Upconverting DVD Player Options/Impressions - Page 66

I bought a sony DVP-NS75H off of epay for $60 total and am extrememly happy..It's a far cry from what i was seeing with my PS2. My SD-DVD's look almost like HD to me now. Its an incredible difference. But then again, i'm not a videophile like alot of guys on this forum. But i do know high def when i see it, and the picture on this player isnt far off of that. I would strongly suggest it for folks on a budget.

I have read through several posts and am now thoroughly confused (yes, i'm what you might call a noob). I have a 1080p sharp 52" 62U and was considering getting an upconverting dvd player. it has two hdmi inputs as well as component, s-video, etc. , but no dvi inputs. i've read several posts about oppo players as well as denon players. what would be the best make/model to get a great upscaled 1080p picture out of my tv via hdmi? the 970, 971, 981? or a denon? i'm not looking to break the bank. note: i believe i only have ntsc format dvds. is there any point to getting a player that upscales all the way to 1080p considering that my tv would further upscale a 1080i pic to 1080p anyways? anyways, i'm sure i sound like a complete moron which i am when it comes to this stuff, but any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated, even if it comes with criticism which it probably should given my lack of knowledge.

Both Denon and Oppo have excellent reputations. I have been pleased with my Oppo 981 and think it is an easy choice for 1080p displays.


Well, that is much discussed here and opinions vary. On my gear, both 720p and 1080p look better than 1080i, but it's not night-and-day. Just a subtle improvement.

DVDs are recorded as 480i. Scaling requires a progressive signal. To get a 1080p signal a player must do:

480i -> 480p -> 1080p

To get a 1080i signal it must do:

480i -> 480p -> 1080p -> 1080i (and then the display does 1080i -> 1080p)

I can't stand the thought of that reinterlacing step, which is probably irrational of me.

-Bill

I have the same exact setup and will be looking at a solution this Summer. My RCA only does 1080i as well as my new Pana 46V. Blue RAY and HD are getting cheaper and many upconvert with outstanding quality to 1080P. The PS3 will have that feature in two months and I may go that route. By Christmas this will be all settled for sure with cheaper players and a clear format lead.
The Sharp will not upconvert any signal to my knowledge. You will need a 1080P signal from somewhere.

as i said before, i went with a (mind you these were all sub $150 players) samsung (junk) lg ok for standard but up conversion was junk, a sony i liked but just was not good enough, and a denon 557. the denon was the only one that i actually noticed a difference when upscaling..? i use an hdmi for my samsung hls 6188.

the oppo sounds great, but its hard to buy it and try it, and then take it back to the store if you dont like it. the guy at circuit city new me by name when i was done.

my whole thing is buy it, bring it home, and return it if you are not 100% happy. I went thru a plasma 50", and an lcd 42" from tweeter before i settled for my samsung. talk is just that. take it home...and see for yourself.

All fixed-pixel devices (which is everything except CRTs) will deinterlace (if necessary) and scale (if necessary) any supported input signal to their native resolution.

-Bill

I hope this is the right place to ask a really basic dvd question or two. If not, I hope someone will direct me to the right forum. I have a 65" Mitsubishi DLP 1080p tv, and I just bought a Denon DVD757 dvd player (1080p upconvert) and connected them with a HDMI monster cable. My problem is that I can't figure out from the manual or from trial and error how to get the best picture. I stuck in a standard disc (Pearl Harbor) to try it out. There's a button on the front of the player where you can select HDMI output anywhere from 480 up to 1080p, but no explanation of which one I should choose. With the Pearl Harbor dvd in the player the picture actually gets measurably worse each time you change the HDMI output upward from 480 up to 1080p. I'm sure this is all my fault and I just don't know what I'm doing, but as my moniker suggests I'm an older guy and find the manual incomprehensible. If one of you younger videophiles could offer a suggestion or two on how to use this wonderful technology I'd be very appreciative. I just want my movies to look good. Thanks!!!

