I have the 318 that Alou mentioned. It is an awesome player for $200. My biggest gripe is full screen material is stretched. But I use another DVD player for full screen material so it isn't a problem. Results vary from display type and typically most users have found that the 1080i gives the best PQ over 720p on the Zenith (I can attest that 480p is quite poor). However, if your display is native 720p and you have the Zenith/LG you might as well use the 720p. Mine is one of the older ones that upscales over component. The new Zeniths have this feature disabled (gotta love Hollywood). The more recent ones produced only upscale over DVI/HDMI. Most people think that PQ on the Zenith over component is better than with DVI, although I remember Kris Deering's Secrets showdown said otherwise. Chess, you might double check to make sure that your friend's unit will still upscale over component. His might not.
Chess I agree with you under certain circumstances. On a large display (I have only a 36" tv) upconverting will probably not approach HD. With high quality DVD transfers (that sounds strangely familiar on this forum
) I would say the image on my tv is roughly 80% what true HD looks like. But again it depends on screen size and tv display type. So results will vary. One of my roommates was watching "V: The final series" on DVD last night, and I was impressed with how clear it looked. For a lower budget tv movie from the 80s, it sure looked sharp.
I was talking with Kris Deering of Secrets about my Zenith. He likes the PQ but does suggest I look at the Panny S97s. So perhaps when my budget recovers from this HT purchase, I might look at upgrading that. By the way, Kris says he likes the Axiom speakers. He says pretty much what everyone on this board says about them. Somewhat bright on certain material and room acoustics makes a difference but he thinks they are a solid speaker.
