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RE: REVIEW: Oppo DV-981HD Universal SACD/DVD-A Players

Posted by David Aiken (A) on June 18, 2007 at 23:54:56

In Reply to: REVIEW: Oppo DV-981HD Universal SACD/DVD-A Players posted by svisner on June 18, 2007 at 20:48:36:

You said: " I purchased this unit because I wanted a DVD player with HDMI output and with upscaling that would allow me to take advantage of a new LCD monitor’s 1080I/1080P resolution. I am aware of some debate regarding the benefits some think do or do not accrue from this resolution as well as from upscaling."

Any TV with resolution of 1920 x 1080 has to have a scaler of it's own. It needs to be able to scale standard definition TV signals to 1920 x 1080, and it needs to be able to scale high def signals at 720p to 1920 x 1080. You don't need an upscaling DVD player in order to take advantage of your monitor's resolution, in fact you can't avoid taking advantage of it's resolution because it can't display signals at some other resolution without rescaling them first.

LCD and plasma displays are also progressive scan displays. Standard def TV signals are interlaced, therefore you don't even need a de-interlacing player. Your TV has to have it's own de-interlacing processor anyway.

That doesn't mean there's no value in getting a player that can scale to a 1080 resolution and provide a progressive signal output, but it does mean that such players aren't essential and you don't need to have one in order to get the full benefit of your screen's resolution. The question you need to consider is whether or not you get a better picture letting the player or the TV do the scaling and the de-interlacing. In my case, with a 1366 x 768 display, I feel my best results are obtained with my player (a Denon 2907) doing the de-interlacing and the TV doing the scaling. Your results may well be different but you should try comparing the player and the TV's performance on both of these aspects, and treat each separately. The results may surprise you.

I'm not trying to say that the Oppo is a bad player becaus, from all reports I've heard, it's rather good and probably exceptional for it's price. Given the cost of a hi-def 1920 x 1080 display capable of handling both 1080i and 1080p, however, it's quite possible that your TV does one or both of the de-interlacing and rescaling operations better than the Oppo. After all, hi-def displays need to do these things well if they are going to produce good results with standard def signals and your new TV may surprise you with what it can do if you haven't tried feeding it a standard def, interlaced signal.

And even if you decide the TV does one or both of those things better than the Oppo, don't think you've wasted your money. The Oppo is still producing a video picture and providing a sound source. It apparently does both of those things very well.

My main reason for posting this is simply to try and clear up some of the confusion that seems to exist regarding the need for a DVD player to de-interlace and rescale the image. It simply isn't essential but it is possible that the player may do it better than the TV, especially if it's a new player with recent technology in these areas and an older display with older technology.

I think there's a tendency to think that you have to use every feature of a player to get the most out of it but the real aim is to get the best picture quality you can, and to do that you should use the device which does the best job on de-interlacing and on rescaling to do those tasks. Both your TV and the Oppo can do both so you need to find out which one does them best. Comparing the Oppo to other progressive scan players that rescale with both players performing those functions doesn't tell you anything about whether you'd be better off using the TV for one or both of those tasks, just about which player can do them best and you've made your decision on that.


David Aiken

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