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.

Check out the Oppo DV-981HD, around the $225 mark, competes with much higher priced DVD players. HDMI only though.

95% of the movies I watch are rented, until my local video store starts supporting HD / Blu DVD, I dont' see the need to go to that format.

Paul

You could look at one of the low end HD DVD players like the toshiba A3. MSRP is $299, you may be able to find it cheaper than that.

These players only output 1080i or 720p. I have the A2 and find that it does a great job of upconverting standard DVDS, and HD DVD looks amazing even on my 720p TV.

I am hesitant about buying tons of HD DVD movies incase the format flops, so I use netflix.

If HD DVD does not make it on top of the 'format war' I still feel like I have a great upconverting DVD player out of the deal.

1) Yes, you can set your player to output at 720.

2) I just got a Panny BD-P1400 Blue Ray player and it resolved my TV's inability to properly convert 24p to 60p (3:2 pulldown). For instance the opening scene of Revenge of the Sith used to stutter during the pan down to the ship. The internal processing of this player can do this properly.

I would personally get either a Blue Ray or HD DVD player (your choice) instead of a regular DVD player for these reasons:

1) You'll be able to play Hi Def DVDs
2) Internal Vid processors
3) Internal processing of DD True HD and DTS HD will allow you to pass it to your receiver via PCM. This is great if you have an HDMI receiver that doesn't have these decoders built in (Like me)

An A2 would work great if you can find one. I agree that the upconverting of dvds is great.

yeah, now when you pause an SD DVD, you get a nice clean pic...no jaggies or any of that.

I agree with something like the A2, for the same money or a couple dollars more it makes sense to get a good upconverting HD player.

Amazon has a promotion on Toshiba HD-Dvd players where you recieve 10 free HD-DVD's with the purchase of a player.

Our local video rental stores don't rent HD movies either, but I tried out Netflix about 6 weeks ago, and I will never go back to driving to the video store. Netflix has tons of movies and for the price, can't be beat. The way I lookat it, for the cost of 1 DVD, even at the cheap 1st day release price of about $15, I can get a decent Netflix plan and have access to all of the movies I want, including the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats. If you factor in the cost of a HD movie, then it can really be a no-brainer.

I love netflix. I watched like 10 HD DVD's so far this month for $13.99 (actually it was free b/c I am still on my trial period.)

We have one video rental store that has HD DVD's and it is on the complete other side of town. They are $5.00 a pop, and they have a VERY limited collection.

You do the math

I agree, Netflix is the way to go. It has also allowed me to see some great movies that I never would have found in my Blockbuster, or for that matter even looked for.

The Toshiba HD_DVD models do excellent upconverting.

As I think I mentioned before, my $200 A2 makes some of my standard DVDs look better than some of my poorer HD-DVDs

You got an A2 for $200 I haven't seen it cheaper than $250 around here.

I concur with the HD DVD player recommendation, you midaswell get one as DVD's will be a thing of the past in the next 5-7 years.

Was a 1 day sale at Futureshop. I think they were also this cheap in a few places on Black Friday or whatever they call that crazy shopping day thing in the states.

To address your question about HD-DVD (without getting into the format war/DRM issues), yes, HD-DVD will look better than DVD on a 720p screen. DVD's resolution is 480p maximum (sans upscaling). HD-DVD will do 1080p, but afaik, it will also do 720p just fine. In any case, I'd rather remove pixels than add them--you're going to get a better picture that way.

SD DVD is not going anywhere for a long while. Another thread on here said on Black Friday there where 57,000 High Def. players sold, and 600,000 SD players sold.

I look at most people in my life, friends, family, co-workers. Most of these people don't even have an HD TV. They have at least 2 or more DVD players not including their computer and mini van. I can't see them having to replace all the DVD players in their house yet alone dealing with a new format. They all think SD DVD is great and upscaling SD DVD is awsome. And many just have dialup for internet. To say the SD DVD or DVD in general will be a thing of the past in 5 years is very optomistic.

