[jimbowley]

Having read a lot about DVD yesterday, and considering I am about to buy a 720x480 plasma, is the best possible picture for movies going to come from a NTSC player that puts out 480p (component). Assuming it does the conversion to progressive well?

Regards
Jim

[LV426]

An NTSC signal is probably going to give you optimum results. You get an NTSC signal by having BOTH:

a) an NTSC capable player - all those on the sale in the UK are both NTSC and PAL
b) exclusively NTSC discs.

All discs sold in the UK (with a tiny handful of exceptions) are PAL. The thing to most certainly avoid doing, is converting a PAL source disc to NTSC for output. Few players do this anyway, but those that do, degarde the signal to a much greater extent than the downscaling in the Plasma screen will.

So, you will need a Region 1 - capable player (eg multi-region), and to buy all your DVDs from US/Can importers (region 1). You could also buy Japanese discs, which are NTSC, region 2, (in which case your player does not need to be multi-region) but these are typically expensive and arguably best saved for instances where Japan enjoys a better/extended/superbit/whatever version that the rest of the world doesn't have.

[jimbowley]

Thanks for the reply. I thought I had it right, but I've not actually seen any articles/reviews that comment on or test this.

I'm going for the panasonic PWD6, now I need to find the best NTSC dvd player in my price range.

Seeing as region 1 discs are cheaper and available sooner, it's especially nice to know they will give a better picture as well.

Only drawback I suppose is when I've built my library up and then buy a higher resolution screen in the future, for which PAL discs are more likely to give the better picture (seeing as they have the better resoltuion).

Jim

[LV426]

PAL does theoretically have better vertical resolution. In practice, other factors in the disc mastering process have a much greater effect on image quality than this one factor does. Ignore it and you'll never notice.

Just to retstate re now I need to find the best NTSC dvd player in my price range - all DVD players are NTSC capable. What you need is a region 1 or multiregion player (unless you are only going to buy Japanese software).