HD Conversion DVD player with HDTV

Hi

I am a bit of newbie at this so pardon gaffes, please.
I have a Zenith C27v22 HDTV which has 1080i input and which also doubles as a 480p input for Progressive Scan. My old DVD player broke and I'm in market for a new one. I saw some HD conversion Players on the CircuitCity site and they claim to "upconvert DVDs to your HDTV's native resolution, whether it's 480p, 720p, 768p or 1080i."

So my question is, will there be a big difference in picture if I use a player like this vs a progressive scan?

Also, here's the relevant info from my Zenith HDTV manual about the input characteristics:
HD IN
Connect progressive scan or high-definition component video equipment here.
Progressive Scan DVD, 480p
EDTV Set top Box, 480p
HDTV Set top Box, 1080i
-------------------------------------------------------

For the 1080i, it should be irrelevant if the HD signal is coming from the HD Set top Box or the DVD player , right? So am I right in assuming that connecting a HD Conversion DVD player will give me 1080i for DVDs?

Thanks in advance for feedback.
H

No. There are only 480 lines of image stored on the disk. Upconversion can't invent new detail out of thin air. If it wasn't captured, you're not going to see it. Especially with your set, you should use a 480p progressive scan DVD player.

Oh, ok. Thanks for clearing that up. I'd begin to wonder too as its equivalent to converting a lower resolution jpeg to a higher resolution one. So the claim of being able to "upconvert" is a rather dubious one, eh?

Hmm. Just chanced upon this article.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041205/NEWS/412050432/1178

So upconversion is possible. But it seems like I need special inputs on TV like HDMI or DVI, is it? Without these inputs, the effect won't be significant, it seems.

Feedback/enlightenment always welcome. :)
H

Without one of those copy protected connections, most upconverting players do nothing more than a MUCH cheaper progressive scan 480p player... they ONLY output their scaled signal on the CP connections.

That article was really very 'fluffy', and left out many many details. An upconverter can be useful if you have a cheap TV with a bad upconverter built in. Better TVs have the SAME IDENTICAL chip... and will do the SAME IDENTICAL job upconverting. Since your TV supports EDTV mode directly, you will get a PROGRESSIVE SCAN 480p image... containing all the disk has to give, from any good progressive DVD player connected via Component.

You can't just count lines of signal output, it's a much more complicated issue of 'perceived resolution'... scaling doesn't invent detail, it just makes bigger fatter lines...