Higher-definition DVD player: A resolutionary idea

[Gregg Lengling]

Mike Snider USA TODAY

When you go shopping for a high-definition TV, the first thing that hits you (after the price tag, of course) is the super-sharp, three-dimensional image -- nearly like looking through a window -- when it's hooked into an HD broadcast.

But when you get it home, if you're like most buyers, you wind up watching -- what else? -- DVDs. As clear as they look, DVDs were designed to be shown on standard TV sets. Not bad, but certainly not high-definition.


That decision is usually one of necessity. Cable systems, which serve more than 70% of TV households, have been slow to feed high-definition programming through to their customers. Satellite services have been better about supplying HD signals, but at premium prices for the dish and the set-top box.


And satellite doesn't include local broadcast HD channels. For those, viewers have to nab over-the-air signals by wrestling with clumsy antennas. Avoiding antennas is what drove most people to cable and satellite to begin with.


Now, Samsung is trying to bridge the gap with the first DVD player aimed specifically at HDTV owners. According to the company, the $299 player optimizes standard DVD video performance to make better use of the capabilities of new high-definition displays. In short, it brings DVD video closer to high-definition clarity.


Ordinary DVD players -- and all basic TV sets -- use what's called standard definition video, which splits the image into 480 horizontal lines. The Samsung is the first DVD player to use a smart digital imaging chip to fine-tune the image and to ''upconvert'' the video to 720 or 1,080 lines, both of which are considered high-definition. It's a technological cheat, though, because the chip is adding resolution that doesn't exist on the disc.


Also, inside typical DVD players, the video is converted from digital to analog so that it can be sent to the TV. This is the first mass-market DVD player to feature a new type of output, the Digital Video Interface (DVI), which allows the video to remain digital from disc to the display. In theory, that reduces distortions introduced in the digital-analog conversion process.


(Note that you'll need a TV set that has a DVI connector, usually available only in newer models, and that you'll need to buy your own DVI cable, which can cost $80 or more.)


To test-drive the Samsung, I first pitted it against my midlevel DVD player, a well-regarded model that sells for less than $200. I connected both to Samsung's tabletop 61-inch rear-projection HD display (which retails for about $6,000) and dropped in my Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD.


Using standard connections, I saw no difference in the scene in which a swarm of orcs and a cave troll attack Legolas, Gimli and the gang. But when using the Samsung's DVI connection, close-ups of Gandalf and Aragorn had a bit more detail in their faces and scraggly hair.


When I switched to a higher resolution -- 720 seemed to work best on this monitor -- things came alive. On the Charlie's Angels Superbit DVD, the fight and race-car scene with the Angels and Crispin Glover (news) seemed cleaner. And with the new Criterion Collection edition of Akira Kurosawa (news)'s Throne of Blood, the player delivered deepened contrast from the new high-definition transfer of the 1957 black-and-white film.


But how does the Samsung stack up to full high-definition TV? I compared a DVD copy of Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones with an HBO HD broadcast, and the player performed admirably.


In the Obi-Wan and Anakin chase scene through the sky-scrapered skies of Coruscant, the HD telecast visibly had more depth and three-dimensionality. But the Samsung video had all the color richness and nearly the clarity.


Make no mistake, the HD broadcast was superior. In Amidala's and Anakin's sappy frolic in the field, I could make out individual weed stalks in the foreground that were lost in the DVD video. But the DVD player held its own, and, to many eyes, would appear close enough to HDTV to make it worthwhile.


Samsung's DVD player would fit well into many home theater setups, especially as an improved source for newer HDTVs that have DVI inputs.


The improvements may be different depending on the type of display you have -- and you may notice them more or less than someone else does -- so you might want to test-drive the player at a retailer first.


And though the price seems reasonable for a premium player, if you feel it's too expensive you can wait until other DVD makers follow Samsung's lead and prices fall.

   



Of course, a new format for true high-definition DVD discs will arrive eventually. But today's DVDs are likely to remain the format of choice for years to come. This player -- and its successors -- will help you get the most out of them.

[Steve Kacen]

Let me suggest that Samsung may not the first DVD player aimed specifically at HDTV owners.  Take a look at the following link:  http://www.vinc.us/default.asp.  A company called V Inc. was the first to introduce HD DVD player(it also has a DVI port) with their Bravo D1.  Presently the unit is on back order, but the price for the Bravo D1 is $199.

[Pat]

I'd be curious to know exactly what they're doing.  I have serious doubts that real improvement can be had.  The information is simply not present and cannot be reconstructed.

Other attempts, such as "sharpness" and Scan Velocity Modulation, sometimes give the appearance of improvement, but its "false" information -- adding edges where none exist and where none were intended, for example.

[Snard]

Originally posted by Pat
I'd be curious to know exactly what they're doing.  I have serious doubts that real improvement can be had.  The information is simply not present and cannot be reconstructed.

Other attempts, such as "sharpness" and Scan Velocity Modulation, sometimes give the appearance of improvement, but its "false" information -- adding edges where none exist and where none were intended, for example.

Most digital TV sets already have circuitry or algorithms for cleaning up and sharpening standard definition broadcasts, and making them look good at 480p. So I have no reason to doubt that the 480 lines data from a DVD can't be upconverted to 720p or 1080i with some sort of anti-aliasing, to knock the corners off the pixels, so to speak. Of course, these types of improvements aren't giving you "real" additional resolution or detail, but if the picture looks better or has fewer distracting artifacts, that should be a good thing.

[Skipjack]

I'm confused, doesn't my RPTV already upconvert the component input to 1080i?  

So, they've added an upconverter to a DVD player.. I don't see the real benefit.

[Bebop]

Anyone cares to read up on it.

http://www.samsung.com/Products/DVDPlayer/Hypervision/DVDPlayer_Hypervision_DVD_HD931.htm

[Snard]

Originally posted by Skipjack
I'm confused, doesn't my RPTV already upconvert the component input to 1080i?  

So, they've added an upconverter to a DVD player.. I don't see the real benefit.

Well, as the article said, there is also the issue of not having to go through another digital to analog and analog to digital conversion, since the signal is coming out of the DVI connector on the DVD player. Therefore, the color purity should be better (assuming your TV set isn't messing it up)

There's another feature of the Samsung player that I read about elsewhere, that he failed to mention in that article. It is supposed to be able to "play" a CD-R full of .jpg files in slide show manner, in full HDTV resolution. This would be a great feature for us digital camera owners; right now, the best I can do with the video out on my camera jacked into my TV is 640x480, so I do slideshows on my 19" computer monitor. (For the record, my 3MP camera has a native resolution of 2048x1536, so it's still going to get squished down a bit on the HDTV set, but not by much)

[StarvingForHDTV]

Originally posted by Snard

There's another feature of the Samsung player that I read about elsewhere, that he failed to mention in that article. It is supposed to be able to "play" a CD-R full of .jpg files in slide show manner, in full HDTV resolution. This would be a great feature for us digital camera owners; right now, the best I can do with the video out on my camera jacked into my TV is 640x480, so I do slideshows on my 19" computer monitor. (For the record, my 3MP camera has a native resolution of 2048x1536, so it's still going to get squished down a bit on the HDTV set, but not by much)

You could look at this as an option:  

http://www.ati.com/products/pc/hdtvadapter/index.html

They are out of stock right now though.  I just bought a Radeon 9500 Pro so I could do that type of thing with my HDTV.  ATI told me they are going to make a similar adapter for the 9600 series too.

Starving