Best settings for HDMI

[kevinsky18]

I have:

32" LCD "Digistar." Display is 1080i/720P/480P/I with HDMI

Samsung DVD HD-850 1080i/720P with HDMI.

I'm totaly new to home theater. Which settings do I want the tv and DVD player on to get the best picture. Or will the devices set themselves automaticly?

 

[MDS]

DVD is 480i/p. If the Samsung DVD player has settings for 720p or 1080i that implies that it upconverts to those formats.

When the tv says it supports 480i/p, 720p, and 1080i it means that it can accept signals in any of those formats. It may or may not automatically upconvert 480p to 720p or 1080i. Some TVs automatically upconvert all signals.

If you set the dvd player to upconvert to 720p, the TV will accept it. Likewise, if you set it to 1080i, the TV will accept that. IF the tv automatically upconverts (sometimes settable via a menu option), then you will have two conversions if the format you set as output from the dvd player differs from the format to which the tv will upconvert.

You will have to experiment to see if the upconversion makes any difference to your eyes.

 

[Buckle-meister]

MDS, surely it will all depend on the native resolution of the t.v.?

If the t.v.'s native resolution is lower than that of the input signal, the picture, although shown, will not be as accurately displayed as it is defined. And if the t.v.'s native resolution is higher than that of the input signal, the t.v. will interpolate the additional pixels which, whilst giving a less pixellated picture, will not result in any additional information.

Regards

 

[MDS]

Yes, but that will just confuse matters even more. Take Sony LCD TVs for example: 1366 x 768. That's in between 720 and 1080.

No matter what you send it, it will scale it to 1366 x 768. So if you have the DVD player scale 480p to 720p, it will be scaled again to 1366 x 768 (768p? - who knows, its not an atsc standard resolution).

I would just leave the dvd resolution alone (ie., turn upscaling OFF on the dvd player) and let the TV do whatever it needs to do to scale to its native resolution.

However, if the tv uses one of the atsc standard resolutions, like 720p, then the issue becomes: which does a better job of scaling from 480p to 720p - the dvd player or the tv? Yet another wrinkle would be if you set the dvd player to scale from 480p to 1080i and the tv then scales it back to 720p and that looks better than having the dvd player doing the scaling to the tv's native resolution (720p) so the tv doesn't have to touch it.

So many variables and each tv is different. That's why I think the best answer is simply experiment and see which you prefer.

 

[Buckle-meister]

No matter what you send it, it will scale it to 1366 x 768.

Do we know this for sure?

I would just leave the dvd resolution alone (ie., turn upscaling OFF on the dvd player) and let the TV do whatever it needs to do to scale to its native resolution.

I agree, and...

...if the tv uses one of the atsc standard resolutions, like 720p, then the issue becomes: which does a better job of scaling from 480p to 720p - the dvd player or the tv?

...again I agree . I think an experiment to try and determine which, if either of, the t.v or dvd player has the better scaler would be a worthwhile exercise (obviously using comparable resolutions).

Yet another wrinkle would be if you set the dvd player to scale from 480p to 1080i and the tv then scales it back to 720p and that looks better than having the dvd player doing the scaling to the tv's native resolution (720p) so the tv doesn't have to touch it.

Wow, that's a bit of a mind-melter! However, in essence, you are saying that the dvd player's scaler might be better at upscaling from 480p to 1080i than 480p to 720p. I can't imagine that to be the case. Could you? I mean, one would have thought that a scaler (dvd's say) better at upscaling than another (t.vs say), would consistently be better at upscaling across the board. No?

Regards

 

[Waveform]

I am using the Toshiba SD-5980 (HDMI) to drive a Panasonic AE-700 which has a native 1280x720 resolution. To my eyes there is no doubt that the picture is better when the DVD player outputs 720p versus when it outputs 480p, i.e. I prefer the player's upconversion to the projector's. However, i cannot tell the difference between a 720p output and the 1080i output; so i cannot vsually detect a degradation when the projector converts 1080i to 720p in this particular case.

 

[Buckle-meister]

...i cannot tell the difference between a 720p output and the 1080i output; so i cannot visually detect a degradation when the projector converts 1080i to 720p in this particular case.

Why would you do this anyway? If your projector cannot natively display 1080i, then what is the point in upscaling just to downscale?

Regards

 

[Waveform]

Why would you do this anyway? If your projector cannot natively display 1080i, then what is the point in upscaling just to downscale?

Regards

In this setup there is obviously no sense to using 1080i and I don't. I was just remarking that there did not appear to be downside to doing the (unneccessary) downconversion, that I can tell. (The practical issue here is an irritating characteristic of the SD-5980 is that it does not remember its last setting and always defaults to 1080i when switched on).

 

[MDS]

Regarding whether or not we know for sure that a (Sony) TV with a native 1366 x 768 resolution will scale any signal to that resolution:

Yes, we know that for sure. In fact we know it is true of all such TVs. They are called fixed pixel displays for a reason - they have one and only resolution. A TV with a true 720p resolution like the Samsung DLPs will scale (and deinterlace) 1080i to 720p.

Think about EDTV. They are HD 'compatible'. That means that they can accept a HD resolution like 720p or 1080i, but they will scale it to ED resolution, which is 480p.