[Andy3105]

I have a Pioneer PDP-436XDE and the native resolution of the panel is 1024 x 768, I also have an Oppo Digital player which can upscale to 720p and 1080i.

The question I have is whether or not I am getting much benefit from sending 720p to the panel as I can sometimes suffer "mosquito" noise on discs that I can only assume is as a result of the rescaling.

Am I right in saying that I am taking SD-DVD to 720p and then the panel is scaling again to 768p ?

What are the recommendations for this please ?

[nordowns]

This question of 'scaling' is becoming a big issue in presenting SD input on an HD screen.

In your case the TV scaling ability may well be better than that of the DVD player. One way to test this is by using a 'component' connection between player and TV. ( I think your player has component output)
This will allow the DVD 'natural' input to feed the TV scaler.
(This connection gives consistent results with my 37" Panasonic Plasma)

My info. is that unless you are willing to spend £x,000 on a top of the range DVD player then the scaling ability is likely to be noticed.

If you try this, your observations would be useful to other forum members facing a similar dilema!!!!!!!!!!!

[Andy3105]

I'll give it a go leater, I have a Pioneer DV575AS upstairs doin nothin so I'll use that as well, however would you feed via component in Interlace mode or Progressive ?

[nordowns]

Progressive

[Andy3105]

Thanks, let you know what happens.

[Astaroth]

Your TV and DVD will both contain a de-interlacer and a scaler - the question generally comes down to which has the better of both but remember that even if your DVD does rescaling then your TV may have to do some rescaling too unless your DVD perfectly matches the resolution of your screen.

I personally would disagree with nodowns comment that scalers in DVDs arent worth it in players that are less than X thousand.... to be honest it tends (but not always) to be the other way around - the TV scalers tend to be fairly poor as they are simply a stop gap measure until sources become HD and they tend to be much better at making the small scaling change from 720p to 768p than from 480i/p to 768p. Of cause a scaler in a £50 dvd player is going to be fairly poor too but as soon as you get over the £100 mark then it is probably going to be a much closer call.

Picture quality can be a very personal thing about what is good and what isnt as good - the only real way to tell which is the best for you is to try all the combinations possible and decide for yourself.

I dont know the Oppo DVD player so cant comment on it - generally a HDMI connection will be better as it gives a digital signal path from source to display where as with component it has to be converted to analogue simply to go along the cable and then converted back again. In theory this should be worse as there is always the chances of errors occuring when ever you manipulate the signal but again with budget models the cost cuttings can mean that that component can be better than HDMI.

[nordowns]

Andy:

Wondering how your testing is going????????

Have looked at the Oppo OPDV971H spec and US reports where the performance is rated alongside DVD players at many times the price (UK £136)
However the presence of a Faroudja scaling chip is not necessarily a 'guarantee' of excellent overall performance!
The spec. has a specific statement:- ' upconvert from 480i to 720p/1080i' i.e. built for the US market.

On the face of it this Oppo should be an excellent, cost effective, option until true HDDVD becomes available.

If you are able to emulate these excellent results on your kit in the UK your advice on the most effective connectivity would be invaluable.

Thanks

Peter

[Andy3105]

Hi Nordowns

Having set up my 436XDE using DVE I tested Star Wars Episode 2 : AOTC and I have to say the results were impressive, most impressive !!!

However it does seem to depend on the disc of choice, for instance, and also on the colour settings for the display.

Star Wars Episode 1 looks decent but not amazing, Episode 2 is very, very good and Episode 3 is stunning however Lord of the Rings (FOTR and TTT) can look excellent and also less than stellar (the Moria sequence in FOTR and the scene in TTT where Aragorn is sitting smoking a pipe being prime examples of mosquito noise in green / blue lighting).

The main issue is that I am not sure that I have calibrated the TV all that well, for instance I am happy with my Contrast (+32) and Brightness (0) settings but I am unsure as to whether I have set the colour up correctly as I am not too good at judging flesh tones, when I calibrated using DVE I had the picture setting as USER and the colour temp set to MID-LOW but I really am unsure if it's right.

I also tried playing the discs via my XBOX360 and the results again were pretty comparable, I would say that the Oppo shades it for image stability but I really am considering getting the XDE ISF Calibrated.

[nordowns]

Thanks Andy,

Were you using HMDI connections or component???

Peter

[JimRockford]

Apparently the new Tosh A1 HD-DVD player does an amazing job of upscaling normal DVDs.

[nordowns]

Andy,

Your info on test results very helpful but we still don't know the difference in performance between the HDMI feed and the component feed which related to your original question?????????

Thanks

Peter

[Andy3105]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nordowns

Andy,

Your info on test results very helpful but we still don't know the difference in performance between the HDMI feed and the component feed which related to your original question?????????

Thanks

Peter

Hi Peter

Sorry I've not been back until now, there is a problem at home in getting some quality one-on-one time with my AV equipment due to the sheer amount of time that kids take up, if you've got any of your own I'm sure you get my point.

Ok, so I haven't been able to test using my DV-575AS yet but I have tried a couple of discs using my Xbox360 via component.

The bottom line is that things seem to be extremely dependent upon the disc and it's quality of production, as mentioned before SWEP2 AOTC looks awesome on my Oppo although I think I need to work on the tint value of my 436XDE as I wasn't too sure about the flesh tones, it also looked excellent via component on the 360, however a comparison with Lord of the Rings : TTT shows that the LOTR discs do not share the same level of production value as the last 2 SW discs.

