Question:
Hi:
We just got a Panasonic TH-42PZ700U flat panel HDTV. To go with this we got a SONY upconverting DVD player (DVPNS77H). We already had a Panasonic RP-56 progressive scan DVD.
THE PROBLEM: There is not much difference in the picture quality of the two DVD players. The Sony upconverting player is connected with an HDMI cable and the Panasonic RP-56 progressive scan DVD is connected by S-Video. I used national Geographic DVD to compare the picture quality. I played with the settings on the upconverting DVD player, but still could not find any improvement.
Any help is highly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Sri
Answer:
Hello, Sri,
They say you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, and this is an appropriate analogy for trying to make standard definition content look good on a high resolution (in this case 1080p) HDTV display. There's only so far you can take a 480i signal (as stored on the DVD) when you blow it up to 1920x1080 pixels (1080p). Although I have to say I'm a little surprised that you can't see a visible difference between a 480i S-Video connection and an upconverted 1080p signal from the Sony over HDMI, this is really more of a testament to the quality of the video processor in the TV itself then it is a denigration of the video quality of the Sony DVD player.
Virtually every HDTV made includes upconversion circuitry (also knows as a "scaler"). Without a scaler, your 480i DVD movies would be displayed as a small block of 720x480 or 640x480 pixels in the center of your television, with black bars around all of the edges. In order to use the full width of the screen, HDTVs "scale" the 720x480 pixel image to the native resolution of the screen, be that 1280X720, 1024X768, 1366x768 or 1920x1080. Some scalers are better than others (of course) but all perform roughly the same function.
When you use your Panasonic DVD player to send a video signal to your HDTV at 480i over S-video, the Panasonic HDTV takes that 640x480 pixel interlaced image and both scales it to 1920X1080 pixels and deinterlaces the signal to create a progressive image. When you use the Sony upconverting DVD player instead, you are allowing the Sony player to handle the scaling and deinterlacing duties. Where would you rather have the video processing occur? In a $99 DVD player or in a $2000 HDTV? Personally, I'd rather this occur in the HDTV (in this specific case).
There are exceptions of course - some upconverting DVD players do an excellent job of upconverting standard DVDs to high def resolutions. But these players tend to be fairly expensive. In most cases, the only advantage with going to an upconverting DVD player is that you can use the player's HDMI output to carry both the video signal and the audio signal to your home theater receiver or TV with a single cable, rather than the 3 to 9 cables you'd need to pass the signal from device to device using analog cables.
Even the best upconverting DVD players, including some high-end models made by Oppo, Denon, Pioneer and Toshiba, cannot "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse" - they can't match the color depth, contrast and detail of a true 1080p high definition source like an HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc. So if you *really* want to see what your 1080p plasma set is capable of, then consider buying one of these next generation format disc players and buy a few movies in either of the new formats (BD or HD-DVD).
Regards,
-Chris
