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Based on reviews and reccomendations, I went ahead and ordered Oppo's
DV-981 1080p upscaling player.

It arrived earlier this week, was quickly connected, and looks awesome.

However, DVDs on our Panasonic VCR/DVD-burner also look awesome.

I'm not disappointed with the Oppo - we needed a new region free player
as my old hacked Sony has begun having problems and won't play some of my
wife's discs at all. The Panasonic has no region-free hack that I could
find.

I am, however, curious what titles might better illustrate the difference
between the Panasonic which does standard progressive scan, and the Oppo
which upscales to 1080p (TV is 1080p native)

Best test I came up with was to slap a Babylon5 disc into each player and
had them play the opening credits. This sequence contains a variety of
still shots and rapid movements of both real actors and CG elements. In the
opening, there's a CG shot showing some soliders marching into a ship. On
the Panasonic, the soliders were blurry. You could still tell there were
people but the whole line of them was rather blurry. The Oppo was much
clearer, though there was still some distortion around the soliders' limbs.

The next test I tried was using our region 5 copy of Spirited Away. The
Panasonic player wouldn't play this of course, so I played various scenes
on the Oppo at 480p and then 1080p. To me, 1080p looked sharper, but of
course, I'm going to be biased.

Any other ideas of good titles/scenes to try out?

I was thinking Fifth Element, simply because that was one of the early
titles I saw on DVD that convinced me to get a DVD player in the first
place.

In the meantime, I think I'll dig up some Divx and VCD discs and try them
out.

Now I just have to save up money for a better sound system

"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I am, however, curious what titles might better illustrate the
> difference
> between the Panasonic which does standard progressive scan, and the
> Oppo
> which upscales to 1080p (TV is 1080p native)

Since your TV is 1080p, if you feed it a 480p signal it will upscale
that to the set's native resolution in any case. The picture on the
screen will always utilize all 1920x1080 pixels. What you're comparing
here is the quality of the Oppo player's scaling chip against that in
the TV. It's very possible that they could be equally matched, and
you'll see little to no difference.

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:08:41 -0000, Doug Jacobs
<> Gave us:

>
>Based on reviews and reccomendations, I went ahead and ordered Oppo's
>DV-981 1080p upscaling player.
>
>It arrived earlier this week, was quickly connected, and looks awesome.
>
>However, DVDs on our Panasonic VCR/DVD-burner also look awesome.
>
>I'm not disappointed with the Oppo - we needed a new region free player
>as my old hacked Sony has begun having problems and won't play some of my
>wife's discs at all. The Panasonic has no region-free hack that I could
>find.
>
>I am, however, curious what titles might better illustrate the difference
>between the Panasonic which does standard progressive scan, and the Oppo
>which upscales to 1080p (TV is 1080p native)
>
>Best test I came up with was to slap a Babylon5 disc into each player and
>had them play the opening credits. This sequence contains a variety of
>still shots and rapid movements of both real actors and CG elements. In the
>opening, there's a CG shot showing some soliders marching into a ship. On
>the Panasonic, the soliders were blurry. You could still tell there were
>people but the whole line of them was rather blurry. The Oppo was much
>clearer, though there was still some distortion around the soliders' limbs.
>
>The next test I tried was using our region 5 copy of Spirited Away. The
>Panasonic player wouldn't play this of course, so I played various scenes
>on the Oppo at 480p and then 1080p. To me, 1080p looked sharper, but of
>course, I'm going to be biased.
>
>Any other ideas of good titles/scenes to try out?
>
>I was thinking Fifth Element, simply because that was one of the early
>titles I saw on DVD that convinced me to get a DVD player in the first
>place.
>
>In the meantime, I think I'll dig up some Divx and VCD discs and try them
>out.
>
>Now I just have to save up money for a better sound system


The right comparison would be to actually use hi res source media,
such as HD DVD. Comparing a 480p disc on a 480 player, and an
upscaling player doesn't really get you what you asked for in the
thread title.

Just thought you'd like to know.

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:00:01 -0500, "Joshua Zyber"
<> Gave us:

>"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
>news:...
>> I am, however, curious what titles might better illustrate the
>> difference
>> between the Panasonic which does standard progressive scan, and the
>> Oppo
>> which upscales to 1080p (TV is 1080p native)
>
>Since your TV is 1080p, if you feed it a 480p signal it will upscale
>that to the set's native resolution in any case. The picture on the
>screen will always utilize all 1920x1080 pixels. What you're comparing
>here is the quality of the Oppo player's scaling chip against that in
>the TV. It's very possible that they could be equally matched, and
>you'll see little to no difference.
>


And I thought at first glance that he wanted a title, like MI3 in
Std DVD compared to MI3 in HD DVD.

