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Watching standard DVD blew me away today

post #1 of 21
12/26/11 at 11:52am
Thread Starter 
Today I was watch Beverly hills cop a standard DVD on my blu ray BDP s3500 on my Panansonic V plasma. The disk was given to me for Xmas, I never thought it would look that good, It's practlly bd quality, and it is an older movie. Are they making Standard DVD better today or is upconvertion really working. I wa amazed at the quality. What a picture!
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post #2 of 21
12/26/11 at 5:22pm
Personally I believe many of the newer DVDs(and BD players) are worse picture quality than DVDs(or BD players) of even a few years back. My guess is mfgs. want to make DVDs as minimal quality as they can to make BDs look even better. BHC is a rather old DVD and if it's a full screen presentation(1.77 or 1.85) it may indeed look really good on a quality player(wider aspect movies don't look as impressive IMO).
A good quality anamorphic 480i DVD is much better than analog or even 480i SDTV, of course not up to the quality of BD or HDTV
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post #3 of 21
12/26/11 at 6:40pm
I think by the fact that you are outputting the DVD to an HDTV rather than to an analog SDTV CRT FINALLY is doing the digital produced DVD justice.

But it's most likely not gonna beat a BR. Go ahead, try it, watch two versions of the same movie and see what's the difference.

But yes, to the obvious question many people asks: Now that there's BR, Do I junk all my DVDs? Answer: NO.
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post #4 of 21
12/27/11 at 3:33am
Thread Starter 
Oh it's not going to beat blu ray, I'm not a whacko, what I mean is, I was watching Beverly Hills cop earlier this fall on Showtime or one of those movie channels in HD. So my wife seeing how much I liked it bought that trilogy for me this Christmas and I can't believe how closely it resembled the Hd version I seen on tv. Very close, especially the outdoor scenes, when they had the shoot out in the end. Anamorphic DVD is widescreen, that probably has a lot to do with it, where TV standard, is 4.3, and the compression is bad. What I meant to say is watching anamorphic DVD compared to standard tv is like jumping to HD. I understand a blu ray will blow the anamorphic DVD away, but the anamorphic DVD was almost as good as cable 1080i. I don't know if that makes any sense. I had the blu ray player in 1080p on a 1080p Plasma Panasonic V.
The picture was very close to real hd quality. Or equal to lower quality HD feeds I have seen.
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post #5 of 21
12/27/11 at 4:39am
Every now and then I find a DVD that seems exceptionally fine. Recently this was with a small film called When Nietzsche Wept (2007), a semi-comic account of the philosopher seeing a shrink. It's mostly about the shrink. Fine color and detail.

The lament of the movie enthusiast is that DVD was seldom used to it's maximum capabilities. The same is true of Blu-ray now, although of course by comparison the average is better. I presume future formats will continue the pattern.

-Bill
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post #6 of 21
12/27/11 at 7:59am
Or you can get an Oppo dvd player-say a DV-983H which will wring every last bit of image quality out of a dvd.
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post #7 of 21
12/27/11 at 10:38am
Thread Starter 
The 16.9 format makes a big difference. This way you don't have stretch out a 4.3 image. Using a hdmi with the right disk you be surprised. Anyway, I read somewhere to up convert use both the player and the tv. Like put the blu ray player in 1080i, and use the plasma to deinterlace it to 1080p. What do you guys think?
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post #8 of 21
12/27/11 at 10:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sole_Survivor View Post

Like put the blu ray player in 1080i, and use the plasma to deinterlace it to 1080p. What do you guys think?

Like anything else, it depends on which player and which TV. I wouldn't say every TV has good deinterlacing circuitry (mine apparently doesn't.) So I let my player do both.

Easy enough to test, though. Run through the possible combinations and leave it on the one that looks best.
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post #9 of 21
12/29/11 at 12:20pm
Watched Battle: Los Angeles on my Sanyo VIZON HT30746 HD CRT, with a Toshiba XDE500 DVD player set to 1080i. While not HD quality it was surprising how good it looked, the bit rate registered 9.8 in some heavy action scenes. I only use the "sharp" function of the XDE.
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post #10 of 21
12/29/11 at 12:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raydeen View Post

Watched Battle: Los Angeles on my Sanyo VIZON HT30746 HD CRT, with a Toshiba XDE500 DVD player set to 1080i. While not HD quality it was surprising how good it looked, the bit rate registered 9.8 in some heavy action scenes. I only use the "sharp" function of the XDE.

I guess you're a fan of Edge Enhancement, because that's all the "Sharp" mode on that player adds. You can get the same result by cranking the "Sharpness" setting on your TV to maximum.
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post #11 of 21
12/30/11 at 5:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh Z View Post

I guess you're a fan of Edge Enhancement, because that's all the "Sharp" mode on that player adds. You can get the same result by cranking the "Sharpness" setting on your TV to maximum.

You still fighting that war?
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post #12 of 21
12/30/11 at 7:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joed32 View Post

You still fighting that war?

