Upscaling useless on CRT Rear Projection HDTV's?

[zacharyt]

I have a Sony 51" CRT Rear Projection HDTV. Is purchasing an upscaling (or upconverting) DVD player not going to make much of a difference on my set?

I have read that it is mainly for DLP, PLasma, and LCD sets. Is this true?

 

[rgriffin25]

The DVD players with the built in scaler are designed for TVs that do not have 480p as one of their native resolutions. If your TV has a 480P input you do not need one of these players.

 

[Leprkon]

If you already have a DVD player, it probably won't be worth it to upgrade until the end of the year when the new formats (HD-DVD or BluRay) come out.

if you are buying for the first time and can get what you want, a modest investment ($ 300 or less) would probably be worth the effort (for now).

 

[Duffinator]

I have a Sony 51" CRT Rear Projection HDTV. Is purchasing an upscaling (or upconverting) DVD player not going to make much of a difference on my set?

I have read that it is mainly for DLP, PLasma, and LCD sets. Is this true?

Does your TV have an HDMI or DVI connection? If not you won't be able to use the upconversion feature anyway.

 

[zacharyt]

Yes, it has an HDMI connection.

 

[keenan]

Yes, it has an HDMI connection.

Then you should be set.

 

[zacharyt]

I should be set how? I still would like to know if upconverting is irrelavent on my CRT Rear Projection HDTV.

 

[Mort Corey]

From what I have read, the upconversion players show the most dramatic (if at all) results on fixed pixel displays. The theory is to be able to scale to a panels native resolution to get close to one to one pixel mapping.

Mort

 

[Duffinator]

From what I have read, the upconversion players show the most dramatic (if at all) results on fixed pixel displays. The theory is to be able to scale to a panels native resolution to get close to one to one pixel mapping.

Mort

While I don't disagree with your comment, why wouldn't an upconverted signal improve the picture quality on a 1080i CRT or CRT RPTV? Seems to me it should still improve the PQ. But I can't try it on my Toshiba 56H80, no HDMI or DVI. A 1080i image looks terrific on my TV and much better than a 480P image. I'm not saying it's going to look as good as a 1080i source but it should still improve the PQ.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The bottom line answer is: It depends!

Rear projection CRTs have the unique ability of accurately displaying the resolution that is coming into them. DVDs native resolution is 480p and most DVD players output native 480p to your TV, which means that you won't be watching some screwy version of 480p.

But, if you have a DVD player that converts the 480p to 720p or 1080i, then it is not actually putting out native 720p material, it is putting out processed 480p. The TV may do an excellent job of showing the material, but you are hoping that the processor inside your $200 or $300.00 upscaling DVD player is better than the processing that is done natively inside your television.

Which, of course, you won't know until you actually see it unless you can find an actual review online of the DVD player and your TV with that comparison made. Not likely.

Go to Best Buy, read their return policy carefully, then buy one and see if you are happy with it. If not, return it because you aren't happy with the quality. Do A/B tests between your current DVD player and the new one. If you are happy, then keep what you bought.