Upconverting DVD Players

M160RA

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Nov 6, 2005
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Are they worth it? I'm buying an HDTV, so I'm wondering if it's also worth getting an upconverting DVD player for regular DVDs, or whether there's no noticeable difference with a regular DVD player. I'm quite a noob when it comes to electronics.
 
I play DVD's using a normal DVD player and BlueRay and downloaded AVIs on my PS3 with very pleasing results. I will use the PS3 for DVDs as well once I buy the remote control because the quality of DVDs seems better as if they are upscaled in some way.

What is an unconverting DVD player BTW?
 
It supposedly converts the 480 resolution of normal DVDs to a signal with a higher resolution - 720 or 1080...at least from what I gather.
 
I guess the PS3 must do something similar. What is the resolution of a DVD?
 
720×480 (NTSC) or 720×576 (PAL) apparently so I suppose that given a DVD player that upscales and a HDMI cable you will improve the quality of output if you have a HD TV..
 
I play DVD's using a normal DVD player and BlueRay and downloaded AVIs on my PS3 with very pleasing results. I will use the PS3 for DVDs as well once I buy the remote control because the quality of DVDs seems better as if they are upscaled in some way.

What is an unconverting DVD player BTW?

The uneducated man's word for upscaling.
 
I guess the PS3 must do something similar. What is the resolution of a DVD?

Yes the ps3 does upscaling. I watch all my DVD's on it. You might have to turn it on though in the settings menu and why do you need a remote? Lazy cnut...;)
 
720×480 (NTSC) or 720×576 (PAL) apparently so I suppose that given a DVD player that upscales and a HDMI cable you will improve the quality of output if you have a HD TV..

The TV I'm getting is a 32" with a 720p resolution. I don't know if the difference is going to be noticeable compared to a regular DVD player. But the upconverting player is not that expensive to begin with - around $80 - so I might as well get it.
 
The TV I'm getting is a 32" with a 720p resolution. I don't know if the difference is going to be noticeable compared to a regular DVD player. But the upconverting player is not that expensive to begin with - around $80 - so I might as well get it.

Why arent you getting a TV with 1080P?
 
Yes the ps3 does upscaling. I watch all my DVD's on it. You might have to turn it on though in the settings menu and why do you need a remote? Lazy cnut...;)

Because I always forget which button is which on the controller and get told off when I turn the film off instead of pausing.
 
All it does is what a digital zoom on a camera would do, or if you increase the size of an image in photoshop. There is no extra data there, it's "guessing" what might be there. Without getting complicated, depending upon how much it "zooms in", it graduates the colour between the pixels. So for example if you had red, green, blue, red, by a 2x zoom you would get red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, red. It's more complicated than that in practice, and there are many algorithms to do it, but that's the basic idea.
 
I think most blu-ray players do upscalling as standard, so you may as well buy a blu-ray player if you want upscalling. I heard it's pretty good but doesn't compare to the hi def formats.

Better check first though.

it's prabably not worth getting for a 32" screen.
 
I don't think that you can get a 1080p TV that size. Computer monitors can have that resolution, but then you sit less than/or a foot away from them.

The Samsung A650 32-inch model is 1080p, but it costs like $400 more than the A450 720p, which is the one I'm getting. But like you say, I won't be sitting a foot away from it so I don't think I'll notice the difference in resolution.