question about 720p display and standard 480p DVD's

my ps3 is connected to my Panasonic Th-50PH9Uk 50in display. when watching 480p DVD's on my PS3, i know the PS3 does not upconvert, but does my Panasonic upconvert the 480p DVD, or am I watching the DVD at 480p? The image looks good, but i'm not sure if my Plasma upconverts the image. Please clarify to this newbie.

The Panasonic has to upconvert the 480p signal to the panel's native resolution in order to display it.

so my plasma TV has the same effect on a standard dvd as an oppo dvd player since it upconverts the 480 to 720p or 1080i? is that right?

sorry for being repetive. i'm just trying to understand everyhing completely. thanks

Just when I thought I had this figured out... I don't. Is the TH-50PH9UK's native resolution the same as its number of pixels: 1366 x 768? So, if you use an Oppo to upconvert a 480i DVD to 720p would the Panasonic then up it to 768p? Or will it use just use 720 lines and you get black bars top and bottom depending upon the films aspect ratio? What resolution is displayed when you use one of the Panny's aspect modes (Just,etc)?

avfan, i don't know. my panny is set to full mode all the time because it is receiving the source singal through its hdmi board and it can only be on full when using a hdmi source. i'm just wondering since the panny upconverts 480 to 768p or whatever, then an upconverting DVD player like the Oppo would not be necessary since the plasma is upconverting the source. that is what i'm asking. is an upconverting DVD player necessary when watching a standard DVD on a HDTV since the TV is upconverting? i have a ps3 which does not upconvert so i was thinking of getting an oppo from my old dvds. would there be any improvement with the OPPO given the Plasma TV?

Any HDTV must include some video scaling capability in order to display the various resolutions that are provided to them. The reason that DVD player manufacturers like OPPO are putting such emphasis on doing this at the player is that HDTV's often include only marginal video scaling capability. Some HDTV's include some really impressive scalers, but many don't.

The native resolution is the number of pixels. There are often modes on 768-pixel displays that allow you to do 1:1 pixel mapping so that 720p is displayed using the middle 720 pixels and leaving the other 48 rows of pixels black. If that mode is not used, 720p sources get resized to 768 (which is a relatively easy process compared to deinterlacing and more drastic scaling).

The PS3 is reportedly not a particularly good DVD player (scored a 61 out of 100 on the Secrets benchmark). An OPPO would probably be a good upgrade over the PS3 for DVD playback.

Thanks, Gonk. This helps explain why some folks are using video processors to deinterlace and scale video. Monitors have many different native resolutions and a video processor can match the monitor's resolution/capability. However, I imagine the Oppo's scaling and deinterlacing of 480i to 720p then to 768p by the Panny would be better than the Panny's alone but only a direct comparison would tell for sure. I've read the Panny is able to do 1:1 pixel mapping, but only via the DVI card.

gooomz, I'm considering the TH-50PH9UK to replace my 4-year old Hitachi 42" 1024x1024 plasma. I'd appreciate your thoughts on your Panasonic.

AV Fan, i'm still tinkering with the Panny display, but I can tell you this, it is the best display i've seen, and when people come to my house, its the best display they have seen also. Panasonic just came out with the 1080p version but it costs double. Might be worth it to wait a while till the 1080p price drops. I'm still a newbie but the HD picture quality to me is amazing.