Expensive player now or buy a cheap one and wait for HD/Blu-Ray?

[Tunney]

My Pioneer DV-444 DVD player is starting to show it's age and doesn't even have progressive scan. I'm looking for a new DVD player and I don't know whether to go for a HDMI upscaling player like the Denon 1920 (£210) or buy a cheap progressive scan model like the Pioneer DV-575 (£120) and save the rest of the cash for when HD-DVD/Blu-Ray starts rolling out.

What do people think? Is it worth saving £90 and waiting? Are HD-DVD/Blu-Ray going to be slow to take off, like DVD-A and SACD have been? I don't want to wait for a HD player, if uptake is going to be slow and the discs are going to be excessively expensive.

[Nic Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Tunney

What do people think? Is it worth saving £90 and waiting?

No

[alan_t]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

No

just out of interest...why?

is there n e point in buying a upscalling dvd player only to have to buy the proper thing later on down the line?

after reading peoples comments about the upscalling players, and the PQ is'nt really nothing to shout about, seems better to buy a good progressive scan player for a lot cheaper.

[colin2305]

Do you have lots of DVDs? What sort of display do you have? How much are you thinking of spending on a Blu-Ray player when they become available?

If you are hoping to get a Blu-ray player for 200 pounds or so in the short to medium term, then I suspect you'll be disappointed. If your display is a 28"-30" CRT or a smaller flat-screen display, then you won't need to spend a lot on a DVD player in any event. It depends on how knackered your current DVD player is.

I'm waiting for Blu-Ray/HD myself, but have decided to wait to see what happens, and for the available titles to become cheaper and more plentiful. I figure I will be waiting at least 18 months. In the meantime, I recently made sure that I got the best DVD player I could so that I would have something to run my current DVD collection (which is fairly large) for at least the next 5 or 6 years.



Edit - my advice is just go and buy yourself a decent DVD player now.

[addiwei]

I upgraded my dvd player earlier this year. Rule of thumb I use, don't buy the most expensive one. $400-$500 can get you a used high quality piece of equipment and not breaking the bank.

Originally Posted by addiwei

I upgraded my dvd player earlier this year. Rule of thumb I use, don't buy the most expensive one. $400-$500 can get you a used high quality piece of equipment and not breaking the bank.

The oppo (see thread on this site) comes in at less than $200/£170 and is likely to be better than any used player that is twice the price; perhaps even any new player up to a Denon 3190 (some even prefer the oppo to that!). Buy an oppo now and start your HD/BR fund with the leftovers.

Dave

[Nic Rhodes]

1. Upscaling players offer few if any benefits. I think of it as paying for something twice.
2. BR will not be with for ages yet, and I suspect you will have upgraded you DVD player again in that time. Think 2007....
3. I don't expect to see BR machines under £750 for the initial year or so which seems a bit different from what you are suggesting currently. So we are now 2008+
4. Investment in a good DVD player will ALWAYS be a good DVD player. Just like people still invest in CD players as they are better at CD. For a wild guess I recon DVD players will be better at........

[senu]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

1. Upscaling players offer few if any benefits. I think of it as paying for something twice.
2. BR will not be with for ages yet, and I suspect you will have upgraded you DVD player again in that time. Think 2007....
3. I don't expect to see BR machines under £750 for the initial year or so which seems a bit different from what you are suggesting currently. So we are now 2008+
4. Investment in a good DVD player will ALWAYS be a good DVD player. Just like people still invest in CD players as they are better at CD. For a wild guess I recon DVD players will be better at........

