Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 1080i Upconversion DVD Players; Are they really worth it?

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Topic: 1080i Upconversion DVD Players; Are they really worth it?

Michael Gonzalez
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 790
From: Grand Island , NE USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 08-02-2004 12:58 AM

I know that a 1080i upconversion is not going to be True HD but is the picture quality that much better than a 480i progressive scan to make it worth buying a new player? Does anybody own one of these and have the ability to make a comparison? Naturally I bought a HDTv for a reason and so far the best picture that I have seen if from Mark Cuban's iNDemand Networks. I am willing to buy a new player if it is going to make THAT much of a differance otherwise I will just wait for the true HD DVD player to come out.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-02-2004 01:41 AM

First off...I have not seen a 1080i DVD player but I don't doubt that they might exist.

As for the whole upconversion process...I would not put it in the hands of the DVD player, at least not at this stage.

Odds are, your display device will scale up any input you feed it to the resolution of the display. Most of the time nowadays, they are doing a reasonable job. They also often give you the ability to do this in several ways. Lets say you have a DVD that was mastered in a 4:3 process of a letterboxed film (why they still do this, I do not know). A straight upconversion will merely have a letterboxed 4:3 picture in the middle of your 16:9 display with black bars on the left/right as well as top/bottom. What you really want for this situation is a "zoomed" display such that the image is magnified equally in both dimensions so the picture fills the width of the screen. This is best done with an outboard scaler or by the display device.

Presently, DVDs are mastered at 480 lines so that is all the information that is on the DVD. A 1080i player is just going to have a scaler built in. Your display device more than likely will also have a scaler built in...why pay for it twice unless you know one is better than the other. Not all scalers are created equal and some deal with 3:2 pull-down better and have fewer artifacts of the scaling process.

Do remember to have your DVD player set to 16:9 so those DVDs that are "enhanced for 16:9" "anamorphic" (I've seen both lables used) will use as much of the resolution as the DVD has to offer. Your display device will need to be able to exapand the picture since it will be squeezed just like "scope" movies.

So my advice...skip the 1080i player for now. If and when DVDs are mastered in an HD format, that will be the time to have a player that outputs them appropriately...and they will probably start with 720p though they may make the jump straight to 1080...it is all a matter of storage space...more data, more space.

Steve

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-02-2004 07:55 AM

LG electronics makes an HD off air receiver that includes a DVD player with up convertor and these can be had very inexpensively. This is the only one that I know of other than simply using a line doubler. For what its worth the LG unit has gotten many rave reviews and I came close to buying one but didn't want a stereo receiver sized HD tuner in the beadroom. I settled for the Motorola tuner instead as its small enough to sit on top of your hand.

Mark @ CLACO

Click here for the painfully long link that the Mod fixed.

[ 08-02-2004, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Mark Gulbrandsen ]

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Ron Yost
Master Film Handler

Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 08-02-2004 10:37 PM

There's one new upconverting 1080i DVD player that's become very popular with the HT crowd, the Zenith DVB318.

Here's a link to Zenith's webpage about it:

Zenith DVB318 DVD Player

Ron Yost

[ 08-03-2004, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Ron Yost ]

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Chris Trainor
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 161
From: Greenville, RI, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-03-2004 01:28 PM

Keep in mind that most decent HDTV's will automatically upconvert the SVideo or SD-Component video to whatever the sets native resolution is. For example, when I send my DVD players 480i component output to my TV it converts it to 1080i for display. Of course the gotcha is that if I use my other DVD player which has progressive output (480p) my TV keeps it 480p. Kindof weird. Tho honestly, both look exactly the same. Tho, this is on a 32" TV, not a big screen.

Now, I normally use my 480P dvd player on my video projector in my screening room because the LCD projector doesn't do any upconversion on it's own, and the 480P upconvert (since all DVD's are really just 480i anyway) looks quite nice.

--Chris

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Ron Yost
Master Film Handler

Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 08-03-2004 02:17 PM

I know what you mean, Chris. Those with the 318 claim they can see an improved DVD picture from it at 1080i via video projection (even on low-end machines like my little, but wonderful, X1), but I can't see how that's possible.

