Upscaling video: TV or DVD player?

I'm very close to entering into the great unknown world of HD video. No, I'm not getting a BR or HD-DVD player - I'm going to get a HDTV.

My question is this: would it be better to have the scaling done by a DVD player (current prospects are the Denon DVD-1930) or my future TV (current prospect is the Sony KDS-50A2000?

I plan to output from the DVD player via HDMI.

Thanks very much,

Ashford

It depends on the TV and the player - specifically which one happens to have the better scaler. My OPPO set to 1080i looks better than it does set to 480p, which is a good indication that it has a better scaler than my Zenith HDTV does. I'm not familiar with what the Denon 1930 offers in the way of upscaling.

Thank Gonk,

The Denon will output up to 1080p. I bought a new TV today, but will have to wait a couple of weeks to get it. I went with the Sony rear projection KDS-50A2000 that I mentioned earlier. These TV's are getting good reviews and are much like last year's models except they will accept 1080p.

I don't care about BR or HD-DVD yet - I'll let the dust settle on that one.

Can you fax me some Rendezvous ribs?

Ashford

Ashford, you'll have to let us know how the 1930 does with upscaling and deinterlacing. I had the 1910 a while back and thought the deinterlacing was pretty bad compared to my InFocus SP4805 projector. Hopefully, two generations of the player later, Denon has got things in order.

Rcently got the Oppo 971 player and it does a better job of deinterlacing than the SP4805. The upconversion at 720p also looks beautiful on the projector. Enough so, that I could care less about the HD formats.

So...my answer is DVD player if that is the primary source you watch.

However, I am now trying to consider in my setup how the Oppo would stand up to a quality deinterlacer such as the DVDO VP30 or getting the Gennum deinterlacer\scaler upgrade for my Anthem AVM30. I am leaning heavily towards upgrading the AVM30 to have everything in one box. The advantage to this (or to having a really good deinterlacer/scaler in the TV or projector) is every source you run through the unit will benefit from the deinterlacing/scaling, not just the one DVD player.

Sony makes good TV's. The 53" rear projection unit I have had for about 12 years now is still kickin' and still looks great. Congrats on the purchase!

Ooohh... Rendezvous ribs... Haven't been downtown to get some of those in a while. Definitely good stuff.

Doug917, if you go for the Gennum upgrade to the AVM30 (the AVM50 update) or the VP30, you might want to consider OPPO's OPDV970HD player instead of the 971. The 970 will output an unaltered 480i signal for the scaler to work with, so that you are only doing video processing in one place. There are a number of folks with VP30's and Statement D2's who have been using the 970 with very good results.

Gonk,

I have thought about that. At the price of the Oppo 970, it's not even a concern to me right now as I can come up with $100 bucks anytime and was talking to a guy the other day that got a refurb 970 for $119 from Oppo. I can't beleive the performance out of the Oppos for the price. It will probably be 6 months before I can afford to do anything serious anyhow and Anthem is still working on the upgrade. By then, Oppo should have their "high-end" mulitformat player available and I may try to pick that up and move my 971 upstairs to the living room as the Denon 1815 5-disc player has been giving me a few issues lately.

Like what you have done with your site by the way. You have really put some time and resources into it!

I've been very impressed with Oppo so far, and I'm also curious to see what their next player offers.

I'm glad you like the site - it's been a little project off and on for many years now. I'm actually starting to tinker a bit with a companion document to the Home Theater Basics section that will help newcomers to home theater. As busy as things have been lately, it'll probably be the end of the year before it's in a presentable form, though.

Thanks Doug and Gonk, can either of you shed a litle light on the upcoming Oppo products? I know the current models are getting good reviews, but if they are about to release an even better series then I'd like to know prior to making a purchase.

Currently I'm out of town on vacation with the family and won't have any of the new equipment set up and going for probably two weeks so I've got time to make a change on the DVD player. My Sony TV isn't due to ship for probably another week or so, but early reviews are good on it.

Thanks to all, and I could really go for some of those ribs!

Cheers,

Ashford

Originally, they just had the one player (the 971), but the new 970 is teh first of two players that will come out this year. The other is a player that will replace the 971, but I get the impression that it'll be this fall some time before it appears. It will be based on the same Faroudja chip as the 971, will have HDMI out (with 480i support, presumably), and will support both DVD-Audio and SACD (with audio performance comparable to the 970, from what I've been told). The SXRD that I saw you post about is apparently a form of LCD, correct? That means it shouldn't have macroblocking problems with the 971's Faroudja chip, making the 971 or the 970 both reasonable choices (the 970 would potentially be the better choice if the Sony has a really good scaler).