Very crisply put.
I have only spent the last 6-7 week researching DVD players searching for upscaling heaven on the cheap: It doesnt exist via the players,( perhaps costly external upscalers : Ive only seen 1 and it seems to work rather well)
What is becoming very clear (to me) is that more than a few display panels upscale well enough to their native resolution and the progresive scan abilities of the DVD player will serve you much better than their upscaling prowess

Buy what you can afford but dont buy cheap .
Arcam dv79 may be in the big league ( lovely player that.. ) but Denon 2910 ,Marantz Dv7600 and similar DVD players will satisfy your upscaling curiosity {ie what will HD look like on my Hd ready display} but still leave you with a great DVD player whose s-video, RGB, Component with PS will be pleasing to watch.
Your viewing tastes and what you intend to watch the player on make a difference . Better displays may be less forgiving of budget sources
Be aware too that the display set may not show enough difference to justify great cost but cheap will showup as cheap and you might end up getting yet one more DVD player b4 BR.

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

1. Upscaling players offer few if any benefits. I think of it as paying for something twice.

This is not the experience of most people who own these machines. Though I take Nic's point about paying for things twice as any HD display will have an upscaler, even those with top of the range HD displays very often find that external scalers are better, even if only maginally, than those on their display devices. Perhaps the best thing to do is get an upscaler like the oppo on a return basis and give it a try.

You're also right about affordable HD/BR--it's going to be some time yet.

Dave

Originally Posted by senu

Very crisply put.
but Denon 2910 ,Marantz Dv7600 and similar DVD players will satisfy your upscaling curiosity {ie what will HD look like on my Hd ready display}

Dont' think that any upscaling player will give you any idea of what HD will be like. They can improve SD DVD so you can see the imporvement, but comparing with HD is apples and oranges.

Dave

[Nic Rhodes]

Originally Posted by dgkp

This is not the experience of most people who own these machines. Though I take Nic's point about paying for things twice as any HD display will have an upscaler, even those with top of the range HD displays very often find that external scalers are better, even if only maginally, than those on their display devices. Perhaps the best thing to do is get an upscaler like the oppo on a return basis and give it a try.

You're also right about affordable HD/BR--it's going to be some time yet.

Dave

I beg to differ slightly, when I have set to up demos of both 480p / 576p vs upscaling, I have only ever come across one time where we all thought upscaling was better. This is when we have a native resolution the same as HDMI and you can force 1:1 (not as easy as it sounds, matching resolution alone is not enough). Use the best scaling where possible but avoid two scaling operations at all costs. If this means ditching digital in favour of analogue, do it. Scaling in these players is cheap, really cheap. Don't kid yourself you are getting something for nothing, you all know that is not how it all works.

And don't kid yourself you are getting HD or more 'info'. If I upscale VHS tapes to 720p or 1080i (which I can do), do you think they will look like HD? DVD no different. You are getting DVD pure and simple and it bears little or no relation to HD.

The saving grace with upscaling is you can test all these things out and try out what is best on your system. Don't forget not upscaling means you can run longer leads with no issues.

Final thought

All those who are fans of upscaling are the ones who seem to have one player, those with many different players to test against each other seem to have a different view. I wonder why?

[Nic Rhodes]

but I full endorse the use of a quality video processor, best fed with interlaced signals.

[PJTX100]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

All those who are fans of upscaling are the ones who seem to have one player, those with many different players to test against each other seem to have a different view. I wonder why?

The former don't realise they've fallen for the marketing bull, the latter do.

[colin2305]

A mystery of religion to be sure.


Why can DVD never look anything like HD TV? Is DVD playback on a 1920 by 1080 resolution display, via a quality DVD player, outputting 1080p not going to give effectively the same thing?

And am I wrong in assuming that when HD TV arrives, that it is going to be pointless unless the viewer is equipped with a true HD TV set (i.e not something like a 1366 by 768 display)? I thought it was all about the 1080 standard - and surely if a DVD player/display combination can offer the same resolution, it should be the same as HD TV, no?

[dan1979]

Originally Posted by colin2305

Why can DVD never look anything like HD TV? Is DVD playback on a 1920 by 1080 resolution display, via a quality DVD player, outputting 1080p not going to give effectively the same thing?

DVD's are limited to 720x576 so no