Has any one got one of these? I've read good things about them. They say the upscaling is damn near true HD. I probably have about 800 dvd's and don't want to take the leap into the HD DVD realm yet, so I figured hey for ~$200 I can get a upscale (720 -1080) dvd player.

Just curious if any one has any experience with them.

Also, the TV that I intened to hook it up to is a Gateway Plasma, about 4 years old. Pre HDMI connections. Will the upscaling be possible with component connections?

Thanks

 

In my limited understanding, you need the HDMI connection to upconvert. I have a Sony DVD w/ HDMI connection to my Sony 46 Bravia, it tells me on screen that the pic is 1080i. The DVD palyer cost me $120.00!!!! I love it.

I had to hurry with this post because HummerGuy is no doubt gonna reply saying [sm=icon_blah.gif] there is no comparison to HD DVD.............don't waste your $$ on Blue Ray.

 

Haha...thanks thats what I figured...no upconversion for me...wonder If I can convinvce my wife to let me get a fourth lcd/plasma tv.

 

OK Boys. You asked for it!

I finally did it. A few weeks ago, I did a side-by-side comparison on my 720p Native, 1080i 42" Plasma. I was playing Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, on my Samsung 1080p upscaling DVD player (HDMI) and my XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive (Component, the industries little secret to not need HDMI).

Here's the deal Gooch. Upscaling is great. You are taking a signal half the quality, running it through a computer and creating the effect that it is true High Definition. When you run a side-by-side comparison with a Upscaled movie on one player, and the HD-DVD version on another, you can see the difference, switching back and forth between one and another on the same scene playing at the same time, you WILL see the difference. Hell, my wife even does, and that's saying ALOT

NOW, As for DOC. Guess what? I'm putting my foot in my mouth. I sold my HD-DVD player add-on for my 360. Why? Because the difference on a NON-NATIVE 1080i/p TV is not enough to justify re-purchasing your movies. You REALLY have to have a native True High Definition 1080i/p TV to see the a BIG difference between Blu-Ray/HD-DVD and upconverted DVD.

Native 1080i means in your manual, your TV's Native resolution is 1920x1080.This means your TV was designed so that the standard picture quality is always HD. That is TRUE High Defintion. The 1368x720 TV's are 720p Native resolution, which isn't a true High Definition TV. Many will argue this, but according to the standards in the industry, true HD is 1920x1080.

The ONLY way to get true HD these days with movies, is to use HDMI. Why? Because the movie industry does not want you copying movies, so through the normal Component connections, you can hook a DVD player to a DVD Recorder and burn movies, hence the copy protection. Movies using HDMI (the first standard 1.0) do NOT have copy protection data being transmitted through the HDMI output.

Now, there is HDMI 2.0 with HDCP. HDCP stands for High Definition Copy Protection. What this means is VERY soon, you will need a HD-TV that has the new HDMI 2.0 with HDCP standard on it in order to watch an up-scaled/converted DVD with those players that we all have. If you do NOT have a HDCP-compatible TV, you will not be able to see the movie. That is another wonderful limitation the movie industry has pushed upon hardware manufacteres. There is much debate with s AV geeks out there because the theory is that HDCP reduced the quality of the video by squeezing the extra data for the copy protection in the DVD, therefore taking away how much picture data can be transmitted to your TV, ultimately degrading your video.

So, althought I am all for HD Upconversion and have that, and gave up my HD-DVD for now, it's ultimately not true HD. Some people notice it, and some don't. It depends on your TV Size, your eyesite, and your video equipment. Some DVD Players upconvert much better then others, so you may have one that is so good that it is almost up to HD quality, but you will never get true HD quality from upconversion. It's a scientific impossibility. You cant make something out of nothing. You can't magically turn normal DVD's to HD when it wasn't produced in HD to begin with. That's like turning a Mustang into a GT 40. It ain't gonna happen without some major work, and even then, it will still not be a GT 40.

So, with a 60" 1920x1080i true HD TV, yes, there is no comparison. HD will blow away any unconversion player, but if you have a 42" to 50" standard 720p / 1080i 1368x768 HD TV, the upconversion does a great job. It works well and it is quite better then watching it on a normal old DVD player. You will see the difference immediately.

 

Gooch, he meant I would say there is no comparison. He feels like it's all the same

Read my above post. It's very informative

 

See what I mean. Took him longer than I thought though. I never said they were the same, just couldn't tell the difference between HD DVD and DVD upconvert at the Store cuz they weren't side by side, and they were different TVs and players.

I like the upconvert, still a big improvement over DVD, cheap, and plays the regular DVDs that we all have. [8D]

Hypothetical analysis: if Pam Anderson (not my favorite but you get the idea) was naked on your bed asking you to have your way with her, are you gonna tell me it would be a waste of time pre-boob job, vs after the boob job, cuz the boob job is better definition?

 

I meant that as a rhetorical statement Doc I KNOW you couldn't see the difference, so I had to throw that all the same crap in there. Maybe you are just too old I know what you meant though, but in all fairness, I did change my stance a little since our last fiasco favoring you more then I.

Like I said, it all depends on the TV you have and the DVD player you have.

And for your Information Doc , HD-DVD players can play ALL old DVD's, plus automatically upconverts all of them, the same way an upconversion player does. If you have the dough, go for the $250 Toshiba HD-DVD player. It will upconvert all your old DVD's to HD-like quality, and then when you are ready for HD-DVDs, you can buy/rent them anytime you want.

Netflix and Blockbuster.com both have HD-DVD's, but for the second time, I'm going back to Netflix. You just can't beat there service, and if you have HD or BluRay, they automatically throw the HD version in your queue when selecting a movie. You can't beat that

 

Very informative...many thanks.

But the bottom line is unless I have an HDMI connection I cannot upscale. Is this statement true? My smaller (2) 32 inch LCDS have this port but my older 42 inch gateway only has component and the pc connector.

 

Correct. You can only upscale without HDMI if you have a XBOX 360 with the HD-DVD drive. It's the only device on the market that allows upscaling through Component connections. SOME DVD players have hidden menus that allow you to unlock the upscaling through Component cable connections, but I don't even know if those exist anymore. To my knowledge, the 360 is the only device that can do it, or rather, is allowed to.

Also, go to www.avsforums.com and do some research. There may be some players out there that allow upscaled 1080i output through regular Component cables, but as far as I know, they don't exist anymore because the movie industry put a stop to it for piracy protection and to make it harder to copy from one player to another.

I THINK there are a couple of players out there that have a VGA connector, so you might be able to find out with the PC VGA out, but I highly doubt it. That would let you do it.

 

U rock!