[FlyingBig]

Do all the players that have HDMI and scale up to 720* produce a chroma free dvd picture? Chroma bug is all over Sky and to be frank it pisses me off. My old Toshiba dvd player also has it so i would like my next purchase to be chroma free if at all possible.

[zeropoint]

Checkout the HomeTheaterHiFi PS benchmark. IIRC, few players have no/minimal chroma errors - even then some have errors but filter them. Look for Faroudja FLI23xx (watch out for macro-block enhancement,) Silicon Image SiI504, and Mediatek 1389 based players. AFAIK, the Panasonic S97 (with latest f/w) performs well here.

[David Mackenzie]

You might be interested to take a look at pictures free of the Chroma bug that I took from my Panasonic S97 (I love it) compared to my old, considerably more expensive Pioneer 668:

More at: http://www.lyris-lite.net/fu_archive...07.html#000147

[Carl Ed]

Remember that there are several forms of CUE.

3-2 normal, 2-2 normal, 3-2 alternating flags, 2-2 alternating flags, and ICP (interlacered chroma problem), being the main five.

Most MPEG decoders do not have standard 3-2 CUE these days, and the only MPEG decoder I'm aware of that doesn't have 2-2 alt flags is the Matsushita decoders of old (their new ones do have it). All MPEG decoders have ICP.

[gandley]

cant recommend the S97 as the macroblocking is far worse than having chroma errors and thats with using the 540 F/W.(although the blocking is not anywhere near bad as some dvd players it is still very easy to spot)
Note this will only be evident if you engage the progressive mode of the S97

the sil504 chipset in dvd does not mean that its filtered as is the case with external deinterlacers and scalers, take for example the denon 2900 which has the sil504 chipset but still suffers chroma errors.
the faroudja chipsets do have chroma filters but this will lower the image quality but is however better than seeing CUE.

the new pioneer 989 is supposed to have perfect chroma upsampling but we will have to wait and see on that one.

[David Mackenzie]

Gandley, were you using the latest firmware?
When I first got my S97 I was going to send it back because of the blocking. I was so pleased when I saw what a difference the newer firmware made.

[gandley]

yes indeed, loaded veresion 541 last night, made zero difference.
I use a projector with a 110" screen so this does tend to make it easy to spot imperfections and the S97 has its fair share, although for the price i cant complain. I use the HDMI output.

Pic wise almost on par with the Denon 3910 so in context not bad at all. the latest firmware has got rid of the pixel cropping in PAL, so thats real good.

The pio 868i still delivers a sharper pic over HDMI so if the 989 does not have chroma issues then thats my boy as it also sounds better than the S97.(well it should considering there will be a price gap)

However the S97 is the best bargain DVD player out there. £150 is a steal and www.leconcepts.com did still have a few left but be quick

[David Mackenzie]

Ah, fair enough then. The first firmware upgrade made a huge improvement for me, but there's still more blocking when compared to the Pioneer 668 I used to use. The blue "Walt Disney Home Entertainment" logo is a perfect example of the differences between the players. I favor the Panasonic S97 more because I watch a lot of animation which showed up the chroma bug badly.