Let's talk Hi-Def DVD players...

[Bobby_M]

I don't understand the point in blue ray or hd dvds. A standard DVD with a quality dvd player hooked up to a good flatscreen TV via the Y/Pr/Pb terminals delivers a fabulous picture with bright vibrant colors. A good friend of mine has a huge LCD with a high def dvd player, but his picture isn't any better than mine. Even he says so.

No way in hell. Sorry man. He obviously doesn't know how to set up either the player or TV to output the appropriate signal. I don't put it past him for a second. A family friend has a lake house with a huge theater in the basement, best of everything. I'm over the for new year's eve and I think the picture looks horrible. I grab the player's remote, go into the menu and find that he's got it running 480i out to a $10k 1080p front projector. GREATTTTT!

Needless to say, I was invited back.

FWIW, I have a native 720p projector at 75" wide and I can see a huge difference between broadcast HD and a SD-DVD running on an upconverting player. The source is 90% of the battle.

 

[riored4v]

I don't understand the point in blue ray or hd dvds. A standard DVD with a quality dvd player hooked up to a good flatscreen TV via the Y/Pr/Pb terminals delivers a fabulous picture with bright vibrant colors. A good friend of mine has a huge LCD with a high def dvd player, but his picture isn't any better than mine. Even he says so.

I previously had an Oppo 1080i upconverting dvd player hooked up via HDMI on my 56" Sammy 1080p DLP. Looked great.

Now I have my 1080p BluRay/Upconverting/PS3 player hooked up via HDMI on the same TV. Looks even better.

Not sure how you can't see the difference, but there is definitely a noticeable difference.

 

[NitrouStang96]

I've got two images here, just to show an example. Please keep in mind that this is exactly HALF the size of a 1080p broadcast. The first one is the original HD image. The second one is the standard def version upscaled to fit the TV. Also keep in mind, though, that an old standard tube TV will probably make the SD broadcast look sharper than your LCD or plasma will.

I did nothing but downscale and crop the high def broadcast to SD size, then upscale it to fill the screen. Does anyone know why the old tube TVs can make 720x480 standard def broadcasts look so much sharper? Is it the filters or "pixel" layout?

 

[shafferpilot]

I'm chaulking this one up to a bad setup on my buddy's system. He's a hell of a nice guy, and an artistic genious...... but I wouldn't put it past him to be using the old yellow/red/white hookup. I'll have to take a closer look next time I'm over there

 

[Bobby_M]

People have a hard time adjusting to having to set the native signal formats in both the source and sometimes the display. You'd hope for the consumer's sake, the display is defaulted to "auto" sense the incoming signal. However, I wouldn't go assuming it either. Sometimes people just press buttons until they see a picture and stop there. There's no doubt a setup page on the DVD player for output signal format and whether it should automatically adjust to the disc's native format or to up or down scale to a single desired format (720p for example). Help the guy out so he can see what he's been missing (but paying for).

 

[NitrouStang96]

Yes, I hate that they make it so confusing for my parents - when I visit I sometimes see their HD broadcasts stretched :ugh: among other things.

All new TVs should auto adjust.

 

[sause]

Does anyone know why the old tube TVs can make 720x480 standard def broadcasts look so much sharper? Is it the filters or "pixel" layout?

It's because they are not fixed pixel displays. Meaning that the reay in the CRT can make curves smoother than LCDs or plasmas. Also fixed pixel displays have to use their full resolution while CRT's can actually down grade theirs.

 

[Dude]

It's because they are not fixed pixel displays. Meaning that the reay in the CRT can make curves smoother than LCDs or plasmas. Also fixed pixel displays have to use their full resolution while CRT's can actually down grade theirs.

Yeah, what he said. I was going to say that but the sause beat me to it.