[Lex vs Kingpin]

Hi there,

I am trying to decide what to buy next. While I was reading many threads I came to a conclusion that we need a table showing scores from actual users.


It might be a long shot to find people who own Oppo 971, HD-A1, PS3 with a 720p display, but I wanted to give a shot in any case.


Please give your scoring out of 100 by only keeping PQ in mind.


For the sake of simplicity I denoted fields with numbers, so you can simply write:


1: 85

2: 93

3: 91

4: ...


Again, please post here if you only have all the components that I listed above: 720p display (i have a panny plasma), oppo 971, hd-a1(xa1), ps3....


Thanks...

 

[mosman72]

I own the oppo 971, tosh hd-a1, and the ps3. i've had my hd-a1 for 5 months and got my ps3 the 1st week of december. i own about 50 hi def movies....both bd and hd-dvd. trying to rate a score for you out of 100 based on PQ is difficult cause giving one player a score of 90/100 is gonna be the same as 9/10 or 4.5/5.... i can tell you that since i got the hd-a1 and saw its upscaling of sd-dvd's i was very impressed. in fact my oppo 971 has been sitting unplugged in the bedroom since it was replaced by the hd-a1 in my living room. i'm not gonna talk much about the oppo cause you either want hi-def dvd playback or you want upscaled sd-dvd playback. i'll be honest it's somewhat painfull now to watch any movie in sd-dvd after watching hi-def dvd. but...if you have a collection of sd-dvd's that your not looking to replace then the hd-a1 has an excellent upscaler buit in that looks much better the my oppo and has "NO MACROBLOCKING" which the oppo player has issues with on most displays. im using a 62' toshiba dlp that has been callibrated by an ISF certified tech. in fact the tech that calibrated my set also commented to me while he was at my place that he also has the hd-a1 and $2000 dollar pioneer elite upscaling dvd player and the hd-a1 is identical in PQ to his pioneer elite player. i must agree the upsacling is very good and you will not be disappointed. as far as hi-def PQ....both the hd-a1 and the ps3 have given me the best picture i've every seen on my set....including any hdtv broadcast i've seen. however alot of the PQ i'm seeing is dependent on the hi-def dvd itself....some movies will blow you away and others look only slightly better the then upscaled sd-dvd. great transfers/bad transfers, shot on film/shot digitally, etc. all make a difference in how good the PQ is gonna be. but, overall the hi-def dvd releases are great and offer a great step up over sd-dvd. as far as PQ difference between blu-ray and hd-dvd its sometimes hard to say. almost all hd-dvd's are encoded in vc-1 and most bluray are encoded in mpeg2....i find i prefer the look of the vc-1 codec. thus i must admit that on average most hd-dvd releases are fantastic, i can't say the same for bluray. when a bluray release looks great, it's great....but when its bad, it's really BAD! on hd-dvd you could have tiers of movies based on PQ....tier 1 excellent, tier 2 good, tier 3 average...etc. bluray is either excellent or laughable. this may change as bluray studios release their bluray dvd's in vc-1 or get better at their film to dvd transfers. if i must rate the PQ then the hd-dvd at its very best is a 100/100, ps3 at its very best is 95/100. im running both with hdmi at 1080i...my set is native 720p but i like the look of sending my set the 1080i signal to scale itself. the hd-a1 wins hands down out of the 3 players in terms of upscaling(ps3 has no upscaler). thats my opinion on the players and formats. EVERYTHING ABOVE IS MY OPINIONS AND EXPERIENCE...remember i own both formats. i must also say that everyone has different displays or projectors and are gonna have results that will differ from mine.

 

[Lex vs Kingpin]

^^ what a great post - thank you kindly.


Hopefully we will hear from some other users....

 

[miata]

Any other opinions? I currently have the HD-A1 and my TV has a decent scaler, so I am particularly interested in comparisons at 480p.

 

[Lex vs Kingpin]

Well, I don't want to play in both fields but it is really interesting to see very opposite views on the subject: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=788669


Please be careful not to convert this thread into a flame war - thanks

 

[miata]

Thanks for the link. Unless I'm missing something the comment about SD DVD quality is:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo1965 /forum/post/0


The PS3 has a very good deinterlacer and spits out 480P on SDDVD.

I would imagine that any of these players have very good deinterlacing can certainly spit out 480p. I have the HD-A1 and don't need upscaling so I specifically want to know how the PS3 compares at 480p for SD DVD.


Reading through various other postings it seems that the OPPO 971 is not quite as sharp as the HD-A1, but that the OPPO has better de-interlacing, fewer artifacts and noise, and is a little more refined. So, if the PS3 is similar to the OPPO 971 should I expect the image of the PS3 to be slightly softer than the HD-A1 -- but be more refined with less artifcts, noise, etc? HQV and DVE resolution test patterns indicate that my TV scales slightly better than the HD-A1, so I just want to know how the 480p image compares between the HD-A1 and the PS3. I haven't been able to find any direct comparisons that don't get wrapped around the axle on the upscaling issue wit hthe PS3.

