A dvd player that upconverts to 1080p?

Might take a look at the Toshiba HD-A30...

http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd_products/product.asp?model=HD-A30

I've got the older, Toshiba HD-A2 and it's leaps above my Sony when it comes to upconverting.

 

I just bought the HD-A30, its a great machine so far. I lucked out. I have a 1080i TV and Best Buy was having a sale on the HD-A3 (the 1080i model) but they mis-filled my online order with the A30. I got the better model for the "on sale" price of the lower model.

The A3 is (was?) onsale at best buy for $199.

James in Denver

 

yea I'v got that Toshiba and it looks great, also have the a sony on another TV and it looks a lot better than the sony

 

Ive got this exact model and so far so good. Main reason I got it was so I can also play all regions.

 

I have an OPPO dv-hd981, it upconverts standard dvd's to 1080p via hdmi (which is supplied with the unit).
It does a decent job, my movies def look better than with the 70 dollar dvd player i had, but it does not even compare to the bluray 1080p quality i get from my PS3.
The Oppo was 219 from what i remember... You can get a decent 1080p upconverting form Best Buy for 100-130, Samsung i think

 

I'm using a $199 home theatre system from Target.

It upconverts to 1080p via HDMI!!! Yeah

IMHO the upconverting is a nice extra, but I wouldn't be a sucker & pay over $150 for a player that upconverts. Because... drum roll... You're not getting true 1080p. Duh! You're still seeing the same amount of image information.

At that point, go Blue Ray or HD-DVD. Then you're actually seeing something with those extra pixels!

 

Blue- Ray

 

Does upconverting look better? Its still just interlacing info isn't it?

 

Junk in=junk out. You cannot improve image quality by upconverting.

 

Yep. The hdtv already has to upconvert to its native resolution. You won't gain anything from an upconverting dvd player unless your hdtv is of poorer quality. Even with an upconverting player the tv most likely still must upconvert to its native resolution. Doing it twice= lesser quality output. Get a decent hdtv and let it do all the work.

 

As GhostRider pointed out crappy-res equals crappy-res no matter how you try and upconvert it. I can take a digital photo at 100 dpi with my camera and then later open that 100 dpi file and save it at 1200 dpi. The image will appear exactly the same in both cases. You can't add resolution that didn't exist to begin with, you can only lose it.

 

From what I have read, there is a difference amongst the upconverting dvd players, so you should do some research. As has been stated, none of them upconvert to a true HD quality picture. From what I have read (and seen with my own Sony) is that they upconvert to about a 480 HD quality, not 720 or 1080. And it will vary based on the quality of the DVD.

 

I just got a sony bravia 50" a series LCD Projection. I also got a Sony upconverting DVD player, don't remember the model. I'll look on it later. It says 1080 output. I really don't think the DVDs look any better. The movies play in a small center of the screen and when I change the zoom setting on the tv things are distorted.

 

Now that Toshiba's giving up on the HD-DVD players, you should be able to pick them up cheap Real Soon Now. The HDDVD unit is a great upconverting DVD player

 

quit playing around and go out and buy a sony bdp s-500 blue ray dvd player. It upconverts and does blue ray like no other! You won't be disappointed !!!
gordon

 

Upconverting, when done by a proper DVD player (e.g. Denon's 3930, which I have), does not just increase the number of pixels. It increases sharpness around edges, leading to better definition, increases the smoothness of colour blends and also has complex motion algorithm's that improve panning scenes. If you watch the same movie on low res and high res, you WILL see a difference. The quality of this upconverting is generally much better in dedicated DVD players than in an HD tv.


Onno

 

...not trying to contradict, just curious... but if this is the case, then how can a movie like Hoosiers or Rocky be broadcasted in HD, and actually look better than the DVD versions I have at home?

(ex. Comcast is broadcasting HD Hoosiers On-Demand right now)

 

+1 (from what I've seen)

 

Because original movies when shot are captured in 1080p(ie. panavision cameras). We are just now seeing a consumer medium that can capture the true full aspect ratio and resolution of movies. All the old dvd's and movies were always downconverted to a lesser format. Until cable lines were upgraded a few years ago, the bandwidth was not there to transfer that much data on one channel. I believe (and I could be wrong) that one hd channel takes up as much bandwidth as 1000 channels of 480i(which is the old cable broadcast resolution). In my opinion, any kind of upconverting will never be worthy of a true 1080p source. Although the hd-dvd player for the 360 does very nicely.

 

...that's actually what I thought, but I just wasn't sure.

I love the HD-DVD on the 360. I haven't had any success with quality upconverting though. Everything is still output through 480p? How come it won't upconvert to 1080 at all?

-Colin