Screen size on newer upsampling DVD players

[Mr_Sukebe]

Thought you chaps might like to hear about the experience I had on Sat.
Quite a number of people on the AV forums state that from their experiences of comparing higher priced DVD players, that some are a good deal better than others.
My particular interest was how much better a mid-priced standalone DVD player might be when compared to my firmware updated Samsung BD player. I've read that the Sammy was pretty rubbish on release, but that when updated, can compete with some reasonable level DVD players on SD-DVD. BD was a bit out of scope with this test as I know that it looks ace.

As I still have a lot of SD-DVDs, I rather liked the idea of making the most of of them.
So, I setup a dem to compare my Sammy BDP-1000 to a Marantz DV7001. The Marantz is meant to be VERY good, even at it's £600 price tag. Sevenoaks setup the dem, both via HDMI into a brand new 42" Pioneer plasma (768 resolution).

Have to say that with both units playing the same SD-DVD clips, that I really couldn't tell the difference. Neither could the salesman of my GF. So, we wheeled out a Denon 3930. Couldn't tell any difference on that either.

Now I have to say that I really don't think the guys were giving me BS about seeing better images on their own 3930s. To me that suggests that the differences are now getting seriously marginal unless you're onto really big screen viewing, i.e. BIG plasmas or projectors.

Anyone else think the same?

 

[davejm]

It's an interesting subject.

I don't have a dedicated upscaling DVD player, but the 360 will upscale DVD's through the VGA cable so I'm going to give it a go later.

It's not something I thought about until recently, as I assumed current TV's would do a decent job of upscaling SD images anyway. I really have no idea if my 360 will do a better job of it than the TV will, so I want to test it out and see when I get home.

 

[Corasik]

Probably depends on too many variables. Like Progressive SD outputs are supposed to be an improvement over the interlaced outputs but my Panny plasma gives the best results if you give it a SD 'PAL' 576i input over HDMI or Componant. If you give it a progressive input it looks slightly blurred. IE the TV's built in scaler, and progressive convertor are better than my 600 quid DVD players.

Same story when using my DVD Recoder, which supports 576I/P, 720P, and 1080i. The difference between 576i and 720P and 1080i is virtually non existant, 576P looks slightly soft focussed.

However, the same TV fed a true 720p HD source from my computer is definalty an improvement.

I've yet to find a hardware or software scaler thats an improvement over the Panasonic's internal scaler. Could that be because the Panny scaler is converting all its inputs to 1024x768 anyway, so even if you feed the TV a 576/720/1080 signal, you cant bypass its native scaler anyway.

Well thats not quite true, you can bypass its scaler, by using the VGA input, at 1024x768, and using software to scale DVD etc to that resolution. Works quite well, but I still havent found any improvement over just sending a bog standard 576i output from the DVD player and letting the TV do all the work.

The difference may well be more obvious with a native resolution display such as a 1920x1080, or even a 1280x720 display, as then you bypass the plasma panels scaler altogether. Same applies with a projector with a native HD resolution, or 1:1 mapping enabled.

On RGB, or Componant outputs, there is one more difference to consider, cheap DVD players often have 10bit DACs @ 28mhz, so their colour definition is less accurate than higher spec players with 12, or even 14bit DAC which run at 108mhz. Of course once you use HDMI, the players DAC is meaningless as your using the DACs onboard the TV instead.

 

[9designs2]

Interesting reading guys, as a SD user myself

So Corasik, you have me thinking on your final comments on HDMI and DAC quality. As you say the one in the display devise is fixed, so as Mr_S experiment has shown no difference is seen. So is this the bottle neck? Therefor I would pitch into the debate when using a high end DVD player, you should use the Component out, so as to gain the advantage of the better video DAC's in the better player.

I know from my Linn player, they have only kept to mainly using Component connection, and not HDMI, though the latest firmware updates did enable the DVI port. I think the the official line is they could extract better quality from a very well executed component connection, than they could HMDI.

 

[Corasik]

9Designs2,

I tend to agree with you, there certainly is 'potential' in the old componant interface. Digital is great, but it does force 'fixed' standards on things. With analog, you get a virtually unlimited range of options.

I do feel that HDMI is 'about the same' quality as the a current fairly high end DVD player on componant, pitty about all the issues with HDCP though, will probably limit future development on the componant interface .

Oh well, guess we'll get HDMI II at some point, with more bandwidth etc

 

[9designs2]

With analog, you get a virtually unlimited range of options.

Exactly, which is why vinyl has continued to get better and CD has pretty much stagnated on sound quality. (See the LP12 has just won awards for it's new updates, and set a new level of performance...the champ is back... LOL)

pitty about all the issues with HDCP though, will probably limit future development on the componant interface

As we are thinking about SD play back, does the HDCP issue not effect us.

Only prevents Component being used for future HD playback, not extracting maximum from older SD.
Is a shame, customer looses again !......