HI,

I just purchased a HD DVD Player, and I have a 46 inch set
with a native resolution of 720p.

I was wondering to get the best picture, should I set my
HDDVD Player to 720p also.

Thanks for any Help..

Yes. Since the T.V. can only display the max native resolution of 720p, if you tried feeding it 1080i than it would be down scaled to 720p.

Hi,
Thanks for the info and quick reply...

It's not that simple. You need to try it both ways and choose what looks best to you. Various combinations of player and monitor make it impossible to predict. In very general terms, it's true that the HD-DVD players tend to have better scalers than most monitors do, but it's not certain enough to take it for granted. You might even find that SD-DVDs look better at one setting and HD-DVDs look better at the other setting.

Hi,
I own a Toshiba HD-A3 and a 46" Samsung DLP max 1080i HDTV?
if that helps any. I don't know which would do the better job, The HD DVD
Player or the HDTV??

I thought you said that your T.V. had a max native resolution of 720p. Now your saying 1080i. If your T.V. only had a max native resolution 720p then that's all your going to get it does not matter what scaler you use. Just like you can't get blood from a stone. Now since the parameters have changed and your T.V. supports 1080i this will change the scenario. You will have to go case by case, but in general terms you probably find that watching sports is better with 720p and movies with 1080i.

It says Native Resolution 720p but also says capable of 480p, 720p,
and 1080i.

It also says 1280 x 720-pixel resolution....

...which is 720p.

Resolutions 101:

Your monitor will accept 1080i, but it will scale it to 720 and de-interlace it. If you feed the set 720p, it will do nothing. If you feed it 480p, it will upscale to 720p. If you feed it 480i it will upscale and de-interlace.

The player does all those same things, so the question is which is better at doing it. The main choices are whether to have the player output 720p or 1080i, and the only way to tell is to try both. You may find that the results might be slightly better one way on SD-DVD and the other way on HD-DVD. But the odds are very good that you won't see any real differences.

The differences may also be more evident in high-motion video and anything else that tends to produce artifacts, but again the differences will be small.

Some people report better perceived images by feeding their 720 monitors 1080i, and some report it's better with 720p. The majority see no difference.

Common sense seems to dictate that less precessing is better, so why have the player scale to 1080i then have the monitor re-scale to 720, especially when it involves de-interlacing. (de-interlacing is one area where many monitors seem to fall short of expectations). In the case of HD-DVDs with a resolution of 1080, the player would be re-scaling to 720, or passing the video as-is and letting the monitor re-scale to 720. So the question is whether the player or monitor is better at scaling and de-interlacing.

Try it both ways and let us know what you think.

Very informative CDan, thanks.

~~

There is a tad more to it than that. One reason many sports channels chose 720p was for for it's performance with fast motion. This also applies to high action movies. And of course the size and viewing distance comes into play. And a high action movie will always look better (more fluid and natural) on a Panasonic or Pioneer 720p plasma than any 1080x LCD.

@MysticEyes

Is that not what I just said?

I just did not go into the specifics. My total objective for someone that is learning is not to get very detailed. If I feel that the certain someone has somewhat of a grasp then I will choose to get more detailed. If the certain someone is more intuitive then I will gradually step the detail in.

There's an important caveat you left out here. The reason they use 720p is because it can deliver the motion at a lower bitrate. 1080 will do the same at an appropriate bitrate, which no broadcast or satellite channels currently deliver.

ofield I hope that you don't get frustrated with this bantering about. Our thought processes are all the same, It's just coming at you from different angles.

In a nutshell you will enjoy your HD-DvD player with your T.V. , play with as suggested. Don't worry about the numbers too much. You will be hard pressed to see a difference.

CDan, you refer to 1080p with that sentence, right?

Not exactly. A neophyte might infer that those who watch movies would be better off at 1080i. There is too much numbers chasing these days. I just thought to amplify your statement a bit.