Upscaling dvd player
 

I've finally bought myself a decent tv. Got a 42" plasma Panasonic Viera.
Got it all going last night and its great, but when I tried a dvd from my panasonic player the picture looked really grainy and rubbish quality.
My dvd player is nearly 4 years old and is connected via the scart socket.
I was wondering if there was some techno gadget I can use to make the picture better for my tv?
At the moment the dvds looked better on my 32" CRT.
I don't really want to buy a new player as my current one also has surround sound etc, plus I just spent over £700 on the tv.

Thanks for any help
Steve

you can get an upscaling one with surround sound etc for less than £40

If your existing dvd has component connections then these will offer better picture quality than the scart, however if it only has scart I cant see there being anything that will improve the quality

They compared upscaling DVD with Blu-ray on the gadget show last night.......it was only a simple back to back comparison (of two players) but the blu-ray won hands down.

First of all make sure the DVD player is outputting an RGB signal to the scart, not composite, and that the TV thinks it's getting an RGB signal. Also if your DVD player has a component output use that instead and switch to progressive scan.

Whilst you can get up-scalers there isn't really much point if the signal out of the DVD player isn't up to much, it will only display a grainy signal in hi-res. The TV is effectively doing the up-scaling for you anyway.

Unfortunately a lot of people upgrade to high definition TVs and expect their old standard definition stuff to look good on it, 9 times out of 10 it doesn't. The high picture quality on the TV just shows up all the inadequatenesses of the standard definition kit, especially if it's something like a digi-box as all the digital artefacts suffered by low bit rate channels become so much more apparent.

So time to upgrade to Blu-Ray and some new surround sound kit assuming that the old DVD player has integrated amps etc. :D

go on ebay, buy a Toshiba HD-DVD player for buttons, probably the best upscaler money can buy on the cheap.

Plus u can then buy some HD-DVD for pennies on ebay also:D

Or just buy a Blu-gayplayer:(

It does have component connections on the back and they are listed as 480p.
Only trouble is I am using the components on the tv for my xbox so I'd need to buy an HDMI lead for that and they are about £45!
Hmmm

Just had a thought. Surely if i play a dvd on the xbox it will be much better?!

HDMI cable for the xbox is just a regular one, unless your using surround sound? You can get a regular HDMI cable for under a £10 now

E-bay is your friend for HDMI cables, just bought a 3m for £5 delivered. Not like the old leads either regarding better cables giving better quality, they either work or don`t, its just a digital signal they carry. :)

HDMI cable from Homebargains was £2.99

I used that on my Sony Blu-Ray player, it upscales old DVD's to 1080 and the picture is fantastic, not much difference between that and a Blu-Ray DVD.

Your TV upscales any signal not already at its specific resolution, it's just a case of how good a signal it gets. Ideally, connect any DVD player via HDMI and the digital signal will be as good as can be and the TV will upscale it. The only reason for an upscaling HDMI DVD player is if the scaler in the DVD player is better than the TV. So, any HDMI equipped DVD player, or any upscaling HDMI DVD player and play about to see which does the better job (if indeed you can tell). They aren't expensive, and neither are HDMI leads. As someone else posted above, a £3 lead (kenable.com is a good cheap supplier) is as good as a £120 QED/Ixos or whatever, so why spunk the cash ?

try micro direct i got mine form there its very good

Cables are important, you can buy a blu-ray plyr for under £100 now with 1080p upscaling

Ok so I'm trying to buy a lead with 3 leads on one end - Red Blue & Green, and an HDMI plug on the other end................
But they don't exist!!! I can get RBG to DVI, and DVI to HDMI. Why can't I just get component to HDMI?
Anyone point me in the right direction???
PS: playing a dvd thru the xbox makes it look great again so I'm sure using the components on my dvd player will do the same.

Because HDMI is digital, and RGB is analogue. You'll need a digital to analogue converter rather than just a lead.

Oh I see. So can you give me a link to the item I need please?

Amazon.co.uk: CP280H YUV WITH DIGITAL AUDIO TO HDMI CONVERTOR: Electronics & Photo

This the kind of thing your're on about?
Bloomin expensive...........
I guess I should get the HDMI lead for the xbox and then do component to component for the dvd player

Fantom,
Just buy a PS3, you get an upscaler, Blu-ray player and games console all in one, wait till after Christmas and retailers will be begging for your custom, so good prices should abound !!

Ian

Under £18 HDMI upscaling (although the scaling processors in something at this price level may not be up to much, so if the option is there, output at the discs native resolution via HDMI and let the TV scale it up).

Plenty of known brand from £40 upwards such as THIS

What you need is the best possible signal for the TV to work with. Component and Scart are analogue and standard resolution, Composite can be high res but is still analogue (as in, it has been converted to ana by the DVD player at the requested resolution, then the TV has to convert it back and possibly rescale it to suit), HDMI is the digital info straight off the disc, unconverted or scaled until you tell one or the other machine to scale it. On an upscaling HDMI DVD player you should be able to set it to either scale the 576p SD DVD signal to 720p, 1080i or 1080p and transmit via HDMI to the TV, or the standard 576p signal straight through HDMI to the TV for it to scale to the TV's native resolution. This choice depends on the quality of the scaling chips/software employed by each device, simply which does it best.

Been telling him that for months! lol

PS3 - 1
XBOX360 - 0

PS3:) simple..I know they aint cheep, but if u think abt it they're a bargain, as mentioned DVD upscaler, blue ray and a excellent console.
What TV did u get? I got a PX80 a while back and a PS3, after about three months research I decided not to go with the 1080p PZ80, especially after seeing them side by side, at that time the PZ80 was £200 more too(abt £100 now I think)
I'm so so happy with my setup :) the games look amazing and blue ray is so worth getting, Planet Earth and Iron man look amazing....so...get a PS3...or if u don't play games get a Blue ray player. :)...oh PS3 does a good job of upscaling too.

Guys there's just no way I'd get a ps3! I am an xbox man.....

The TV I got is TH42PZ80B.
The xbox plays dvds at 576p and it looks great so dunno why I never thought of that in the first place.
Obviously I'll be getting a bluray player in the future and I'll just replace my whole surround system as well.
For the moment though everything is sorted :)

fun paying for online gaming i bet LOL!....


only kidding Xbox top machine but i wouldn't trade;)

The 360 is a good machine, but PS3 for me :) Like em or not Sony build some good solid products, besides I'm only a casual gamer now and I wanted the blue ray, all I wanted and free online gaming for £350! got to be happy with that :)

If you spent the extra on a 1080p then you really need a blue ray player or there was no point in the extra cost really, its the only thing that uses 1080p.....good choice on TV by the way :) Panny plasma all the way :D