what DVD player to get?

[BARRACUDA1968]

I have just a cheap DVD player and am wondering if an expensive one will help picture and sound quality? Can someone give me a explanation and if I decide to upgrade what is the best bang for the $$$ right now.

Thanks Brett

 

[j_garcia]

A decent one will definitely give you a better picture, but it also depends on what display you are using. What display and how much are we actually talking about?

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

If you're not looking for superior audio, I'd go with one of these. Both offer upconversion.

http://www.oppodigital.com/

This one supports 1080p and will grow with your displays over the years.

http://www.neodigits.com/body/product/HVD2085/feature.asp

If you can budget a bit more and want superb SACD and DVD-A, go with something like this:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/detail/0,,2076_15020671_278147278,00.html

Just keep in mind, we should be seeing HD-DVD in the first quarter, with pricing expected to be around a grand. Those players should be backward compatable, so it's up to you to wait and spend a grand, or go with one of the more affordable first two units above.

 

[BARRACUDA1968]

I'm not sure what you mean by display? I have a Toshiba 42" rear projection that is maybe a year old. I am planning on upgrading to a high end pre\pro soon so if I'm better to spend less on the pre amp and put the money into the DVD or the other way around?

 

[w.e-coyote]

A lot really depends on how "good" your TV is. Since it is a Projection TV it will use CRT technology for the display. This means that the number of lines and dots it can display is relatively limited. In that case it would not make sense (in my humble opinion anyway) to put lots of advanced, high res video processing on the DVD player.

Nine times out of ten, the TV does a better job of processing the video (format conversion, upconversion etc.) than the DVD or Pre Amp. The video chain inside the TV is specifically designed to obtain the best results for that particular TV architecture. Sure, there are great video processing solutions inside some DVD players and PreAmps but the pointis in finding the right match for your TV and not over- or under-shoot.

Do make sure to use the best possible connectors from the DVD to the TV. Digital (HDMI for example) preferably if present or else YPrPb for analog. Turn off the upconversion/progressive scan feature on the DVD and let the TV handle this.

If audio functionality is important, go for a DVD player that supports SA-CD (or DVD-Audio if you prefer) and get a decent Amp for the Surround Sound. In general though I would not go for a low-end DVD player but get yourself a decent branded one. A lot depends on your budget of course. Personally, I feel that for example the Philips DVP720SA delivers a lot of bang for the buck (CD, DVD, SA-CD, MPEG-4, MP3 etc.).

Good luck!

 

[BARRACUDA1968]

Thanks for the info, that is very helpful.

 

[Hi Ho]

Since it is a Projection TV it will use CRT technology for the display.

How do you know it is a CRT RPTV? It's a year old. Unless it is the low end model it is probably LCD or DLP and is most likely HD.

 

[w.e-coyote]

Perhaps Hi Ho. But even in that case, or even more so, I think that the video processing in the TV is better suited to that display than doing it elsewhere.

Depending on the architecture of the TV set, you may have several steps along the way in scaling, format conversion, video enhancements, filtering etc. Even when digital inputs are used (let's assume HDMI), not all HDMI components will pass the input straight to the display engine. More often than not there are intermediate steps for example adding a video layer for OSD and display engine specific processing. This can result in the stream coming in at a certain high resolution (for example 1080p) but in the HDMI chip this is downconverted to suit the architecture of the set which may be limited to 720p internally. At the back-end this is then upconverted again to 1080p. In the end you still get 1080p but the video from the DVD will have passed through at least two (unnecessary = loss of quality) conversions =>
1) once in the DVD of PreAmp to 1080p,
2) downconverison to the TV video processing resolution whatever that may be, and
3) upconversion to target display resolution

Adding a PreAmp to the chain and letting the DVD player do the progressive scan bit will only make matters worse. It may all sound very fancy to have Progressive Scan DVD players and HDMI PreAmp's but the result is still sub-optimal.