They all remember the VHS vs Beta and some got burned and others realized how lucky they were not to get burned. None of these people I have talk to are even remotly interested in HD DVD or Blu Ray, they want nothing to do with it.

Lets face it, the mass public doesn't want the best quality, If that was true, Beta would have won, DVD Audio and SACD would rule instead of CD and MP3. The mass public wants good quality and ease of use and that is what SD DVD, CD, MP3 gives them.

For crying out loud, I have a hard enought time getting my family to remember to get me 'widescreen' DVD's for gifts.

Paul

I got my A2 at walmart for $98

The only issue we've had with our A2 is that with some SD DVDs the picture will go to a blank screen and pop right back up at random. We were watching 'The Aviator' a couple of nights ago and it did this 3 times within 5 minutes, very annoying. I also found that if the player is turned off and turned back on it seems to take care of the issue but it's a royal PITA to have to run through the complete menu selection to find the scene in the movie where we were. I've never had this happen while watching HD-DVDs. (you know, the *expensive* DVDs)

I wonder if the 2.7 firmware update will take care of this?

As far as upconverting through HDMI I can't tell much of a difference between our Denon 2910, Oppo 980H (maybe a slight edge over the other two) and the A2 ... if Oppo ever came out with an HD DVD player, I'd be all over it.

I would update your firmware for sure. I have only watched like 3 SD movies on my A2 with the 2.7 update, but I have never had that issue with the 2.5 or 2.7 updates

My HD-A35 has gone black and come back with an HD DVD. I can't remember what movie I was watching, but it only happened during that one viewing. Still annoying.

I did the 2.5 update but the 2.7 came out within a couple of weeks and never bothered...maybe I should.

I never thought I'd run across anyone else who had a Denon 2910, Oppo 980H, AND an A2. Rick, you've gone a long way toward relieving any guilt feelings I may have entertained.


Ditto this too. Spooky, huh?

Could this be a HDCP issue?

Jack if you remember sometime back whenever I thought the 2910 went south on me I purchased the 980H as a replacement only to find that the Denon was on 'Pure Direct' mode (thanks Harmony remote), found that out on the day the Oppo arrived ... DOH! The A2 was that Wal-Mart $98 deal, I thought what the heck and got it.

The Oppo is my favorite out of the three, the Denon is nice but for $800??? (or was it only $700?) and the A2 seems to have some bugs that needs to be worked out.

If you are in the market for a dvd player then DO NOT buy a dvd player, especially if you have a hdtv. I just went on amazon.com and they have a Toshiba HDDVD player for about $225 and you can get 10 free HDDVD's. This offer is also good for any HDDVD player from Toshiba. So it really doesn't make any sense to buy a Oppo or any other DVD player for that matter when the Toshiba does that as well and more for about the same price with 10 free movies.

- Nick

I have both a Oppo 981 and the Toshiba A2, and though the picture quality of a SD DVD is about the same on both, the A2 takes a long time to load. For that reason alone, I won't unplug my Oppo.I also like the feature on the Oppo of displaying on screen how much time is left in the movie...if this feature is available on the Toshiba, I have not been able to find it.

I do have to admit that the A2 with a HD-DVD does provide a great detailed picture and it seems the colors seem stronger (maybe my imagination).

I watched The Aviator with just the updated prior to 2.7. Can't recall the number. 2.5 maybe? I had no blackout issues. Have not seen this in any other movies either.

No bugs with 2.7 yet either, although I have only watched 1 complete movie with it so far and demoed some clips for others a few times.

The local Blockbuster has a small HD-DVD & Bluray rental section now I have been told so hopefully I'll be watching something new tonight.

Ohh, One think to check after the 2.7 update. It, or the reset it does afterwards, changed my auto-dynamic-range feature (or whatever it's called) back to "on". I went to Demo some scenes from Transformers and the audio just didn't sound as impressive. If I hadn't just done the update the night before, I might never have suspected and wasted hours checking all my receiver settings first.

