Home Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Re: Do I even have to be concerned?

I don't know what the native resolution of your screen is, but if it isn't 1280 x 720 then I don't think there's any advantage to a DVD player that scales to 720p.

To give an example, my Loewe LCD screen has a native resolution of 1366 by 768. It scales the input signal to that resolution. I have a choice between sending it standard PAL output at 720 x 576 and letting the TV scale that, or sending it 720p with a resolution of 1280 x720 from the DVD player and letting the TV scale that. If I do things the first way, there is only 1 scaling operation and that occurs in the TV. If I do it the second way, there are 2 scaling operations, first in the DVD player and then in the TV which then rescales an already rescaled image. In my experience things definitely look better with only 1 scaling operation so I send a standard definition signal from the DVD player and let the TV do all of the scaling.

It would be a different issue if the native resolution of my screen was 1280 x 720. Then I could get by with only 1 scaling operation and choose whether to let the TV or the DVD player do it. Whichever one did the job best would be the one I chose.

There's going to be some loss in image quality with any rescaling, though it's minimal with a good quality rescaling process. I don't see any way to come up with as good a result from 2 rescalings as you can from a single rescaling.

What that means is that I'd run with the display doing the rescaling from a standard definition DVD signal unless the DVD player could rescale to the screen's natural format. If your screen's format isn't 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080, you probably aren't going to find a DVD player that will rescale to your screen's native format. In that case don't worry about a DVD player that rescales. If your screen has one of those formats, try a few players and see if you like their rescaling more than you like having the screen do the rescaling. If you don't, then choose whichever player gives best results with standard definition output.

A player that rescales is only worth while if the end result is better than what you get when the screen does the rescaling.

David Aiken


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