hmm thanks alot guys. seems like maybe 480p or 720p upconverting dvd players could possibly work better than 1080i upconverters for a 1080p display since to my understanding the 1080i output had been reinterlaced and will once again have to be deinterlaced by my display (1080p) as opposed to a 480p signal just being further upconverted to 1080p by my display. in the end it seems like a 1080p upconverter is the best bet, but at $230+, maybe I should take etp's advice and just wait on blue ray players to drop since they will upconvert to 1080p anyways. any thoughts? any 1080p upconverters that are less expensive without all the bells and whistles for calibration that the oppo offers? being a noob, i don't know how to mess with advanced calibration stuff anyways. thanks again, you've been very helpful.

has anyone seen the new panasonic dvd player..??? its at best buy for $99.00 and it up converts to 1080p......anyone else seen any reviews..?

I too just saw that Panasonic 1080p upconvert advertised for $99 at BB. So much better than what I have done lately, purchasing and returning Helios 4000 paying for shipping (both ways); the 1080p did not upconvert on my Samsung LN-S4696 (signal not accepted). I have a Samsung R135 upconvert that perfectlymatched the Helios picture at 1080i.

After reading hours on these forums, I think I have come to the conclusion that my Samsung LN-S 4696 1080p takes the 480p signal, and does the upconverting/scaling to the native resolution of my set 1080p . If I purchased an upconvert 1080p DVD player, I am sensing that I would not really see that much difference, if any, from the Samsung R135 player as it is the TV that is really doing the upconverting. And that I would be wasting my money to continue to try 1080p upconverting players. I am using component cables, have HDMI, but the component looked slightly better IMO.

A person could (and does) spend hours in these forums trying to learn it all. Is my assessment correct, that I should not be so actively seeking the 1080p upconverting machines given the HDTV set that I have? Or should I run down to BB, set up this baby, and either keep or return??????

I think a reasonable consensus of opinion here is that there is no way to tell without trying it. Your display may or may not deinterlace and scale better than the player.

People have an urgent need to believe their displays do every function better than specialized devices, but it is often not true.

That said, a lot of the better/worse distinctions made here are by people who a really fanatical about their dvds.

-Bill

well just got home, and set up the new panasonic dvd-s53. 1080p up converting dvd player for $99.00. well as you may or may not know i have went thru about 4 players since last week, i finally ended up with the denon dvd-557. before that i tried the samsung, lg, and sony. the panasonic is on par with the samsung, it looks better at 480p, its up converting to me looks terrible. it does not come with optical out, so if thats what you use don't even bother. overall i think it was slightly better than the samsung, and lg, but thats it. it goes back tomorrow.

overall i guess you really get what you pay for, and it was a fun little test. but its denon all the way.

I usually don't post as I find answers to my questions by digging through the MANY posts on this forum..but here is my question:

I just bought a Samsung HL-S5086W DLP (Amazon $1159 Shipped!) that replaced a Philips 30" inch CRT HDTV. Initially with the Philips I hooked up my old Sony (5yr old) non-progressive scan DVD player through component and it looked not to good. I also have a modded Xbox with XBMC that is progressive scan and is supposed to be a fairly decent upconverting DVD player as well that I then hooked up. Instantly I could see an improvement with DVD's at 480 P and even more at 1080i through the Xbox.

After integrating the Samsung DLP into my A/V setup I set Xbox to upconvert to 720P and the picture looked good. Even though the modded Xbox with XBMC is extremely functional I was getting frustrated with a few things

• Finicky DVD drive
• FF & Rewind Shaky at best
• LOUD
• Extreme de-interlacing issues with previews..none with the movie though..weird, I know!
• Randomly shutdown at times (overheat)

I could go on...Because of these issues I have begun researching heavily about up-converting dvd players. After doing some more research I decided to hook up the old Sony through component to the Sammy DLP to see how it would upscale dvd material. As I said earlier the Sony is not progressive scan so it's sending a 480i signal through component to the Samsung DLP with Film Mode enabled. Lo & behold the picture was as good if not better than the modded Xbox upconverted image! From my understanding this is why I think it is:

"Film Mode" is a Samsung's term for 3:2 Pulldown, so no need for progressive scan.

