Originally Posted By: Tim
Hello,

I was wondering if anyone has hooked up a Blu Ray player to an older CRT television? I was thinking of getting a Blu Ray player and hooking it up to my Pioneer Pro-530hd CRT projection television. Do you think that there would be any improvement in picture quality over my Pioneer Elite DV-45a dvd player using standard dvd's? What about Blu Ray discs? The television has component inputs, no hdmi.



Thank You,
Tim



Since you have an RPCRT/1080i with only component video inputs there is a couple of pieces of equipment out there available that you can purchase and they do work very well. They are essentially digital to analog converters that will allow you to use the full video processing capabilities of your player via the HDMI output including upscaling of standard DVDs which is a feature not available through component video. Also, the advanced video processing of BR players like the ABT processing in the Oppo player and in many other players is also only available through the HDMI connection. In this respect, I would disagree with the idea that the component out of BR even with a 1080i set is just as good as HDMI and the use of either one of these converters will verify that.

For further information, I would suggest you look at the following websites: "Moomecard.com" and "HDFury.com".
I personally, have the "Moome" converter which allows me to use the HDMI connection out of my Oppo BR player with all its benefits and it converts it in to component and 1080i in my set.

I must admit just recently there has been an issue with the questionable legality of resellers in NA(i.e. CurtPalme.com and Monoprice) selling these pieces because of the issue of HDCP but since these are manufactured in Taiwan, where they were ordered and shipped from any way, one can order direct through either website and it won't be an issue.

The problem is and it is still a little ridiculously touchy for some, however, realistically because these pieces are primarily designed for "legacy" equipment(FP and RP CRTs) this is now a very tiny market and shrinking by the day. It just allows those that still have perfectly working sets to extend their life and get the use out of source equipment that has only HDMI connections.