Greetings,
I am looking to purchase a DVD player for my home theater system. I have a Panasonic TH-50PH9UK (50" plasma - 720p). I have one HDMI input available on the TV, plus a component input. I know very little about DVD's, and I have a few questions.
1. Do HD DVD's even work with 720p native resolution? Is there any reason to even consider an HD DVD player? I am thinking that even an HD DVD player (or my TV) will downscale the 1080p HD signal to my TV's native 720p, so there would be little benefit to purchasing an HD DVD player. Am I correct? I hope I am wrong, but think I am correct, so on to the next question:
2. I have heard mixed reports on my TV's internal upscaling abilities, so I do not know whether it is worth it to get an upscaling DVD player or just use a basic player and allow the TV to do the upscaling. Is there any way to determine this prior to purchasing the DVD player?
Since there are numerous upscaling players available under $200, budget is not an issue. However, if my TV will do the upscaling as good as or better than a DVD player, then I could just buy a good, regular DVD player and spend the saved money on something else.
One thought is that it would seem that upscaling an image from 480p to 720p is creating an image from something that wasn't there in the first place, whereas downscaling an image from 1080p to 720p is simply using less of what was there, Does that downscaling result in a better picture? (This is a layman's analysis and could be completely off base.)
Any recommendations on particular players would also be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.
