[owie]

I have a phillips 50PFP5332D/37 50" 720p Plasma tv, and for Christmas I got a Sony DVP-NS700H Upscaling DVD player. The TV looks great on cable HD programming and Xbox 360 via component cables, but I can't get a great picture out of the dvd player. The reviews I've read on the DVD player seem to be overwhelmingly positive, so I figure I must have a setting off on my TV.

A couple of things I've considered are to turn the sharpness off on the TV (it's currently set pretty high), and to change the HDMI out from "Automatic" to 720p or 480. Anyone else have any experience with this issue? I'd also love to see anyone's settings for the TV, as I am always looking to tweak my picture settings to improve them.


On a side note, I've read some places that you should always turn the sharpness all the way off when viewing HD sources, is this the case?


Thanks,


O

 

[ADU]



Quote:
A couple of things I've considered are to turn the sharpness off on the TV (it's currently set pretty high), and to change the HDMI out from "Automatic" to 720p or 480.

I would try all of the HDMI resolutions and see which looks best. I have the Sony 77H which is basically identical to your DVD player, and it probably looked best set to 480p on a "720p" plasma I tested recently. On my 34" CRT, it looks best at 1080i. And on my 24" 1080p LCD monitor it looks best at 1080p. So the results can vary quite a bit depending on the display, and how it's configured/tweaked to handle different resolutions.


If you do a search in the DVD player forum for your model NS700H or just 700H, with my username: ADU that should also bring up some more info/tips on this unit.

Quote:
On a side note, I've read some places that you should always turn the sharpness all the way off when viewing HD sources, is this the case?

This will vary from TV to TV. Best to consult with other users of your particular TV in the plasma forum. Or pick up some kind of calibration disk to aid in adjusting both Sharpness and any edge-enhancement features on the display. I recommend leaving the Sharpness control on the DVD player turned off though, because the higher settings will just add some pretty unpleasant ringing.

 

[ADU]

If you're just lookin for nice low-cost player that will deliver a good sharp picture, you might also consider the Pioneer 410V or Toshiba XD-E500.


The Sony is no slouch in the deinterlacing department, but the Pioneer will do a better job of reducing combing on certain types of TV content (mainly TV shows made on a lower budget in the 1990's/early 2000's such as X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer). And the Pioneer player also has a better Sharpness control than the Sony. The PQ is very similar though on the two units.


I haven't personally tried the Toshiba XD-E500, but that player is supposed to have some newer features that may also produce a somewhat sharper-looking picture.

 

[owie]

Thanks for the response! I turned the sharp down to "0" and the HDMI Out to 480p, and things look much better.


What exactly am I doing when I change the HDMI Out down to 480p? The manual for the DVD player gave me the impression that turning the setting to "automatic" would serach for the highest resolution my TV had available (720p). Turning it down to 480 seems to have fixed the problem, but I guess I don't understand why, it doesn't seem logical that turning the resolution down to 480p would provide a better picture than the auto setting, or 720p. I'd just like to understand the concept so I can troubleshoot this type of stuff in the future...

 

[ADU]



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


What exactly am I doing when I change the HDMI Out down to 480p?

Well you're changing the resolution sent out to your TV via HDMI to 720x480p.


Why it looks better with your TV than using one of the higher resolutions is a little difficult to answer. However, if you use one of the other resolutions, then the picture probably has to be scaled twice... once by the player, and then again by your TV. (And if you use 1080i, then the picture also has to be deinterlaced twice as well.) With 480p, the picture is just deinterlaced once by the player, and scaled once by your TV directly to it's native resolution, which is probably something like 1366x768p. The fewer the processing steps, the less chance there is of the picture getting degraded or otherwise mucked up. That's my best guess anyway.