I recently ordered a small wide-screen LCD HDTV for my cramped student apartment, and it dawned on me that my DVD player (GE 1101p) is a real dinosaur by now. I'd like to purchase a DVD player with progressive scan and component video outputs to squeeze the most resolution out of current 480p sources like DVD video. That being said, I've noticed that some players (notably Samsung) can do up-conversion of 480p to 780p. The question: is it worth it? Will one really notice any difference in image quality by up-converting and going through the DVI/HDMI input on the TV rather than the component video connection?

Thanks for any input...video is a bit outside my comfort zone

hello Cygnus X1,

The HDMI is the ulterior substitute of the DVI.
For that your demand concerns, I don't have knowledge of this information.
What I know, the reality of the formats permits to really distinguish the 480p of the 720p while having one HDTV television or a compatible overhead projector 720p 1080p.

Nevertheless, if the link and the transformation proves to be in mode progressive scan, I think that it can only increase the quality.

But if someone have some information, I would be happy to know the least details.

It depends how well they carry out the conversion.

If you are currently watching interlaced composite video output from a DVD, any of your options is going to be a big step up.

However, standard definition interlaced material (converted to progressive, either in the player or display) looks disappointing at close range on LCD displays - especially compared to HD, which looks gorgeous. If the standard definition material is natively progressive (like a feature film) it scales better.

Can't you look at both options in the store? I'd certainly look for a display with HDMI input supporting HDCP. Anything else just isn't future proof.

With everything digital, the difference between upconverting in the player or display (because the display will have to convert to its native resolution, which hopefully isn't 720x480p!) will be down to the quality of each conversion, which is something you have to check for yourself - there's no general rule.

Cheers,
David.

Thanks for the info!

Here's an interesting observation: the GE DVD player (as expected) looks like absolute shit on the HDTV (via S-video or composite). There's all manner of interlacing artifacts and colors blending together, etc. Playing a DVD through my powerbook, via the VGA output @ 1280x768 looks much, much better. However, there is a bit of blockiness on straight lines (aliasing) this way. Am I still better off purchasing a dedicated, high-quality DVD player, or would the difference between the VGA outs on my computer and a dedicated player be small?