brushro said:
I'm having difficulty getting a grip on this terminology & if it has anything to do w/ "progressive scan"
I currently have a HD TV & using a digital set top box , I'm shopping for a new DVD/CD player from the reccomended systems lists & need to know about upconverting from a DVD to anything higher than 480p..Thank You
If you gave the size of your TV i may be able to give you a more specifc example.
Scaling is simply taking a picture and making it fit your screen. My HD plasma is 1024X768, so no matter what video signal I send to my Plasma it will scale it to fit the size of the screen.
Progressive scan is taking an interlaced signal and De-interlacing it. An interlaced signal is one half frame being shown then right away the other being shown right after so your eyes see a full picture.
Here is the question. How do you know if you need to be concerned with it?
The fact is most TVs now days (all HD TVs) are progressive, so it doesnt matter if you use a DVD player which is not progressive scan becuase the internal processor in your TV is going to De-interlace the signal for you. Keep in mind ALL DVDs are recorded in 480i (not progressive), so something needs to make that signal progressive eventually. The question is if the TV's processor does a better job De-Interlacing (making progressive) the video signal then the DVD player.
This is my own personal opinion that some may argue. I think that the point where you really need to be concerned with any of this is when you want to send your TV its native resolution. If your TVs native resolution is 480p then an upconverting DVD player is useless. If its 720p or 1080i then a good upconverting DVD player may have some value.
The ultimate thing is to find out what your TV's native resolution is. Just because its an HDTV and can except 1080i and or 720p doesn mean that either one onf those is its native resolution. In my case my HD plasma can accept both, but in both cases the internal processor of the TV works to make it fit my screen which is 1024x768.
Once you know the native resultion of your TV you want to find an external processor or DVD player that can send that resolution to your TV and does a better job then the internal processor of your TV.
95% of upconverting DVD players end up producing no better picture on an HDTV when either sending a 480p,720p or 1080i signal. just my opinion.