I have the "pre-Oppo" king of upconvertion DVD players, the Panasonic S97, and it now sits in the back of my home theater, on my stack of unopened Bass Shakers for when I EVER get to the customer furnature in my theater, but that is another story. I am "flying solo" with my A2 ($98 Walmart special from the first Friday in November). I really like it and have only had 1 issue so far, but it seemed to be more of a scratched disc than anything else. I do keep it updated on firmware, which is easy. (BrotherBob, I could send you the current firmware CD like I did the last one, but I wouldn't be able to do so do to a business trip and vacation until January 2nd. Let me know.)

Anyway, I have a Sanyo Z3 front projector (720p) at 104" and I can tell a difference between SD (upconverted) and HD movies. On a smaller screen you would think that the difference would be less noticable, but it is still a factor. I've hooked up my player to a 55" 1080p LCD TV at my in-laws. (Yes, they didn't listen to me about viewing distances, and what resolution is really needed.) Anyway, I know that it is 1080p, but there are resources that show that at normal distances, you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on screens less than about 60". Anyway, you could tell the difference in upconverted SD movies and the same movie in HD. Most of the things you will see differently is less grain (unless it is supposed to be there for extra "gritty" feel that the director wanted), less blocks, less "jaggies", etc. Basically the flaws introduced by compressing a movie down to fit a standard DVD. Even the best upconverting player doesn't know what is supposed to be there and what is a compression introduced "block" or blocky image. It upconverts everything, errors in the compression and all. And when it does, it is dealing with limited SD information.

Here is another situation, I really like the first Matrix movie. I watched it on HD-DVD last weekend. I never quite realized how "pitted" Morpheus' (Lawrence Fishborn's) face was. You saw every little detail that is lost on even an upconverted SD version of the same movie. And I was a BIG pusher of upconverted DVDs for years on this forum.

So go HD, get your free movies, and have a great upconverting SD DVD player.

As for the long boot/load times, you will see that for some time in the future. A chunk of it is supposed to be because of the wonderful copy-protection built in to the HD formats that require extra "hand-shaking" with the player and display device. I don't know how much of that is true, but that is what is said in home theater magazines and such.

Of course, I don't mind because my HD-DVD player is booted up faster than my Sanyo Z3 projector, so it really doesn't matter to me. Even the projector is ready way before anyone is when they want to watch a movie. We've got popcorn to make, other food and drinks to get situated, people to get settled in to their seats, etc. At my house, people aren't waiting on the equipment, the equipment is waiting on the people.

I would go with one of the Oppo's since they upscale very well and double as an excellent SACD/DVD-A player. I'm holding off on HD-DVD/BR since I'm not willing to upgrade my receiver to a HDMI-capable one to get the DD-THD and DTS-MA audio features at this point.

I went BIG and bought a Denon DVD-3930CI for my CD and SD-DVD collection. I wanted the best possible upconversion for my 118" screen. Compared to a friend's Oppo, the Denon is king on my size screen, but for a wee-size (50" or so :P) the Oppo would be an excellent choice. I find my HD-A35 sluggish compared to a standard DVD player, which is why I've decided to keep an SD-DVD for my DVD's and let the high-def player handle only HD disks. BTW, the Denon makes DVD's look darn good--close but not as good as HD-DVD's. Because it does such a good job upconverting, I'll buy way fewer HD-DVD or Blu-ray disks to replace certain DVD's. It cost a lot, but in the long run I'll upgrade DVD's less.

Now that you mention it, I do remember that incident.

I still use the Oppo for SD stuff. I know the A2 is an excellent upconverter, but the Oppo outputs at 1080p which the A2 doesn't, and on my 56" 1080p Sammy DLP, it provides a superb picture. Like you, I couldn't pass up the $98 WM A2 deal.

I've heard the Oppo does a great job with SACD and DVD-A, but I still use the 2910 for those just so the poor thing doesn't feel neglected .