The upscaling reveals some horrible mosquito noise in certain scenes (these can be minimised by the colour settings) such as chapter 3 on disc 2 of TTT where Aragorn is sitting against a tree, smoking a pipe, as the camera pans across from right to left, the blue lighting on the right of the screen reveals mosquito noise which is much less noticeable with a 480p feed (now I am no expert but via component on my old CRT I never even saw it so perhaps the resolutions of the two plasmas I have owned (1024 x 1024 Hitachi 42PD5200H and now 1024 x 768 Pioneer PDP-436XEE have shown up the flaws in the transfer) it should also be noted that I saw this issue when using a Samsung DVD-HD950 via HDMI to DVI with my old Hitachi as well as with the Oppo via DVI to DVI so it most definately disc related.

Bottom line seems to be (as a reviewer on DVDActive put it) some discs benefit from the upconversion process whilst others get found out.

Hope this has helped you Peter (also looking great via upconversion : King Kong, Collateral, Aliens, Star Wars EP3 : ROTS, X-Men 2, Gladiator, Terminator 2).

One final thing of note, if anyone is using a PDP-436XDE I would appreciate it if they could tell me whether they experience a kind of dirty screen effect when viewing backgrounds like clouds and sky etc.

[Andy3105]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimRockford

Apparently the new Tosh A1 HD-DVD player does an amazing job of upscaling normal DVDs.

Where have you seen this player ?

[Andy3105]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy3105

Hi Peter

Sorry I've not been back until now, there is a problem at home in getting some quality one-on-one time with my AV equipment due to the sheer amount of time that kids take up, if you've got any of your own I'm sure you get my point.

Ok, so I haven't been able to test using my DV-575AS yet but I have tried a couple of discs using my Xbox360 via component.

The bottom line is that things seem to be extremely dependent upon the disc and it's quality of production, as mentioned before SWEP2 AOTC looks awesome on my Oppo although I think I need to work on the tint value of my 436XDE as I wasn't too sure about the flesh tones, it also looked excellent via component on the 360, however a comparison with Lord of the Rings : TTT shows that the LOTR discs do not share the same level of production value as the last 2 SW discs.

The upscaling reveals some horrible mosquito noise in certain scenes (these can be minimised by the colour settings) such as chapter 3 on disc 2 of TTT where Aragorn is sitting against a tree, smoking a pipe, as the camera pans across from right to left, the blue lighting on the right of the screen reveals mosquito noise which is much less noticeable with a 480p feed (now I am no expert but via component on my old CRT I never even saw it so perhaps the resolutions of the two plasmas I have owned (1024 x 1024 Hitachi 42PD5200H and now 1024 x 768 Pioneer PDP-436XEE have shown up the flaws in the transfer) it should also be noted that I saw this issue when using a Samsung DVD-HD950 via HDMI to DVI with my old Hitachi as well as with the Oppo via DVI to DVI so it most definately disc related.

Bottom line seems to be (as a reviewer on DVDActive put it) some discs benefit from the upconversion process whilst others get found out.

Hope this has helped you Peter (also looking great via upconversion : King Kong, Collateral, Aliens, Star Wars EP3 : ROTS, X-Men 2, Gladiator, Terminator 2).

One final thing of note, if anyone is using a PDP-436XDE I would appreciate it if they could tell me whether they experience a kind of dirty screen effect when viewing backgrounds like clouds and sky etc.

Something has just sprung to mind, I don't know where it came from but a guy over on the DVD Forums sent me a link to a site that claimed that all of the LOTR discs had been filtered and that detail levels were considerably lowered so that they would look good on CRT sets, as these were and are still the main type of display device in most homes it seems logical that a good plasma would show up the inadequecies of the product.

[nordowns]

Andy,

Your results and comments are amongst the most revealing I have read relating to the difficult issue of 'scaling'.

Whilst the viewing quality certainly relates to the original DVD 'quality' it does appear to differ between an upscaled signal via HDMI and a signal upscaled by the on-board TV scaler. BUT the HDMI route is NOT always better!!!!

I wonder if any forum member has any experience of a £3,000+ Meridian DVD player which has top range Feroujda chips and is reputed to give 'outstanding ' results!!??

At a 'budget' price there still appears to be a question mark on the interim investment in a DVD player with HDMI output prior to the UK release of a true HDDVD player!!!??

Thanks

Peter

[JimRockford]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy3105

Where have you seen this player ?

You can import it from movietyme.com for about £369

Somebody bought it on the DVDforums.com and said the machine is worth owning for it's upscaling abilities alone. Works miles better than their standalone HDMI upscaling budget DVD player.

[Andy3105]

Ok then

Thought I'd update on some recent finding regarding upscaling of SD-DVD titles.

I have taken to outputting to my 436xde in 480p for all titles now, when I tested the Lord of the Rings FOTR and TTT in 720p and 1080i I noticed mosquito noise in certain scenes that is certainly a transfer issue as it has occurred using 2 different players and 2 different plasmas, however when outputted at 480p this problem is drastically reduced and in conjunction with the DRE NR Reduction functions on my 436xde are virtually non existent.

This has also happened with other titles and it has left me with the impression that upscaling only serves to accentuate any inherent problems on the disc, some discs admittedly don't suffer issues like this and upscaling is not a problem but on my screen (any transfer issues aside ) I really can't see a difference between 480p scaled by the panel and 720p scaled by my Oppo 971H other than the fact that the panel produces an image that does not highlight any inherent noise in the transfer.

I hope this is of interest to anyone out there who is interested in upscaling, my final position on the issue is that it's best to get a good 480p player and let your panel do the work (assuming the panel is good at this) than to buy an upscaling player.

[Astaroth]

The question comes down to which is better, the scaler in the DVD or the scaler in the screen. If you get a decent DVD player its scaling ability (in my opinon) is signifcantly better than any screen (like the top Panasonic or the slightly inferior Pioneer )