What can I expect?

Hi,

Ive been told that I would be able to get some superb results out of setting up a home cinema pc and wanted some advice.

I have a -

Fujutsu PDS4229e Plasma with VGA in
Toshiba SD900E Pro Scan DVD player

PC

Athlon 2200
Geforce DDR gfx card
Power DVD Software

Would it be reasonable to say that I would be able to get a better image quality than I do at present with the Toshiba via Progressive Scan?

Ive been told about DSCALER, and have been advised that I need to buy a TV Capture card to use this software, is that correct?

My plasma displays up to 1024 x 768, Ive heard that using DSCALER to scale the image to fit that size will give me much better results than my DVD.

I look forward to your replies, Im now to this so any other advice on this would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help lol

[Gary Lightfoot]

You're welcome.

Well, I can't speak for a plasma screen, but I have a projector and a Radeon equiped HTPC, and the images are stunning in comparison to a standalone player.

The graphics card you have is good, but can be prone to banding where there are gradients of the same colour. An example opf this is the beginning of Titanic where the sub slowly sinks into the water - instead of a blended light blue to dark blue transition, you can see distinct rings of blue.

But, I would suggest you try the pc first, just to see what the results are like, then consider upgrading to a Radeon. If you play games, then a higher end Radeon will be better than something like a VE or 7000 model.

PC output is progressive by nature, so you'll have both NTSC and PAL progeressive.

Some people have problems with PowerDVD, so maybe try WinDVd if you do.

DScaler is freeware, and works with capture cards like the Pinnacle PCTV Rave. It will scale the input of the s-video and by using some of the options can produce an excellent picture. The PCTV Rave card can be bought from around £30, depending on where you get it.

Chances are that the scaler in the Plasma won't be as good as a Radeon (can't say about your GeForce), so I would think that the PC would be the best method of scaling to fit the screen resolution.

It wouldn't hurt to try playing a DVD via your PC first, just to see what results you get. Make sure the output is 1024 x 768 of course, otherwise the Plasma may try to scale it to fit, or you might just get a big black border round it if you're giving it a smaller resolution.

Gary.