Hopefully I can shed some light on this issue...
I have the LT-150, the RP-91 DVD player, a Panamorph, a Samsung HDTV tuner, an HTPC, and a DaLite High Power screen (96"x72").
After much fiddling, I have to agree with those who have said that the LT-150 with a HTPC is MUCH better than a near perfect 480p signal. For best 16x9/anamorphic DVD performance from a standalone DVD player, the DVD player should be set for a 16:9 display and the LT-150 set to Cinema. I must also reiterate what the other posts say: DO NOT SET THE DVD PLAYER TO 4:3. You will be killing your resolution. This is for 16:9 material only however. If you want the big 4:3 image of 4:3 material, then by all means set the player to 4:3.
My observations of DVD 480p from the RP-91 (set to 16:9) with the LT-150:
Maybe it makes perfect sense, but the Panamorph with the LT-150 set to Normal versus no Panny and set to Cinema only results in a brighter image, not a smoother one. The 'jaggies' are more pronounced when expanding 480p into 768. This is obviously what's needed for the Panny to work with 16:9 material (tall skinny people) or for a full size 4:3 image of 4:3 material. But then when it's squeezed back to 16:9 with the Panny, the image looks nearly identical to the Cinema mode (576 lines) with no Panny. In essence it's squeezing the bigger jaggies back down to where they would have been in Cinema mode w/o the Panny.
I would almost call the scaler in the NEC more of a line 'replicator'. It seems to display mostly pairs of duplicate lines with no apparent signs of interpolation or smoothing between physical panel lines. This is what would seem to account for the jaggies getting 'bigger' when taking 480p into 768 versus into 576, and it would also seem to explain my subjective observation that there's no smoothness benefit to the Panamorph with the LT-150 and a standalone DVD player. And yes, before anybody jumps the gun, I do have the RP-91 in progressive mode (another pretty blue light on the front panel...).
I will say at this point that my HTPC with a Radeon VE and the Panny is AWESOME. And there IS a substantial improvement in smoothness using the Panny with the PC-scaled image of a 16:9 anamorphic DVD (tall skinny, 768 lines active) versus a letterboxed 16:9 and no Panny (576 lines active). It is bettered only by 720p out of my HDTV box. The PBS demo loops are breathtaking, not just awesome.
To sum up:
The best standalone DVD player performance with the LT-150 is having the DVD player in 16:9 mode and the NEC in Cinema.
The best DVD picture is from a source that can supply the native panel resolution of 768 lines (HTPC or external scaler). There has been some discussion here and at Tom LaStrange's site that a 1,024x576 desktop from a HTPC can yield a better picture (
http://lastrange.com/ht/lt150.shtml ). I have not tried this since it would not work properly with my Panamorph.
Hope this helps, and sorry for the long post...
On another note, I carried my Panny in to Pecar's (my trusty local HT store) to have a look at it with the new Sharp 9000 and 2.35:1 material. Wow is all I can say. The Sharp has a resize button on the remote that will vertically stretch 2.35 to fill the screen. Very cool.
- Dieter