blu ray vs upconvert dvd player

[darkhelmet13]

i just recently purchased the lg bd570. i previously used an upconvert dvd player but do not notice much difference in the picture quality. i was thinking it was because i have a 37" 720p tv. Im sure the difference would be noticeable if i had a 1080 but i was just wondering about the picture difference between the upconvert and the blu ray at the 720p level. thanks in advance

[MrBoylan]

i just recently purchased the lg bd570. i previously used an upconvert dvd player but do not notice much difference in the picture quality. i was thinking it was because i have a 37" 720p tv. Im sure the difference would be noticeable if i had a 1080 but i was just wondering about the picture difference between the upconvert and the blu ray at the 720p level. thanks in advance

All HDTVs do upconversion of standard definition material to the native HDTV resolution of the panel. When you buy an upconverting DVD player (or use a Blu-ray player for upconversion) all you're doing is shifting the upconversion job from the TV to the player. Actually on a "720p" HDTV, you may be doing even worse than that. Most so-called "720p TVs" do NOT have a native resolution of 1280x720, but they have a resolution of 1366x768 or (in some cases) 1024x768. In these cases what happens is your upconverting DVD player deinterlaces and/or scales the 480i DVD signal to 720p, 1080p or 1080i. Then the TV has to take this input signal and scale it *again* to the native panel resolution. If you have a TV wit a decent video processor, you may be better using a DVD player with 480i or 480p output, and let the TV scale the signal once to the native panel resolution.

There are definitely some variations in quality of upconversion in various TVs, and Blu-ray Discs players but no upconversion processor, no matter how expensive or advanced can really make a standard definition source like a DVD look identical to High Definition. As they say "garbage in, garbage out."

Native Blu-ray Discs on the other hand are usually mastered/stored on the disc as 1080p (or in some cases 1080i). This means there is 5 to 6 times more information stored in the video signal and this translates to better colors, and better detail. Even if you watch Blu-rays on a "720p" TV, you should still see a significant difference in picture quality between a Blu-ray Disc and an upconverted standard def DVD. Pick up a few titles on Blu-ray that you already own on DVD, like maybe Braveheart, Fifth Element or Blade Runner and compare these yourself to the DVD version and see what you think.

Shameless plug for our link to Amazon, where you can buy these and other Blu-ray Discs at a significant disount off list (your purchases support this web site and forum):

• Amazon Blu-ray Store (BPBS Affiliate link)

Good luck and let us know what you think once you've seen real High Def on your TV.

-CB

[Mazinger]

i just recently purchased the lg bd570. i previously used an upconvert dvd player but do not notice much difference in the picture quality. i was thinking it was because i have a 37" 720p tv. Im sure the difference would be noticeable if i had a 1080 but i was just wondering about the picture difference between the upconvert and the blu ray at the 720p level. thanks in advance

I recently got the Panasonic BD-85, got rid of my old standard unconvert DVD player and I can tell you I noticed a HUGE difference when watching blu ray movies and I mean the change was unbelievable to me. ( 32" LG 720 HDTV in my bedroom).
720 does look really good specially in not too big screens.