OK. As a follow up to this little debate and review I completed the "layman's" tests as I defined in my earlier response. Layman. It won't be real technical but I think it tells what someone with this DVD player can expect with a display like mine. Here are the details...
Monitor:
Samsung 6168 DLP 1080p
Those not familiar this is a native 1080p display that uses wobbulation to achieve a full 1080 lines of progressive scan. Arguments on wobulation can be found elsewhere if that debate interests you. For me, I can say this about the display as seen with the S97 and DirecTV HD (specifically DiscoveryHD). I never see RBE nor has anyone who has seen my display. The picture seems crisp without being harsh and I would call this display top notch without any reservation. All content is upconverted to 1080p on this set so keep that in mind when thinking of the source. Anyway, on to the DVD player.
DVD Player:
S97 of course...
I tested using a standard 3' HDMI cable and a standard set of 3' component cables. I used National Treasure to test as the opening credits and sequence are very dark. At the beginning of the test, I was configured with the DVD player outputting 1080i over the HDMI connector. 60ms of sound delay was applied to deal with synch. TV mode and DVD AV Enhance mode were unknown. Immediately I noticed that black cubes can be seen around the Disney logo at film start. This is macro-blocking I assume? By changing the AV Enhance settings and adjusting the TV settings, these artifacts disappeared altogether. Black levels were good and I no longer see any obvious artifacting.
Regarding HDMI and the issue of 1080i output. I switched to the component cables and checked for the macroblocking issue. While not present, the clarity of the picture suffered noticeably. The best picture was achieved with the DVD player set to output 1080i over HDMI. The picture via Component did not nearly come close to the level of clarify on the HDMI. At lower resolutions, the double conversion caused there to be some pixel noise.
To address the comments...
First of all, the FLI-2310 deinterlacer and scaler exhibits the macro-blocking bug on the HDMI output, but it does not appear to be present on the component video output.
I assume you must have read that somewhere since you did not connect the DVD player via HDMI? I have read that too. However, by tweaking the display and the DVD player, the issue is all but removed.
However, I do like to set a few misconceptions straight. First of all, the HDMI output is not necessarily better than the analog outputs, and the video upscaling feature (available only on the HDMI output) is not necessarily a good thing. It really depends on your display.
Yes, the display is the issue. As the display was the issue I raised with the review. While your theoretical statements are true (yes, upscaling is not always good), in the case of this DVD player and specifically the display I am using, upscaling at the DVD player yields the best picture. A test with a display capable or 720p or 1080p resolution might have yielded the same results for you.
In fact, if your display has a native resolution of anything other than EXACTLY 720p or 1080p, upscaling by the player is a bad idea, because it results in double scaling (the player scales to either 720p or 1080i, and the display rescales to native resolution). Double scaling may exarcebate scaling artefacts, and end up worse than multiple analog to digital conversions.
Is anyone out there buying displays that are anything other than native 720p or 1080p? If they are, they are novices buying cheap non-HD plasmas at Sam's Club and I doubt they even know how to change the settings in a DVD player. Again, buying an upscaling DVD player for your 852(H) x 480(V) ED Plasma would be a complete waste. A $90 progressive scan player is just as likely to look good on that display.
In summary then, I would not recommend the HDMI output on this player UNLESS you have a display that is NOT sensitive to the macro-blocking bug AND have a native resolution of EXACTLY 720p or 1080p. Otherwise, you should configure the player for 480p/576p on either HDMI (if your display supports this) or component video out (for all other cases).
I will go you one further. I recommend not buying this or any other $300 upscaling player if your display is not a minimum of 720p native resolution. If you plan on outputting at 480p/ or 576p, you are just wasting dollars for zero gain in clarity or resolution. However, it you have a 1080p native display, I give two thumbs up on this player. Minor tweaking in the player removes most artifacting. Further tweaking of the display helps as well. My only complaint is the lack of an eject button on the remote.
In conclusion, the important factor here is the use of a natively high resolution display. My original point made over again. For this price point, the inclusion of a scaler in the player makes upscaling to 720p/1080i the whole reason to even purchase this player. Testing at less than those resolutions is nearly pointless and does not address the features of the player which make it worth $300. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but a review of this player with a display that is not 720p or 1080p capable is a complete waste. There are $100 players out there that can compete nicely in the 480p/576p range.
Please just concede that there needs to be a update to the review that tests this unit doing what people pay $300 for. Upscaling.
Cheers,
Wiley
