are slow and it lacks 5.1 channel analog audio outputs, but the HD picture quality is fantastic. As far as value goes, you can't beat the A2/A3.

5.1 channel analog audio outputs?

If you have an old receiver without HDMI inputs, you can use the analog audio outputs to send Dolby TrueHD audio to your 5.1 channel system.

Well..I`ll be damned!

You lost me at 5.1(hehe)

What`s the difference b/w the A2-A3?

They're pretty similar. The only real difference I'm aware of is that the A3 can't output bitstream DTS audio signals over the optical connection. Chances are, that won't negatively affect you in any way.

There may be some processing improvements in the A3 since it is a newer unit. However, I suspect most of the improvements are minimal.

Thanks! Good knowledge!!!

FWIW...Cnet thinks the A30 is not much of an upgrade over the A3. And the user reviews there were not too good...

Yes, as HD players the A30 is not worth the extra money, as 1080i will yield just as good of a picture most times. However, they did not directly compare the upscaling of SD DVDs between the 2 players, and most people in the HD DVD section of this forum claim that the A20/30 offer better upscaling than the A2/3 because of the Anchor Bay chip.

Hmmm:confused: even more food for thought..my brain hurts.

FWIW from Cnet:

"One of the disappointments with the Toshiba HD-A20 was its performance on standard DVD in 1080p mode. It does not appear that the HD-A30 has made any major improvements, as we observed essentially the same lackluster performance on test patterns."

FWIW from Cnet:

"One of the disappointments with the Toshiba HD-A20 was its performance on standard DVD in 1080p mode. It does not appear that the HD-A30 has made any major improvements, as we observed essentially the same lackluster performance on test patterns."

You missed the part where they said that 1080p output on the A20 & A30 has issues and recommended using 1080i instead, as it is issue-free and theoretically provides just as good of a picture as 1080p anyway. The A30 is just as buggy as the A20, as it's basically the same player. This issue is only in 1080p mode however.

I am talking about 1080i output on the A20 & A30 being better on SD DVD than the A2 & A3 because of the better upscaling chip in the A20/A30. That's the consensus in the HD DVD forum anyway.

Also, the consensus is that the A3 (3rd gen) offers no PQ improvement over the A2 (2nd gen) and the A30 (3rd gen) offers no PQ improvement over the A20 (2nd gen), so get whatever is cheaper.

Very astute! Hey I didn`t miss it...I just didn`t understand it (pfffffft). Not sure I fully appreciate the interlacing vs progressive modes. Has something to do with how the fps is untangled??? Where`s my dunce cap?:o

So then..one has a choice of output b/w 1080p and 1080i with all of the hd dvd players out there? And the A20 has the chip too, right? And probably cheaper than the A30?

V
So then..one has a choice of output b/w 1080p and 1080i with all of the hd dvd players out there? And the A20 has the chip too, right? And probably cheaper than the A30?

I don't believe you have the 1080p choice in the lowest end A1, A2, A3 HD DVD players. These will go "up to" 1080i/60. All HD players have the 1080i choice.

I think we all have worn the dunce cap one time or another when talking about interlacing, pull downs, refresh rates, native, and what a specific player or TV implements... natively or otherwise... and then what that means in the real and subjective world...