Oh well. [Smile]

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 08-03-2004 07:11 PM

Samsung DVD-HD841 Up-Converting DVD Player

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-03-2004 09:20 PM

I have to admit that Samsung has gone from a junk producing company to a company making top notch components. They are only one of two TFT Large LCD screen manufacturers around. Sharp is the other. So if you buy a large LCD set its likely to have either one of those manufacturers displays in them.

Mark

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-03-2004 10:25 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I have to admit that Samsung has gone from a junk producing company to a company making top notch components.

Samsung has licensed Kodak's NuVue Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display technology:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020357,39155141,00.htm

quote:
Organic LEDs are luminescent plastic semiconductors with the theoretical potential to replace LCDs, CRTs and other display technologies through greater efficiency, easier production, more physical flexibility and lower cost. To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights. Samsung's basic OLED technology was licenced from Kodak and developed in conjunction with NEC, which sold its stake in the joint venture to Samsung at the beginning of 2004.

http://www.sid.org/pressroom/021210.html

quote:
Kodak, Samsung, Optiva Win SID/Information Display
Display of the Year Gold Awards

http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/articles/story_1301.html

quote:
Continuing its pioneering role in the OLED display industry, Eastman Kodak Company is introducing new high-performance materials for the manufacture of OLED displays and demonstrating active matrix organic light emitting diode (AM OLED) display panels in new sizes and formats, expanding the range of potential uses for the technology. Kodak has developed a groundbreaking OLED formulation that includes four colours: red, green, blue, and, for the first time, white. As a result, manufacturers will have the flexibility to choose the panel architecture that best suits their device design and production needs. Kodak has demonstrated these advances at the 2004 Society for Information Display (SID) conference in Seattle.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=1473/1481&pq-locale=en_US

quote:
High-definition image display that rivals reality.
Organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays show pictures and video at their best. Bright, clear images and fluid full-motion video appear true-to-life at almost any angle.

What is OLED?

Benefits of OLED

OLED Materials

Applications

Potential Applications

Partnerships and Licensing

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-04-2004 11:45 AM

So John,

What you're saying is that all Samsung has to do is figure out what to feed these light emitting organisms(critters) and they will live at least as long as we do??? Now I could envision having to fry up a nice ribeye to feed my monitor once a week, oops that won't work...too much fat and the monitor might expand to the next size..... I can also imagine a good si-fi flick about the organic screens attacking their owners [thumbsup]

. So what do these little organic critters look like?

Mark

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-04-2004 03:50 PM

The OLEDs use organic dyes (rather than the inorganic compounds in LEDs) that emit light when energized. LCD displays attenuate light, OLED displays emit light.

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Luke Jennings
Film Handler

Posts: 2
From: Malabar, NSW, Australia
Registered: Feb 2005

posted 04-28-2005 11:52 PM

We just bought a whole swag of the Denon 1910's at work which are connected to 42" and 50" Fujitsu panels via DVI.

I've got them upsampling to 1080 and it is very nice, though admittedly its not hugely better than 480, there is enough of an improvement in image definition at a close range to warrant using it.

Though this was more of an issue for us (I work at the Office of Film and Literature Classification in Australia) because people are sitting about 2m back from the screen.

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-29-2005 12:23 AM

I thought Organic Light Emitting Diodes were like the LED's that the theatre organ people put across the magnets on the exposed pedal extension to fascinate onlookers at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda.

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Frank Dubrois
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 896
From: Cleveland, OH
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 05-23-2005 09:56 PM

I had a few of these players...none of them did a great job. My xobx is now capable of upconverting to 1080i, it looks a little better than 480p, but nothing substantial. BRAVO is coming out with the D3. It will upconvert to 1080i (1080p was talked about) but it will also play the HD Windows Media 9 files that some DVD's are coming out with (terminater 2) and the entire movie is only about 1 gig on the DVD...makes you wonder where the futre of that is going. The HDWMV files are true 1080i (or 720p for some of the files) and therefore this player will truely put out 1080i, however, upconverting 480i to 1080i, still nothing more than a gimmick at best.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 05-24-2005 12:26 AM

It does not upconvert 480i to 1080i, it upconverts 480p to 1080i. My HDTV displays 480p as 480p, and 1080i as 1080i. 720p 60 is downscaled to 1080i. 720p 30 or less is upscaled to 1080i.

I think I'll just stick with 480p since that's what it's meant for. Upscaling sucks ass.

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