Questiona about LCD TV Video. Pleace Help

[Kory]

Thanks for readinh this i hope you can help.

I have a lot of Newbe questions so please answer as many as you can.

1.Does a progressive scan signal carry more data the interlaced? If it does should i use bigger more expensive component cables? Any sugestions on what brand to buy.

2.I curently have the sony brand PS2 compoent video cables. Does anyone notice a differaqnce with the monster brand ones?

3.I have my PS2 hooked up through component video. My favorite game to play is SOCOM 2 which offers the progressive scan option (one of the very few ps2 games that do). So i turn it on. The picture is alot better then 480i so i am happy with that, but the problem is the color. Well not really the colors but the brightness. The white things are too birght and the black things are too dark so if i adjust the brightness either way it will worsen the other problem. Any sugjestions. Some people have said i should buy a calibration disk. Where can i get one or can i download it then copy it to a DVD?

4.Unfortunatly my model PS2 does not support 480p when playing DVDs. So i was wondering if its wurth it to go out and spend $40 on a cheap name brand DVD player with progressive scan. Or since my TV accepts 720p and 1080i signals should i buy a $150 DVD player that upconverts the video to those formats. Is a DVD really better looking in 720p or 1080i? I am one of those poeple that can notice even the smallest of video quality change, so i think it might help.

5.This question gos along with the last one. I read that the Xbox supports games at 720p or 1080i resolution. First do games look alot better in 720p or 1080i? Second it also play DVDs at those resolutions too, or is it like the PS2 and only plays the games at that resolution? If it does play DVDs at the resolution dont you think it would be worth it to buy just an Xbox instead of a $150 DVD player since you get a whole new game console anyway?

6.This also gos along with the fisrt 2 questions. My A/V receiver has 2 component video inputs and 1 output. They are marked as Y Pr Pb not
Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr. So does it matterif i connect a device that carrys a Y Cb Cr signal?

7. I was doing some reading on nex-gen video discs. I was happy to here that HD DVDs will hit the market some time soon. But my question is are there any DVDs that are capable of being played in any resolution higher than 480i? I was told that all DVDs are not progressive scan but the DVD plater upconverts the signal. Is this true?

8.Im not shure if my LCD TV is HD or ED. It has an input video compatibility of 480i/p 720p and 1080i. But it has a resolutio of 600x480 and is not 16:9 but 4:3. So is it not HI DEF but can display HI DEF signals?



Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

[BMXTRIX]

1a. Progressive scan is a conversion process typically listed by DVD players where they take the information on a DVD disc and convert it from 480i to 480p. There is tons of info on the web on what 480i is exactly and what 480p is, but a quick breakdown is that video is made up of 480 lines that is shown at 30 frames per second. Interlaced video breaks those 30 frames into 60 half frames. Frame 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. so the odd numbered lines while frames 2, 4, 6, etc. show the even numbered lines. With a progressive scan signal, you end up with all 480 lines shown all the time. So frame 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. all show all the lines. Yes, more data.

1b. If you are happy with the cables you own and they look good, then there is no reason to upgrade. I use coaxial cable from Home Depot for most of my cabling and it works awesome. You will very likely NOT see a difference between a $10.00 component video cable and a $500.00 component video cable. Other than what you mind wants you to believe you see since you paid so much.

1c. If you do want to throw some money away, check out www.bluejeanscable.com as they provide excellent cables for fair pricing.

2. No. Nothing wrong with Monster stuff except it tends to be a fair bit overpriced - much like Bose.

3. The Avia or Digital Video Essentials discs are available from various stores online including www.smarthome.com If you need to adjust black level as well as highlights you need to adjust both contrast and brightness. Not just brightness.

4. What TV do you own? If you have a good TV then it will do a very good job of converting interlaced video to the native rate of the television. If you own a DLP or LCD set (or LCoS) then you have a fixed pixel matrix that everything is scaled to anyway. I personally would want about a $100.00 progressive scan DVD player but think the upconverting ones are a waste of money. HD discs will be out in a year or so - I would save my money for the PS3 and play HD movies and be stoked on that.

5. No, the XBox does not upconvert, but 720p games are supposed to look phenomenal, so if you buy it, buy it for the quality of the games, not the DVD player.

6. No, it does not matter.

7. All DVD video discs are encoded on the disc at 480i. This was part of the pre-digital television spec of a decade ago and things are quickly changing. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc will allow for different video formats to be recorded on their discs and will (likely) allow for multiple output formats that will best match your TV.

8. If your TV is 640x480 it is not technically HD. Current specs call HD any 16:9 television with a resolution above 720 horizontal lines. Your TV will never have more than 640x480 pixels so if you feed it a higher resolution source, like 720p or 1080i AND your TV accepts those resolutions, then it will convert them from the higher resolution to the lower, native resolution of your set.

As I said, you didn't really specify your type of TV... some sort of LCD flat panel? That could make a difference. Most buyers go out and buy a set, then wonder why it doesn't look as good in their homes. Feeding your TV ACTUAL HD content via cable or satellite should make a huge difference. But, the TV, if it is only 640x480 is well behind the curve for HD display capability and may never give you the results you want.

Good luck!