Upgrade from Pioneer DVD-585A

[kay]

I recently bought a new TV and I've been noticing all sorts of weird artefacts in the output of my DVD player. (I believe the 585 is simply the European version of the 588.) My TV is 42", 1024x768 resolution, and supports HDMI. I am currently running component video cables to it - I tried both progressive and interlaced, and it looks as though both the DVD player and the TV do an equally bad job at deinterlacing the signal as there are lots of jaggies and blocking issues. My video cable is not the best and needs improvement but it won't cure the jaggies

With that in mind, I've been thinking of upgrading my player. I think I am leaning towards BluRay HD player but those are still very expensive in my country - if I do get one, it would probably be the PS3. How is that at SD DVD playback? I am guessing not as good as a dedicated machine? The following players are available here and reasonably affordable to me:

Denon DVD-1930
Denon DVD-1730
Samsung DVD-HD860
Sony DVP-NS76H

Will I see a noticeable difference in the picture with any of the above players? I know I won't get anywhere near HD quality, I just want my films to look smooth and pleasant to look at. One potential snag is the fact that my Denon receiver does not have an audio delay feature, so any significant delays introduced to the video feed might cause serious lip-sync issues. I can already notice that sound and picture are not perfectly in sync. Perhaps the best way to deal with that is to upgrade the receiver as well, but I'm trying to put that off for as long as possible. Lastly, I have a couple of SACD and DVD-A titles but the new player doesn't necessarily have to be a universal player.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[dvda-sacd]

OPPO

Cheers!

 

[kay]

Not available in South Africa, sadly

 

[avliner]

OPPO is a very reliable ID company, so why not considering the possibility of importing 01 for you? They're sending their products everywhere.
You can get all necessary info on their site.

In other hand, if you want to buy locally, I'd suggest you to have alook at Pioneer model DV 696 AV (SACD/ DVD-A / HDMI / UPSCALING - up to 1080I).
Don't know whether such model is available in SA though.

Cheers!

 

[avaserfi]

Actually the ps3 is a great dvd and blu-ray player. Ever since the firmware 1.80 release Sony added DVD/ps2/ps1 upconversion to the ps3's arsenal of goodies and it does a very good job of it. Another thing to note is that Sony has released statements saying they further plan on increasing upconversion quality through further firmware updates.

If you want a good all around machine I would actually take a look at a ps3. Its a great blu-ray player and dvd player plus its got a ton of other goodies in it.

Edit: Take a look at this. Some things to expect: http://www.playstatic.com/news/570

 

[obscbyclouds]

I've seen a PS3 play SD DVD's, and it did quite a good job on a 720P LCD. Blu-ray movies look amazing, as you would expect. For the price, I don't think you'll find an upscaling played that does much better. The one problem is, it doesn't play DVD-A, but will play SACD (so long as you have an HDMI 1.2 reciever).

 

[kay]

That's good to hear about the PS3, I will do some more reading - thanks for the pointers! I don't expect miracles from SD DVD, just want the obvious jaggies and such gone For DVD-A and SACD, I can always fall back on the Pioneer - it does a reasonable job there, I think. I've been experimenting with VLC playing via a VGA connection from my laptop - I definitely like the video output more than the Pioneer, it just looks a bit more noisy but it could be because the gamma/brightness is a bit high. I have to calibrate the TV for that connection and see how that works out. I will definitely go look at some of the DVD players I can get my hands on - but the PS3 might be the ultimate solution.