Will HD DVD Player display HD on my tv?

JimmyJames

I have a 34" Toshiba HDTV (CRT). It DOES NOT have a DVI or HDMI input. It only has component cables (Blue/Green/Red).

If I buy an HD DVD player:

1. Will HD DVD's be displayed as HD on my TV?
2. Will SD DVD's display the upconverted picture on my TV?

I heard some things about needing an HDMI connection to get the full potential of the HD DVD players. Is this true?

The bottom line is I am not sure if I should save up to buy a new HDTV with HDMI and 1080p BEFORE getting an HD DVD player to get the above benefits.

OR... I can get the HD DVD player first.

I don't want to spend $$$ on an HD DVD player if it won't dispay it's fullest potential on my current TV. If that would be the case, I would wait to buy the player after I get a new TV and when the player's prices go down to boot!

What do you recommend? Thanks for your help!

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Monitor #1 - Toshiba 34" ColorstreamHD CRT
Monitor #2 - Daewoo 20" Flat Screen CRT
Home Theater - Sony 5.1 HT-6600DP HTIB
DVD - Sony 5 Disc Progressive Scan
VCR - Panasonic Hi-Fi
Cable HD DVR - Motorola HD Dual
HD Cable Provider - Service Electric (Eastern PA)
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Scoob

Yes it will play HD DVD's at 1080i over component and it will look stunning. But it will not upconvert your SD DVD's over component. It will only output them at 480p. As far as updgrading your TV, I would definately plan on doing that. HD DVD would look even better on a bigger screen running at 1080p.

__________________

• Panasonic 50PZ80U 1080p Plasma
• Vizio 37 inch 720p LCD
• 20 GB PS3
• Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player
• Philips BDP 7200 Blu-ray Player
• Onkyo TX-SR605 Audio reciever
• Canon Vixia HF100 HD camcorder

JimmyJames

Thanks for the info. So in other words my DVD's will look the same, but HD DVD's will look like they're supposed to (in 1080i).

Is the same true for Blu Ray? I am leaning towards HD DVD, but was just curious if the info you provided me holds true for BD.

Thanks again!

__________________
Monitor #1 - Toshiba 34" ColorstreamHD CRT
Monitor #2 - Daewoo 20" Flat Screen CRT
Home Theater - Sony 5.1 HT-6600DP HTIB
DVD - Sony 5 Disc Progressive Scan
VCR - Panasonic Hi-Fi
Cable HD DVR - Motorola HD Dual
HD Cable Provider - Service Electric (Eastern PA)
HD Channels Received - NBC/CBS/ABC/FOX/CW/MyNetTV/PBS/ESPN/ESPN2/NFL/VSGOLF/Big10/TNT/TBS/HDNet/HDNetMovie/UniversalHD/Outdoor/Discovery/HBO/Cinemax/Comcast SportsNet/HGTV/Food/A&E/National Geo

Scoob

Yep. My advice would be to go with HD DVD now, and later when the Blu ray players get full specs (this fall or the holidays) get one of those as well.

__________________

• Panasonic 50PZ80U 1080p Plasma
• Vizio 37 inch 720p LCD
• 20 GB PS3
• Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player
• Philips BDP 7200 Blu-ray Player
• Onkyo TX-SR605 Audio reciever
• Canon Vixia HF100 HD camcorder

strawberry

Seems like I have to chime in and re-post this every couple of weeks- but there is no advantage to upscaling DVD playback on a CRT display. CRT-based HDTV's can natively display 480p. Upscaling to a CRT will actually introduce edge ringing, noise, and other commonly seen scaling artifacts. Just feed 480p to your TV, JimmyJames- that's what will give you the best picture.

__________________

Home Theater Setup
ISF-Calibrated Hitachi 57S500 HDTV
Denon 2807 AVR
7.1 JBL Venue Series Speaker System
Toshiba HD-A1
PS3 60 Gig
Xbox 360 Premium
Moxi BMC 9022 DVR
Logitech Harmony 880

borromini

Yup...the lack of upconversion through component is only a bummer if we're talking about fixed-pixel displays with inferior scaling capabilities.

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"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"

ja2935

Actually 1080i CRTs like mine will upconvert the 480p signal to 1080i as that is the native resolution. It is perhaps debatable whether the TV does a better job than an upconverting player. However when I do a back to back test with an SD DVD and my two DVD players - 480p over components versus 1080i over HDMI, the picture does havs smoother edges with the A2.

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Toshiba 34HF84
Comcast Motorola DCT 3416 (all digital), Component/Fiber Optic
Toshiba SD4900 (Region Free), Component/Digital Coax
Toshiba HD-A2, HDMI/Fiber Optic
Yamaha YHT-160 Home Theater System

PFC5

Even outputting 480p with a better DVD player will look better than an inferior DVD player. That is one of the nice things about the HD DVD players ALL of the models are excellent 480p and higher SD DVD players also.

Some of the BD players do a good job with SD DVDs, but some do not do as good a job. The 1G Samsung BD player was not very good with SD DVD playback, but I have heard it got better with a firmware update, and the 2Gen Samsung is an excellent SD DVD player, because they added the Silicon Optix REON chipset. The HD-XA2 also has the Silicon Optix REON chipset and I think when Secrets benchmarking site releases the review of the XA2, the XA2 might slightly beat the new Samsung BD player in SD DVD playback based on what they said in the Samsung review.

I heard that the Panasonic & Pioneer had good SD DVD playerback as well and the Sony BD player was a notch or two behind them.

Overall, most of the HD players for either format will provide a better SD DVD playback than the vast majority of SD ONLY DVD players out there.

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