Topic: Standard DVD upconverting for an HDTV

[Antares]

I've been thinking a little bit about getting myself a home theater system to go along with the SHARP AQUOS LCD I bought awhile back.  Today I was browsing around a Best Buy and I've noticed that most if not all of the mid to low level home speaker systems come bundled with a DVD player of one type or another.  Naturally, I already have a DVD player but its an old Panasonic (read: crap) player, although it is hooked to the TV using component cables.

My question is:  is it going to be worth my while as far as DVD picture quality is concerned to go with an upconverting DVD player with a home theater in a box?  Many of these systems in a box come with a few extra perks like iPod connectivity.

I also perused around Best Buy today looking for a Blu Ray player just for grins, the helpful greasy salesman tried to sell me a PS3... so I thought I'd probably do better to retreat back to the internet for some more research.

Is now just a bad time to invest in a new home theater system?  It seems like "upscaling" a regular DVD is probably more lip service than anything else, currently no packaged home theater systems come with a Blu Ray player, likely because Blu Ray players alone are running $300-$400 just to get started.

Suggestions?  I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting 6 months to a year before I do anything.

[JacksRag(e)]

Upconversion is a mixed bag.  It looks decent on some DVDs but on others it's a trivial difference.  Most of these HTIB aren't gonna be of much use to you if you do plan on getting a high def player, console, or cable box of some sort as very few of them have HDMI ports on the receiver.  So you're basically gimped if you want to upgrade later on.
The upside of HTIBs are that they're easy to put together and they're already matched so you don't have to fool around with buying each part separately and then fiddling around with them till you get the quality you're looking for.
Personally, I'd wait a little while then buy the home theater system part by part, starting with a good receiver with HDMI input and outputs.  It's just more fun that way, I think.
And if you do plan on getting a Blu Ray player get the PS3.  It's the most value for your money and it's upgradable to the newest BR profiles (2.0 and whatnot), whereas the other players may not have hardware capable of upgrading to the newer profiles effectively gimping their features.
But yea, that's my two cents.

[scottws]

Panasonic isn't crap...

[Quemaqua]

Heh, I was gonna' say the same.  Panasonic is my brand of choice when it comes to most electronic stuff.  My new 42" plasma is a Panasonic and I'm thrilled to death with it.

[Antares]

Really? I've always thought of Panasonic as a lower end brand, is this not the case?

Thanks for the advice hoob, I've got two HDMI slots on the back of my TV just itching to be used.  One used to be occupied by my HDTV cable box, but I haven't had it since moving away from Colorado.

I'm a little apprehensive about going piece by piece for a home theater only because I have a bit of a tin ear.  I can tell the difference between a good sounding system and a bad sounding one, but for some reason I've never been able to tune one to sound good.  I'm thinking I'll be better off waiting for a bit until Blu Ray is a bit more reasonable, both for the hardware and the discs.  Maybe I'll start looking into a stereo system.

As it is now, I'm planning to move my current 36" LCD system into a secondary room eventually and upgrading to a big screen set, but my current living situation makes it pretty much pointless so I've been thinking I'd start with the audio and the DVD player.  I suppose its worth doing it right the first time so I don't end up wasting money purchasing anything again.


Oh, is there any benefit to sticking with a single brand throughout?

[Cobra951]

Here's my take on it.  Something has to scale the video signal to your TV's native res, which may or may not match one of the current HDTV standards (720p, 1080i, 1080p).  Many do not.  Mine does not (1366x768).  If your TV is good, my money is on the TV itself doing the best possible job of upscaling to its own native resolution.  If you let the DVD player upscale, it's going to do it to one of the standards.  Chances are your TV will have to process the video a second time to match its panel.  What the TV cannot do is create a progressive display out of an interlaced signal.  Movies are usually stored on DVDs non-interlaced.  See where I'm going with this?

Given a TV with good processing of a 480p signal, your best bet is a DVD player which creates a progressive display (480p) and feeds it via component or HDMI to the TV, which then scales the image to its screen.

[WindAndConfusion]

Cobra is mostly right. Any HDTV is already going to have a scaler in it.

What the TV cannot do is create a progressive display out of an interlaced signal.

Yes it can. That's how progressive scan works on component video: component can only carry interlaced signals, but the progressive->interlaced conversion is easily reversible.

[Cobra951]

Cobra is mostly right. Any HDTV is already going to have a scaler in it. Yes it can. That's how progressive scan works on component video: component can only carry interlaced signals, but the progressive->interlaced conversion is easily reversible.

Could it be that you're confusing "component" with "composite"?  Composite is your standard single video signal, with the plug typically coded yellow.  It's only meant to carry one of the old video standards (like NTSC) and those are interlaced.  Component, on the other hand, is 3 separate cables, usually coded red, green and blue.  It can can carry 480p, 720p and 1080p.  VGA = component + H sync + V sync (5 discrete lines, the 3 equivalent to component video + the 2 syncs which make just about any res possible on the fly).

