Posted by MassiveProng on 02/16/07 00:31

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:08:41 -0000, Doug Jacobs
<djacobs@shell.rawbw.com> 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.

[Back to original message]