detail information

HD Upscaling:

Besides the playback of DVDs, the main feature of this DVD player that most other DVD players lack is the ability to upscale to HDTV, so in this page, we will cover how well this player performs with the HD upscaling modes and outputs versus the standard SVHS output.  As the only HD display we have handy is a PT-AE500E projector, all HD upscaling tests will be done using this projector.  For these tests, the projected image is roughly 88" in size and we will use a 6 Megapixel camera mounted on a tripod to take snapshots.

For these tests, we used the following DVDs:

• Monster's, inc. (NTSC)
• Cats & Dogs (PAL)
• Elton John Dream Ticket (NTSC)
  

Component Output

As the majority of HDTV sets have a component input, the first tests we carried out is comparing component against SVHS.  For the component, we first tried out 720p and then 1080i.  To start with, we had to adjust the saturation due to the picture being a little over saturated by default.  To do this, we used the colour calibration chart we crated earlier (see important notice in the screenshot section below) and adjusted the saturation such that the brightest shades of each colour element were distinguishable from each other. 

The main difference we noticed between the component video image and the SVHS video image is that edges and writing in the SVHS image looks grainier compared with the Component image.  However for most still images, the actual picture looked pretty much the same between the SVHS and component when paused.  The main scenes where component really showed off the player's upscaling capabilities are those with fine detail such as animal fur, hair and small writing.  When it comes to action scenes, the component picture came out better since there is a slight interlace effect with the SVHS picture, even though the projector features its own deinterlacing capability.  This is particularly noticeable with the credits at the end of a movie.  With SVHS, the writing gets a slight interlace effect as it is climbing the screen, where as with the component connection, the writing scrolls very smoothly and looks just as clear as if the picture is paused.  Unfortunately, we are unable to capture the interlace effect with the camera, since once we pause the picture, the effect disappears until we resume playback.

Finally, the 720p and 1080i modes were virtually indistinguishable apart from a slightly smoother image on the 1080i mode when it came to scenes with fine detail.  Then again, as the projector only supports 720p natively and has to downscale 1080i to its native resolution, this likely explains why we rarely see any improvement. 

HDMI Output

For HDMI testing, we used a HDMI to DVI cable to test both 720p and 1080i, since the projector does not have a HDMI input.  As a DVI connection is a pure digital connection between the player and the display, the one thing we expected was a picture that does not need any adjustments.  However, this was not the case as the colour looked under-saturated, brightness was too high and the contrast was weak and this was before we even made our first adjustments for taking a photo.  So, to start with, we had to adjust the projector's brightness almost as low as it could go in order to make the 'blacks' look black again and then adjusted the contrast to brighten the picture.  While the projector has no saturation adjustment for the DVI input, the saturation looked fine once the brightness and contrast adjustments were made.

Once we adjusted the brightness, contrast and the component's saturation such that the colour and luminous rendering of both looked about identical, we were unable to see any difference in the image quality between the HDMI and component connections with most scenes, when it comes to its upscaling capability.  However, we do get a noticeable difference when it comes to the side effects of an analogue connection as when it comes to the Component picture, bright edges seem to have a slight ghosting effect to the right upon close inspection and the overall picture has very faint lines going scrolling through it, both of which are not present in the HDMI connection.  Unfortunately, we were unable to capture these effects on camera.

Like with component, the 720p and 1080i modes are virtually indistinguishable from each other.  Again, this is likely due to the projector's resolution being 720 and having to downscale a 1080i image.  Interestingly, even though 1080i is an interlaced mode, we did not experience any interlacing effects with action, unlike the image we get from SVHS.

VGA Output

As the projector has a 16:9 native display aspect ratio and is not a native SVGA, XGA or SXGA display, we decided to use a 15" XGA LCD monitor for this test.  As a result, there is little point in trying to take photos of the monitor, since there is a vast difference between what the camera picks up from the monitor than what it picks up from a projected image and the camera also picks up quite a strong moiré effect from the LCD monitor, but virtually no moiré effect from the projected image.

The contrast, brightness and colour rendering comes out very well on the monitor, however the signalling does not seem to be as good as that from a PC as pixels seem to randomly fluctuate between their adjacent left / right pixel.  We tried doing an 'auto-sync' several times on the monitor, however the pixels would still fluctuate, which is noticeable on a paused or still image as well as on the menus.  However, for those with LCD / DLP projectors which have a VGA input, but no DVI, HDMI or Component input, the VGA input would provide a better picture over SVHS since the VGA image supplied by the player is progressive. 