The war's been won. Facts are facts. The "XDE" players' heavy edge enhancement was proven a failure, and Toshiba discontinued them.
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post #13 of 21
1/5/12 at 10:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulpa View Post

Like anything else, it depends on which player and which TV. I wouldn't say every TV has good deinterlacing circuitry (mine apparently doesn't.) So I let my player do both.

Easy enough to test, though. Run through the possible combinations and leave it on the one that looks best.

+1

My BD player does a better job of upscaling, but my TV does a better job deinterlacing difficult titles. On most DVDs the BD player handles deinterlacing fine, but for the occasional difficult title, I let the TV do the work.
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post #14 of 21
1/6/12 at 5:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh Z View Post

The war's been won. Facts are facts. The "XDE" players' heavy edge enhancement was proven a failure, and Toshiba discontinued them.

Just bought a Toshiba 4150 and in buried in the menus they still have that feature.
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post #15 of 21
1/7/12 at 11:53am
Thanks for posting Joed32, had no idea that Toshiba started to include XDE function in a Blu-ray player. Going to have to hunt a BDX4150 down as my first gen Tosh XDE500 is starting to act flaky. Great news !
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post #16 of 21
1/12/12 at 9:12am
joed32 - Can you confirm that the enhancement features on the BDX4150 are the same as the XDE players?

To my knowledge, Toshiba has not included these features on any of their post-XDE players. A quick look at the manual online mentions "Enhanced Picture Mode (EPM)", but this feature on older players is not the same as XDE.

Thanks!
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post #17 of 21
1/13/12 at 5:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LugNutX View Post

joed32 - Can you confirm that the enhancement features on the BDX4150 are the same as the XDE players?

To my knowledge, Toshiba has not included these features on any of their post-XDE players. A quick look at the manual online mentions "Enhanced Picture Mode (EPM)", but this feature on older players is not the same as XDE.

Thanks!

There is a button on the remote named "Pic".

The manual says:
In playback mode, use to adjust picture quality according to your preference.

* E.P.M. (Enhanced Picture Mode): The picture is sharper with enhanced color.

* Sharpness

I have only watched Blue Ray so far and it isn't needed there. I haven't tried it with a regular DVD, I've been too busy playing around with the 3D stuff.
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post #18 of 21
1/13/12 at 3:01pm
Went into it today and if you hit the button it gives you a choice of EPM or sharpness. If you select epm you can choose default, 1, 2, or 3. If you select sharpness you can choose off, low, med, high or ultra. I played with it a little bit but not enough to get a feel as to whether it makes the picture better or not. I may need to check some other DVDs.
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post #19 of 21
1/15/12 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joed32 View Post

Went into it today and if you hit the button it gives you a choice of EPM or sharpness. If you select epm you can choose default, 1, 2, or 3. If you select sharpness you can choose off, low, med, high or ultra. I played with it a little bit but not enough to get a feel as to whether it makes the picture better or not. I may need to check some other DVDs.

In any event, I agree with you on the XDE players. I have two 600 models and one 500. I use one 600 with a 1080p DLP projector and 106" screen, one 600 with a 42" 1080p LCD, and the 500 with a 34" CRT 1080i monitor. I also have a Toshiba XA2 HD DVD player, which has excellent upconversion, and a Panasonic BD60 Blu-ray player hooked up to the projector. I use the XDE 90% of the time on SD DVD. They definitely do a fine upconversion, despite what others may opine.
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post #20 of 21
2/9/12 at 1:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonely Surfer View Post

In any event, I agree with you on the XDE players. I have two 600 models and one 500. I use one 600 with a 1080p DLP projector and 106" screen, one 600 with a 42" 1080p LCD, and the 500 with a 34" CRT 1080i monitor. I also have a Toshiba XA2 HD DVD player, which has excellent upconversion, and a Panasonic BD60 Blu-ray player hooked up to the projector. I use the XDE 90% of the time on SD DVD. They definitely do a fine upconversion, despite what others may opine.

My brother uses the xd-e600 on a two year old 65 inch Panasonic plasma. He has a highly rated HD-dvd player as well as a Panasonic blu-ray player. All hooked up to the same set. Have played many regular dvd's on all three players. (including all three at one tv viewing) Can tell you that regardless of the tv's settings (which are many) the Xd-e600 somehow gets better results. Regardless of what was said earlier changing the settings of the tv does not equal what the Toshiba xd-e can do. I don't know why but all six of us watching the set are convinced that it works.

If this technology is available anywhere I would like to know. I think the XD-e600 which gets a lot of use is about to go. Any help??
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post #21 of 21
2/10/12 at 9:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ordo View Post

If this technology is available anywhere I would like to know. I think the XD-e600 which gets a lot of use is about to go. Any help??

ordo - to my knowledge, it's not available in anything outside of the XDE players (500 and 600). If you're hunting a new unit or replacement, check eBay. I picked up a new, sealed unit from a seller there and it has performed great. You would think that prices would have dropped dramatically, since it only plays DVDs, but you still pay a bit of a premium on the XDE units compared to some others.
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