OR The Forbidden Planet in 480p and the same flic in HD DVD.

One can upscale the Std DVD or not.

THAT's the REAL comparison.

Take a very grainy film like Full Metal Jacket.

VERY BADLY grainy on the 480 Std DVD. SO much so that viewing it on
an HD FPD is nearly not possible to bear.

The HD DVD, however, despite the same glaring graininess (my ass
hurts from the screw job I got on that one), It is still an order of
magnitude better than the original.

Films where not as much difference can be detected are like King
Kong in DVD against HD DVD. The hi res is better, but not much, so it
is the sound that makes that disc better. OR look at The Hulk. It is
better on HD. Not much but certainly discernable.

MassiveProng <> wrote:

> And I thought at first glance that he wanted a title, like MI3 in
> Std DVD compared to MI3 in HD DVD.

I have no doubt that a native HD signal will outperform that of an
upscaled signal. At this time, however, I don't think the HD video market
is mature enough.

I'm just curious how much better the Oppo's scaling chip is compared to
the one in my TV. So far, I can see small differences, but nothing that's
as jaw-dropping as comparing a 480i to 720p or 1080i over cable.

--
Win cash and giftcards just for clicking your mouse!
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On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:47:53 -0000, Doug Jacobs
<> Gave us:

>I'm just curious how much better the Oppo's scaling chip is compared to
>the one in my TV. So far, I can see small differences, but nothing that's
>as jaw-dropping as comparing a 480i to 720p or 1080i over cable.

My cable box feeds my TV 1080i, but the does NOT mean that the
content being delivered is ever at those resolutions.

Cable boys are famous for reprocessing their feeds. A good example
of how bad it can get is Spike TV. They reprocess down at their
uplink studio, and then the cable boys hit it too. I have never seen
so many artifacts rear their ugly head.

"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I'm just curious how much better the Oppo's scaling chip is compared
> to
> the one in my TV. So far, I can see small differences, but nothing
> that's
> as jaw-dropping as comparing a 480i to 720p or 1080i over cable.

Upscaling does not add real picture detail. It just fills in the empty
spaces between pixels with new pixels created by borrowing pieces of
those found in the source. This has advantages over not upscaling, but
you can't turn a Standard Definition source into true HD.

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:47:30 -0500, Joshua Zyber <> wrote:


>"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
>news:...
>> I'm just curious how much better the Oppo's scaling chip is compared
>> to
>> the one in my TV. So far, I can see small differences, but nothing
>> that's
>> as jaw-dropping as comparing a 480i to 720p or 1080i over cable.

>Upscaling does not add real picture detail. It just fills in the empty
>spaces between pixels with new pixels created by borrowing pieces of
>those found in the source. This has advantages over not upscaling, but
>you can't turn a Standard Definition source into true HD.


Not only that, but upscaling is done automatically in every current HDTV TV.
Doing it in the DVD player instead of the TV offers no improvement at all.

"AZ Nomad" <> wrote in message
news:...
>>Upscaling does not add real picture detail. It just fills in the empty
>>spaces between pixels with new pixels created by borrowing pieces of
>>those found in the source. This has advantages over not upscaling, but
>>you can't turn a Standard Definition source into true HD.
>
> Not only that, but upscaling is done automatically in every current
> HDTV TV.
> Doing it in the DVD player instead of the TV offers no improvement at
> all.

That depends on the quality of the scaling chips in each component. Many
TVs have lousy cut-rate scaling chips, in which case a DVD player may do
a better job.

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:32:33 -0500, Joshua Zyber <> wrote:


>"AZ Nomad" <> wrote in message
>news:...
>>>Upscaling does not add real picture detail. It just fills in the empty
>>>spaces between pixels with new pixels created by borrowing pieces of
>>>those found in the source. This has advantages over not upscaling, but
>>>you can't turn a Standard Definition source into true HD.
>>
>> Not only that, but upscaling is done automatically in every current
>> HDTV TV.
>> Doing it in the DVD player instead of the TV offers no improvement at
>> all.

>That depends on the quality of the scaling chips in each component. Many
>TVs have lousy cut-rate scaling chips, in which case a DVD player may do
>a better job.

Any current TVs out that that can't handle this simple function?