HD or upconvert...

[ahegedus]

I finally talked my wife into an HD LCD TV, and now i'm in the market for a dvd player to pair with it. The TV is only a 32 inch 720p Philips LCD, so my question is should I just get an upconverting hdmi dvd player or step up to the hd-dvd or bluray drive? Would I see a benefit with this tv, or is it really only benefiting 1080p tv's

Thanks for the help!

A

 

[rad]

IMHO, for that size TV and the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war still not being decided just get a nice upconvert, unless the Toshiba A2 has another $99 sale.

 

[ahegedus]

That's sort of what I was thinking.... but a $99 sale would be very nice!

 

[allargon]

I finally talked my wife into an HD LCD TV, and now i'm in the market for a dvd player to pair with it. The TV is only a 32 inch 720p Philips LCD, so my question is should I just get an upconverting hdmi dvd player or step up to the hd-dvd or bluray drive? Would I see a benefit with this tv, or is it really only benefiting 1080p tv's

Thanks for the help!

A

IMHO, an upconverting DVD player is a waste of money on a Philips 720P LCD. Those things have pretty good scalers--certainly better than any bargain upscaling DVD player. A $30 progressive scan DVD player should be good enough unless you need a buffer to deal with that 1 second layer change delay.

I have a Toshiba A2 ($127) on a 32" Westinghouse 768P LCD. I can tell the difference.

Ignore the snobs that say only 1080P is real LCD. They are probably 10 feet back looking at a 42" screen. If you find a cheap HD-DVD or even Blu-Ray player, jump on it.

 

[Ilya]

I would agree with allargon. Use whatever DVD player you currently have - the TV set will probably do a good job in upconverting on its own. Save money toward a purchase of an HD DVD player, which will be a real step up.

As for not being able to tell HD from SD at this size of the display, it's not so much the size that matters, but rather the viewing angle. The farther you are away from the screen, the less significant the picture resolution is.

 

[jayn_j]

And now for an alternate opinion. I have the A2 and have played it on both a 36" Sony XBR tube set and a 720P Toshiba 56" DLP set.

The Toshiba is rated as very good at upconverting SD content, but I see a noticable difference on both sets between upconverted DVDs and true HD material. There is enough difference that I find upconverted DVDs uncomfortable on the Toshiba.

If you find the $99 Toshiba box, it is a no brainer IMHO. After owning it, I would even say it was better to go HD-DVD at up to $150. OTOH, if you have never owned HD-DVD you probably won't know what you are missing for now.

 

[ONUOsFan]

I agree with what most others have said. If you can get the HD player for a reasonable price (probably less than $150), go for it. If not, don't bother with upconvert. You will see a difference with an HD player, but I don't think you will see much of one with an upconvert, at that size.