As for the inverse telecine which comes close to recreating the 24 fps non-interlaced original film motion from DVD video, I'm going to punt to this page.  Scroll down to the info on the gray background.

[WindAndConfusion]

I'm definitely not mixing up component and composite. (I made that mistake once and only once.) I'm also not talking about 3:2 pulldown.

Component is basically just composite or S-video with the video signals separated. A composite video signal has to be interlaced, so a component signal also has to be interlaced. It's just that reliably deinterlacing a component stream is easy, whereas deinterlacing a composite stream is a nightmare.

[Cobra951]

Component is basically just composite or S-video with the video signals separated. A composite video signal has to be interlaced, so a component signal also has to be interlaced.

Hmph.  You know, I hate to argue with you.  But here it can't be helped.  Some things naturally follow.  Cogito ergo sum.  Others simply do not.  "Composite is interlaced, therefore component must be."  What?  Why would you draw such a conclusion?  The component analog encoding can be interlaced or it can be progressive.  The limitation is bandwidth, and with 3 cables, it's a hell of a lot wider than composite's.  There is no absolute barrier that would prevent full frames at a full frame rate from going across in whatever drawing order suits the display hardware--top to bottom, left to right, every 3rd line 3 times over, it doesn't matter.  One end encodes, the other decodes at whatever the agreed-upon standard, like 1280x720@60 Hz progressively, or 1920x1080@60Hz progressively, or 640x480@30Hz interlaced.  It's a single stream of information chopped up and stacked up, and that can be done any number of ways.  The electrons flowing through the wires don't care how they're arranged, and neither do the wires.

[WindAndConfusion]

I have to admit, I'm getting no small amount of satisfaction out of the fact that you're willing to argue about this. Lesser men would sod off, but we proudly squabble about obscure technical details of video standards that are used nowhere by anyone.

"Composite is interlaced, therefore component must be."  What?  Why would you draw such a conclusion?

Let me be more specific.

• Television in the US is based on the NTSC signal standard, more formally known as RS-170.¹
  
• RS-170 was later amended to include RS-170 A, which defines the composite video signal.¹
  
• In 1998, the RS-170 RGB standard was adopted, as an amendment to RS-170 A. RS-170 RGB defines component video.¹
  
• All of the RS-170-derived standards specify interlaced video. RS-170 RGB further specifies a method of transmitting progressive video (at 30fps), by dividing each progressive frame into two interlaced fields.²

¹http://www.epanorama.net/documents/video/rs170.html
²I had a great link that explains this, but I lost it. So instead I'll stick you with the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-170#Use_with_progressive_sources

Unfortunately, all of this information is second-hand, since the NTSC standard is formally defined by the ITU, an international standards organization with the nerve to copyright and charge money for a standard that has existed for decades.

If you can get your hands on the standard, we can continue this amazingly pointless argument, but otherwise I don't think there's anything more to say.

[Xessive]

All of the RS-170-derived standards specify interlaced video. RS-170 RGB further specifies a method of transmitting progressive video (at 30fps), by dividing each progressive frame into two interlaced fields.

*Comic Book Guy voice* Technically it's 29.97 fps...

[Cobra951]

• Television in the US is based on the NTSC signal standard, more formally known as RS-170.¹
  
• RS-170 was later amended to include RS-170 A, which defines the composite video signal.¹
  
• In 1998, the RS-170 RGB standard was adopted, as an amendment to RS-170 A. RS-170 RGB defines component video.¹
  
• All of the RS-170-derived standards specify interlaced video. RS-170 RGB further specifies a method of transmitting progressive video (at 30fps), by dividing each progressive frame into two interlaced fields.²

. . .

Unfortunately, all of this information is second-hand, since the NTSC standard is formally defined by the ITU, an international standards organization with the nerve to copyright and charge money for a standard that has existed for decades.

If you can get your hands on the standard, we can continue this amazingly pointless argument, but otherwise I don't think there's anything more to say.

Wow.  So now the non sequitur becomes "the old TV standards were interlaced, so the new ones must also be."  Worse, "because I can't find all relevant authority, the argument is pointless and I win by default."  Remember what the military used to say--perhaps still does--about UFO sightings?  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  You are claiming, against universal assumption and observed fact, that 720p and 1080p over component cables are outright lies.  I don't have to refute that.  You have to prove it.  (If you're claiming something else please specify.  I'll repeat that it doesn't matter how the information goes across the wires as long as it's assembled and displayed according to the current progressive standards, both of which require that an entire frame be displayed progressively every 60th of a second.)

"Component" is a hardware standard, though I would have no problem believing it is the name of an old video-process standard as well, or even that the name originally came from that old video standard.  That doesn't mean the hardware can only be used according to ancient broadcast specs.  The hardware standard is well established, and meets the requirements of modern HD video.

[WindAndConfusion]

As fantastically amusing as it would be to start a flame war over this, maybe we should back off for a day or two?

[Quemaqua]

No no, I vote for fantastically amusing.  I'm taking rather sick pleasure in this even though I don't understand a word either of you are saying.