 

[PioManiac]

Well I wish I had a Toshiba HD DVD player to compare to

(only have XBOX 360 HD DVD add-on) in addition to PS3, Pioneer DV-490V Up-Converter.


But I will say I'm very happy with the SD DVD playback on my PS3 @ 480p

and letting the internal processors/scalers in my Pioneer 5070 do ALL the up-scaling.


Depending on the movie,

the PQ via HDMI through my PS3 on some SD DVD's is near Blu-Ray quality on my 1365x768 Plasma

not Teir 0-1 Blu Ray, but maybe mid 2-3 Teir

Instead of filling this post with all my comparison screen shots,

I'll just throw you a link:
SD DVD vs Up-Converted SD DVD vs Blu-Ray


IF you looked at the pics', you'll understand why my Up-Converter (DV-490V)

is on its way to the curb...which is good because it free's up an input for an

XA1,XA2 , as soon as there's availabilty and the prices drop a little in Canada.


The XBOX add-on is OK as an HD DVD player PQ wise,

but Sucks at Audio (only DD5.1)

 

[sharkshark]

I've got two out of three, so I ain't playing... still, I do normally watch SD on the Oppo still, if only because a) it's really fast, b) I can skip FBI stuff with my crazy Russian FW, and c) it does DIVX/PAL/Region free... I don't see a ridiculous difference in upscaling, but on my CRT I'm unlikely to see scaling errors/benefits as much as fixed panel TVs anyway. The difference in calibration between the two units (with the A1's HDMI/DVI kerfuffle) is a bigger deal in terms of PQ, and required me to have two PQ settings, one for the A1, one for the Oppo/HD-TV to attempt to compensate.

 

[miata]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PioManiac /forum/post/0


Well I wish I had a Toshiba HD DVD player to compare to

(only have XBOX 360 HD DVD add-on) in addition to PS3, Pioneer DV-490V Up-Converter.


But I will say I'm very happy with the SD DVD playback on my PS3 @ 480p

and letting the internal processors/scalers in my Pioneer 5070 do ALL the up-scaling.


Depending on the movie,

the PQ via HDMI through my PS3 on some SD DVD's is near Blu-Ray quality on my 1365x768 Plasma

not Teir 0-1 Blu Ray, but maybe mid 2-3 Teir

Instead of filling this post with all my comparison screen shots,

I'll just throw you a link:
SD DVD vs Up-Converted SD DVD vs Blu-Ray


IF you looked at the pics', you'll understand why my Up-Converter (DV-490V)

is on its way to the curb...which is good because it free's up an input for an

XA1,XA2 , as soon as there's availabilty and the prices drop a little in Canada.


The XBOX add-on is OK as an HD DVD player PQ wise,

but Sucks at Audio (only DD5.1)

PioManiac,


Thanks. This is great. So, the PS3 actually looks pretty good for SD @480p.

 

[PioManiac]



Quote:
Originally Posted by miata /forum/post/0


PioManiac,


Thanks. This is great. So, the PS3 actually looks pretty good for SD @480p.

Yes, provided you have display with good internal scalers

to bring the 480 up to your sets native resolution.


Some are just better than others, Pioneers are among the Best of the Best

 

[the__rob]

my .02


I think hd looks better than upscale hands down. I would not even cosider the oppo 971.


now I would not compare the ps3 to the hd-a1. I would compare it more towards the a2. they are both going to require hdmi to get the hd sound. both have decent load times. initial boot up on the hd-a2 may be a tad slower.


I would not use the ps3 as my only player I can say that though. so if I had to pick one the hd-a2 would be the winner. no picture quality advantage, fan noise, bluetooth remote, and the heat it puts off in the audio rack make it a less desirable choice in my book if I had to choose.


I have also seen refub samsung bdp1000's down in the $499 range. It is possibly worth a look as they have taken care of some of the bugs in firmware updates. my big gripe with the bdp1000 was price and load time when it was $800. now that it is closer to the hd-a2 in price it is worth a look.


In all honesty I think the picture quality from both are great on hd content but I give the slight edge to the hd-a2 on both fronts. The reality is though you can't get all movies in hd-dvd and that is why I own both.


If I had to buy a single player right now and did not game I would pick which format I was more confident in and either buy the hd-a2 or the bdp1000.


I am very happy with having both the ps3 and the hd-a2 though. $850 investment. have both formats and and can game a bit if I want to. I am mainly a renter and only purchase movies I really enjoy. this make it almost essential to be dual format if I want to watch the hd content I want to see.