Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD FAQ: Link and Discussion thread

Originally Posted by mrmike

Q: Will the player upconvert my standard DVDS to (720p, 1080i, 1080p)?

Originally Posted by adzan

Q: What is ICT flags? How does it effect 720p and 1080i (or even 1080p) over components? How should I know if the disc has enable the ICT flags?

A:

Originally Posted by LesMoss

Q: When playing a standard non-anamorphic DVD:

1. Does it display (by default) pillar boxed or stretched?

2. Is there an aspect ratio control to fix the result of 1? If so, where is that control?

A: ?????

Originally Posted by ThePrisoner

Q: I also would like to know if the HD-A1 stretches 4:3 material or uses the pillar-box method. My tv locks into full mode when viewing 480p or 1080i.

A:

Alright, so the first reports from early adopters seem to indicate that 1080i is the preferred output from the HD-A1. This makes sense where you either have a) a 1080i display (e.g., CRT), or b) have a display that can reconstruct the 24fps content from the 1080i signal (i.e., perform inverse telecine (proper) or 3:2 pulldown (common, but improper)). What puzzles me, and what I will need to test with my H77 when I get my player and content later in the week, is that this preference also seems to hold for 720p native displays (e.g., most front projectors sold in the last two years).

To understand why this is confusing, let's look at when and how signal processing gets done in a typical set-up:

1080i Source --> Display[Downscale 1080i->540p --> Upscale 540p->720p --> Image formatter and display electronics]

Normally, one would want the signal deinterlaced from 1080i to 1080p before it is downscaled, but VERY few processors are capable of doing any kind of HD deinterlacing, let alone doing it well (e.g., beyond a simple bob or weave algorithm). Some examples of what will be in people's hands: Sony VPL-VW100 "Ruby", Marantz VP12S4, Yamaha DPX-1300; Lumagen HDP processors, Calibre VantageHD, DVDO iScan HD/HD+/VP30. One should note, though, that the DVDO products will only do bob/weave HD deinterlacing.

Given the above, what should be the best option for 720p display owners would look like this:

HD-A1[1080p24->720p24->720p60] --> Display[no processing]

Unfortunately, it seems that the downconversion/framerate conversion in the HD-A1 is not as good as what most displays are producing taking 1080i down to 540p and then back to 720p. I will reserve judgment on whether or not the qualitative reports are true, but so far, user reports seem to be consistent on this point.

While I believe I recall Stacey Spears indicating that downconverting was actually much harder than upconverting, the idea that downconverting 1080->720p directly looks worse than throwing away half of the picture information and then upscaling is a bit, um, troubling for my new toy.

Any thoughts from the experts on why this might be the case? Please keep this at the technical level. I would also like to isolate this to potentially specific implementations of specific processing solutions (e.g., Panasonic AE7/900 implementations of the Sil504).

To BD fans: this will undoubtedly apply to you, as well, if manufacturers do not provide an adequate processing solution in the players.

Later,
Bill

I did some testing today w/r/t scaling quality of HD from the Toshiba player. It is one of the worst scaling engines I have seen.

If you have a 720p display and a better scaler you can repro my steps:
1. Set output of player to 720p
2. Load Serenity
3. Look at the main menu. Take a look at the right side of the menu. The edge is jagged.
4. Set output to 1080i
5. Look at the main menu. Take a look at the right side of the image. The edge is smooth.

I have seen the original menu elements and they look like # 5 above.

In my setup the output of the player goes into the iScan VP30. The output is into a 720p Samsung DLP. (SP-H700AE) In the case of the player sending 720p out, the iScan does a pass through. In the case of 1080i, the iScan scales up each 540 line field to 720p and does a half pixel offset correction.

I found similar problems in the film itself, but this one stood out the most.

Why would you set it to 720p when you're supposed to set it to 1080, which is what the disc is encoded at?

Why don't you set your player to 1080i and just leave it alone? Seriously. Only change it to 720p if you're playing a 720p disc. Otherwise, set it and forget it.