Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 720p vs. 1080p

i am new to all these....and planning to use the oppo dvd player with the new mits 1080p along with the epic 80-600 package....is there any advantage of these latest mits over the previous mits.....will it improve the picture quality ? appreciate input and feed back

Excellent post Nick. As was said, DVD is encoded for 480 lines. But with a quality upscaling player the image is "simulated" at 1080 or 720 to give you a higher resolution even though the DVD itself is only 480. It does not look like true HD but sometimes it gets quite close. On very good transfers like the Matrix or the Star Wars trilogy, I would say the improvement is 50% better than standard 480p. It's a cheap way of getting the most out of standard DVDs until true HD discs are here.

Thanks TNTguy!

Upconversion is still hit or miss with some manufacturers, so be sure to get one that has proven their technology like I did.

nickbuol i love the fact you stick up for your boyfreind. very cute. every post theres been on projectors you and your girlfreind have argued with me over this. you both still don't get it. a dvd is 480p. upconversion actually makes the picture less sharp and more soft. Alan from axiom even replyed on the one thread agreeing with this. But your friend sirquack even said let me see if i remember. oh yes he said alan is not always right. Well its not about whos right or wrong its about facts. there are only 480 lines of information on dvds. so to watch it as 720 or higher the projector has to redistrubute it from its natural 480p to 720p or 1080. to fill in the lines of information which is called scaling. when doing this the best you can hope for is that it does a really good job at scaling the image. and if it does you won't lose much sharpness. but generally a picture scaled into a non native format like this well appear a bit softer then in its native 480p state. which translates into a less sharper image. that was taken from an article at projector central. I'm sure nickbuol and sirquack well say they aren't always right either. Also the only problems i have in this forum are you two. I can't stand people who argue and have no facts to back it up. dvds are 480p not 720 not 1080. scaling does not improve picture quality for the majority of projector owners for dvd. except drastically with you two. I sure you'll reply with one of your post that show how dence you truly are. first though talk to someone that nows something about projectors.

OK, now you are resorting to personal attacks. Once again, you claim to have facts, and yet never offer them. You just offer your opinion, which we are all welcome to share, but others admit that they are just that, opinions.

And AGAIN, just like the post about screens and projectors in the home theater section of this forum, I have backed up everything there with facts, and you, once again, don't read my messages.

Even others here (Sorry to point you out TNTguy.) read my messages completely and understand that I HAVE agreed with your single statement that DVDs are 480. I've even stated that upconversion alters the image to calculate what it beleives to be inter-pixels between the actual pixels of the 480 source DVD.

I will extend this offer out to ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE here.

If you want to see the difference between 480p and upconverted DVDs at either 720p or 1080i, let me know and I will set it up. You will have to drive to my house near Des Moines. See for yourself, everyone, and post your thoughts here.

Only then will each and every one of you know what is better for you.

you agrue to disagree. your point is not valid. the post where you say you agree well you just contradicted yourself with the last post you made. come you said and i'll show how much better my pic looks scaled. also that post i made. most that was typed on my part was from projector central. scaling does not create a better picture for most for dvds. if anything it takes away from the sharpness of the picture. mabey your z3 has problems showing a good picture in there natural state. also i bought axiom speakers just like sirquack and yourself. so your comments of how i could talk to your beloved sirquck. is b.s. If telling people the truth that spending money on true hd projector for dvds is a waste of money as of now. then i guess the forum isn't ment to help people. more like misguide them. your doing a fine job. I hate to see the poor chap that goes to buy a true hd projector to upscale dvds. then finds out he could have had the same picture or better with a machine half the price.

OK, fine.
(Standing on large soapbox)
"EVERYONE. LISTEN TO SMOKEY! Go buy a projector with NO MORE than 480 lines of horizontal resolution if you want DVDs! You WON'T get a better picture than that. Grab that old 640x480 projector and you'll have the best DVD watching system ever! After all, aren't all projectors just 640x480?!?!"

Geez...

funny guy. but not really the sharpest pencil in the stack. My point to everyone is. if your in the market for a projector strictly for movies (dvd) 480p is going to give you the best picture for it at this time. but get a 480p that is hometheater projector. Nick is a little confused on what 480p i'm talking about. theres no reason to waste money on a hd projector for dvds. Hd t.v if thats what you want it for then all means get the 720p or 1080 capable projectors. when hd dvds do arrive price drops well no doubt happen on all projectors for new ones coming out. then buy a true hd projector. the dlp true hd projectors well be along the same price as the z3. hands down dlp hd projector then. nick is just mad he over paid for his pj. That it burns him that a 480p projector can put out a better picture then his for dvd. even though he claims his upscaling brings movies almost to hd. but why bother when there only 480p. all things i've heard scalining to different formats does not help but takes away overall quality from images. the 480p pj's out there put out the best picture for the money. for dvds peroid.

Hey, you guys aren't going to the gathering together, are you? Just kidding.

Really, this is an open forum where members should refrain from personal attacks and although this thread has not overheated, its coming pretty close. Just offer up your opinion, whatever your position, and let others either agree or disagree. Then move on.

I, for one, have learned some valuable information and will test my setup to see which one offers, in my opinion, the best resolution for watching dvds.

Thanks guys.

John, your question may have become lost in the conflict, so I'll have a go. You didn't fully describe your TV, in particular the key point of whether its "native resolution" is 720 or 1080 pixels(picture elements). Both your player and your TV have a "deinterlacer" to convert an interlaced picture to the generally smoother progressive scan picture. Likewise both player and TV have a scaler which processes the incoming signal so that its number of pixels matches the native resolution of the display. Regardless of whether the incoming signal is interlaced or progressive or its number of pixels, it has to end up matching the display so that a full picture can be shown; a 720p display has to have 720 pixels with progressive scanning, a 1080i display has to be interlaced with 1080 pixels. Either the player or the TV can be used for its deinterlacer(if needed)and either can be used to scale the picture up(or down). So, for example, if your TV is 720p you need to deinterlace the DVD material to progressive and scale the 480 pixels of the DVD up to 720(which doesn't change the 480 resolution)to fill the 720 pixels in the screen. You definitely don't want to send a 720p set 1080i material, because then the TV would have to deinterlace it and partially scale it back down(i.e. compress it)to 720.

The question is whether to use the player or the TV to scale or deinterlace. Since this is still a developing technology either one might do a better job of processing, or they might be essentially identical. So, experiment to see if using the player's processing looks better than letting the TV handle it.