Who's using a component upconvert dvd player with their AE300 / L300u?

I've got the L300U mated with the LG upconverting player (thru component) and it looks great although I upgraded from a Pannasonic RP72 (that broke) and I haven't really been able to tell the difference (although I never did actuall comparisons between the two, just a lot of movie and HD viewing). I have an Oppo DVD player on its way to me and if I hook that up to the L300 (vs the new projector I am planning on getting) I will let you know how it looks. I am selling the L300U and LG DVD player (as part of a complete theater system) in a home that we bought and fixed up, hopefully it will help sell the home.

Good luck.

The progressive output on my 300U is as good as the progressive output on my Denon 2200, so I would be willing to bet that you will not see a big difference between an upconverting DVD player and one that outputs 480 i or p. The 300U is a great little projector and can still hold its own with the newer 720p Panny's.

guys, I gess you are refering the Oppo DV 971 H and DV 970 HD...

I have an upconverting LG DV7832NXC (Zenith dvb-318) that I have used for about two years on a l300u by component. Very nice picture especially at 720p for some reason.

Originally, I got that player to connect through the DVI port, but discovered there were two problems with that. The first being that the player is HDCP compatible and the projector is not. The second is that 1080i is not a recognized format on the projector and even 720p is seen as Wide768 leaving black areas at the top and bottom of the screen.

I discovered this second problem when I purchased an Oppo 971 in order to use the DVI input of the projector. This player is not HDCP compliant and therefore could be used with the DVI on this projector. That is when I realized the signal recognition through DVI on the projector is very limited.

However, the component picture is a thing of beauty on this, really really impressive, so the DVI is not missed that much. I regularly feed the projector HD through component....nice.

Tom:

I agree with you that the 300 can hold it's own against other Panny 720 projectors. I recently saw either a 700 or a 900 (I think a 700) at a private club and it was terrible. I was sitting back about 9 feet from a 7 foot screen, and the screendoor was just awful. I have to believe that it was the signal (standard def TV). Seeing that made me thankful to have my great 300.

On the other hand I have seen a 900 set up at a local store theater showroom that looked very nice.

i upconvert over component-just noght to the panny. i have an older nec. imho upconverting is definately worth it. i use the momitsu v880dx. my only complaint is it is fairly noisy when spinning a disk-this may or may not matter depending on where you have it. i have been very happy with it. Another one to consider is the toshiba hd-dvd player which also does excellent upconversion over component as well as outputs true hd res over component. this can be had for 400 us new- and hd-dvd looks awesome. one caveat-the toshiba will not upconvert copy protected (commerical) standard dvd's over component. i have also read good things about the oppo, but have no personal experience with it.

I picked up a dirt-cheap Samsung DVD-HD841 and it was apparently converted to be HDCP free, so out of curiosity I tried the DVI output with my old PT-L300U. When the signal is upconverted to 768p, it looks really good through DVI!

Now, the real question is, is 768p through a DVI connection better than 1080i through component connection? I'm going to have to do some tweaking and recalibration this weekend and see if I can even see a difference. I know this projector's native resolution is only 540p so it might not even matter, but my first impression is that the colors seem to be a bit more accurate through DVI.

Anyone else try experimenting around with this? Also, has anyone gotten this projector to take a 1080i signal, or is it a hardware constraint that can't be hacked?

Bob:

Congrats on getting a HDCP free unit!

I set my OPPO 971 to do 1080i - the projector did not recognize it. The only signal it will take through DVI is the WIDE768 which at a generated 720p from the player will leave black areas at the top and bottom. I decided to stay with component 1080i from my LG unit.

I would be interested in seeing a screen shot of your l300 at WIDE768. I did not think mine looked all that great.

I think 1080i through DVI is not going to work. It is a definite hardware constraint.

I'll try to get some comparison screenshots together this weekend. My digital camera isn't the best but I'll give it a shot.

I do notice that I get a tiny black outline framing the picture in ANY upconverted (higher than 525p) image on this projector--and that includes OTA HD signals (720p in my region) sent through component video inputs. I've always just figured this is a 'wonky' aspect of this projector.

Okay, I took some screenshots this weekend and probably all I really proved is that I need a better digital camera! Trust me, the actual image on my screen looks tons better than these. I'm just using the crappy built-in camera on my camcorder, attached to a tripod (it's crooked, I know!)

But for comparison sake, here's identical screenshots on 1080i upconverted through component, versus 768p through DVI, on a Panny PT-L300U. I used Avia calibration screens to calibrate settings through both upconversion rates & inputs, and saved each to the memory.

Component 1080i:


DVI 768p:


Now for a black & white movie.
Component 1080i:


DVI 768p:


In my opinion DVI is the winner here. It's hard to judge resolution through these pictures but the difference in colors is obvious. Component colors were less accurate and not as punchy, and the whites on DVI kicked ass compared to the yellowish off-whites through component.

To be more scientific I should probably do this again with NO calibration at all, set everything to default. It's hard to set an even playing field because some of the settings that are available through component are not available through DVI, such as "Tint" and "Color".