Yes.
Yes.
I haven't tried your Samsung display, but I have done A/B testing on a Westinghouse 1080p LCD, comparing my Oppo 971 and 981 at 480p, 720p and 1080p (for the 981).
It depends on how fanatical you are about your dvds. My opinion:good deinterlacing (and the Oppos do good deinterlacing) to 480p gets you 90% of the way there. The upscaling player business is an attempt to squeeze that last few percent out of a 480i image.
So: 480p gives a good image on the Westignghouse, but 720p and 1080p are better. I can see the difference, so I want it. The difference between the 971 at 720p (DVI) and the 981 at 1080p (HDMI) was much more subtle, tending toward negligible. You would think that scaling in one step in the player, 480->1080, would be better than doing it in two steps, the player 480->720 and the panel 720->1080, but in practice it made little difference on my display.
Still, if you have a 1080 display that accepts a 1080p signal, it is a no-brainer: you want to use it because now most of the video processing in the panel is bypassed and you simply don't have to worry about its quality or features. This is presuming the 1080p signal is a good one.
Although there are objective tests of deinterlacing quality (as here: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi ), scaling is much more subjective.
-Bill
Yes.
Yes.
I haven't tried your Samsung display, but I have done A/B testing on a Westinghouse 1080p LCD, comparing my Oppo 971 and 981 at 480p, 720p and 1080p (for the 981).
It depends on how fanatical you are about your dvds. My opinion:good deinterlacing (and the Oppos do good deinterlacing) to 480p gets you 90% of the way there. The upscaling player business is an attempt to squeeze that last few percent out of a 480i image.
So: 480p gives a good image on the Westignghouse, but 720p and 1080p are better. I can see the difference, so I want it. The difference between the 971 at 720p (DVI) and the 981 at 1080p (HDMI) was much more subtle, tending toward negligible. You would think that scaling in one step in the player, 480->1080, would be better than doing it in two steps, the player 480->720 and the panel 720->1080, but in practice it made little difference on my display.
Still, if you have a 1080 display that accepts a 1080p signal, it is a no-brainer: you want to use it because now most of the video processing in the panel is bypassed and you simply don't have to worry about its quality or features. This is presuming the 1080p signal is a good one.
Although there are objective tests of deinterlacing quality (as here: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi ), scaling is much more subjective.
-Bill