The Sumsung scales the image to 720p, and very well from what I can tell.

I was looking at either purchasing one of the Oppo's or the Onky 404 model (refurb at Shop Onkyo is going for $84 right now) but am really on the fence if the money would be well spent. Do upscaling dvd players really make that much of a difference with newer hdtv's? I know with my older Philips the upconversion of the Xbox made a huge improvement in pq but I'm just not seeing it compared to the scaling done by the newer Samsung DLP. I'm not ready to pick a winner in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war yet but I do want to get the most out of my new tv and my current DVD collection. Any advice would be great, thanks!

Bill,

Just curious, what resolution do you set your 981 to view SD DVDs? I think I use 720P on my Sony KDS-50A2000 and I'm not sure it's the ideal setting for me. Just wondering what others have done?

1080p would be optimal for your Sony A2000. The Oppo 981 should do a fantastic
job at 1080p since it was specifically designed for that.

C Snyder

1080p. If your display is 1920x1080 and accepts 1080p, it's the best choice.

-Bill

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll look for the "reference DVD movies" thread that's floating around here somewhere for good reference movie sources.

I can save you some time, here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=372989

That's it. Thanks.

I'll have to see how many if any are on deepdiscountdvd's MGM blowout list.

Theres a good article here:

http://www.audioholics.com/education...s-and-displays

Um, I just noticed, it's been almost a couple years since there's been a new entry to the list. I guess by today's standards, movies now are better PQ?

also looks like the thread is closed

You kill me DitchDigger , and I appreciate your feedback. I just spent the last 2 months switching out LCD's at Best Buy...I am on my 4th and I hope the last...If not, my wife may kill me. Anyway, I agree w/you on the try it and return. The Oppo 981 has great reviews on CNET, but the $70 premium plus shipping is hard to get over for me. I hope to move on a PS3 or XBOX elite at the end of this year when prices hopefully come down and we hopefully know which format will win.

Unlike the OPPO, the Denon only upconverts to 1080i, and I have a 1080p panel, so I am uncertain if I will receive the full benefit for the money. I intend on seeing how the panel upconverts a DVD on the PS2 first (yes I said PS2).

Any word or link on how the Denon 557 performed on the HQV tests?

It may be just the opposite, see here --> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9791315

hahah i just tells it like it is. my wife wants to kill me when i shop. i even brought back a car after 4 days...just did not like it, its my money and i bust ass for it. as far as the denon reviews..?? i dont know but imho and after lots if test, its the best i have seen for under $200. i know its not 1080p for not for nothing, the 1080p's i have seen just stink and flash that number like it meens something....


good luck and just keep returning....

also not sure if i can do this but if you go on ebay, there is a seller called trading circuit. it is basically circuit city selling items. they also have trading circuit liquidation and trading circuit as is. my friend got the 557 for a great price..?

Cool, I'll check it out.

I recently purchased a Secptre 42" LCD from Costco. Everything's great except for DivX/AVI movies looked pretty bad. There're a lot of noise in darker scenes. My DVD player connects to the TV using component cables. Same movies look just fine on my old Sammy DLP. Wondering if this will get resolved by switching to a unconverting DVD player and use HDMI instead?

There would not happen to be a upconverting player that does 1080i 48Hz or 1080p 24Hz that also does the vertical stretch is there?

If you're gonna put xvid/divx on a big screen you are going to see "noise"-especially in the dark areas-it's just the nature of the beast. Upscaleing will only make it look worse. What I do is run xvid/divx on a small crt hdtv (27")with a dvd player that has a soft picture (LDA-511)hacked to upscale through componet to 720P, it's still noticable-but not as much as your situation.

I was really just looking for a player for my large SD-DVD collection to playback on my Sony Pearl with an anamorphic lense. They look good with a Denon DVD-1600 set at 480P and using the Sony to do the vertical stretch but I would like to take advantage of the Pearls ability to also take 24Hz or 48Hz and up it to a smooth 96Hz playback.