Screenshots:

In this section, we will compare screenshots between SVHS, Component and HDMI from several different scenes.  For these scenes, we paused the DVD to take each picture and switched between the modes at that paused scene to take photos using the different outputs and modes.    

*** Important notice regarding the screenshots below ***

The first problem we encountered is attempting to take a photo of the projected image.  While the picture looks fine to the eye, initially it would come out green / cyan colour, weak red colouring, anything bright turning out over-exposed and anything dark turning black!  So, in order to take snapshots, we created a colour calibration chart with colour steps ranging from black all the way to Red, Green, Blue and White in 16 shades, put this on a CD and played it in the player.  We then adjusted the projector's brightness and contrast such that the next darkest shade after black could be just about made out in the taken photo and the same for the next brightest shade after white.  Then we started working on the RGB brightness and contrast levels to do the same for each colour element.  Unfortunately, the in-between shades would not go in sync and even gamma correction could not help out here.

Even after spending a lot of time at the calibration, there is no way we could make the colour and luminous rendering in the photo come out like that on screen.  The next problem we encountered is a huge variation in brightness, contrast and saturating between the DVI and component inputs, so we had to spend another while adjusting the levels of the DVI input in order to make the picture look like that of the component input.

Finally, the projector itself does a fairly good job at its own upscaling when it comes to supplying it with an SVHS signal, so the difference between the standard definition outputs and the high definition outputs can vary significantly from display to display.

As a result, please do not judge the brightness, contrast or colour rendering of the screenshots below as the player's capability on these!

Animal fur

The first scene we tested had a dog in order to compare the fur texture between the different modes.  Many MPEG encoders fail to do a good job at encoding this type of texture, which also makes it a good scene for testing DVD recorders also, particularly if the animal is moving.  However, for this review, we are only interested in seeing how well it does at upscaling this detailed image.

The following image shows this scene via the SVHS output (zoomed in):

Now, when we switch to the component 720p mode, there is a noticeable improvement in the texture:

The main difference we notice is that the fur on the Component video image looks much softer than that from the SVHS screenshot.  In fact, this is the only scene where we noticed such a significant difference between the SHVS connection and any of the high definition connections.  Please bear in mind that the colour rendering in the above image is very different from the real image, since as we mentioned earlier the camera does not capture the different gradients of colour from the projected image very well.

The next image shows the output via Component, but at 1080i:

Apart from a very slight improvement in the smoothness of the fur, we can make out very little improvement in the 1080i picture over the 720p picture, but then again the projector only handles 720p natively.

Now, on to the HDMI output at 720p:

In this image, we get a further improvement in the texture over the component video.  Have a look at the texture of the lower part of the ear against the 720p Component video screenshot.

Finally, one to the 1080i HDMI output:

From what we can see, the 1080i HDMI image is almost indistinguishable from the 720p HDMI image. 

The following table shows a thumbnail comparison of the five images:

Male face

As people are the main feature of most movies and especially TV shows, one thing people look out for when comparing images is to see how well it handles a person's face, since there are a lot of details which standard definition images fail to pick up, while high definition images can capture.  Unfortunately, as these details are usually lost in the original down conversion to standard definition when movies are put on DVD, unfortunately it is virtually impossible to recreate these details during a high definition up-conversion process.  So, let's see how this player handles the upscaling of a person's face.

The following image shows the scene using the SVHS output:

Now, let's have a look at the same frame using the component output at 720p:

While the beard and glasses look more natural in the Component picture, unfortunately the player seems to smooth out the face too much, in which the wrinkles and face texture actually looks smoothed out instead of detailed like in the original image.  On the other hand, the component picture does not look unnatural either.

The next image shows the output via Component, but at 1080i:

From what we can see, the 1080i Component picture looks pretty much identical to the 720p picture.

Now, let's have a look at the same frame with the HDMI output at 720p:

In this case, the picture seems to be smoothed out a little bit further than the Component picture.  This could also be due to the camera's focus also.  Besides that, this image is otherwise pretty much identical to the 720p component picture.

Finally, the same frame via the HDMI output, but at 1080i:

Like the comparison of the two HDMI formats from the dog scene, we are unable to see any noticeable difference between the 720p and 1080i HDMI image. 

The following table shows a thumbnail of the five images together: