Hello everyone , this is the first time I post. I am relatively new to the AV hobby, although I deal with a small home cinema for quite some time now. This, however, is going to be my very first try to create a dedicated home cinema/home office space in my place. So I would be grateful if you answered any of my questions.
I am going to buy either a Panasonic AE 900 or a Sanyo PLV Z4. Both of them have an HDMI input. In the same area will be my home PC which is equipped with a double DVI output graphics card. So my questions are:
a) Would it be better to buy a brand new DVD player with HDMI (or DVI) output to connect with the aforementioned projectors, or is it enough to connect it to my PC (via a DVI-to-HDMI cable) and play using a software player (e.g. PowerDVD)? Will there be a huge difference in performance? Are there any known problems?
b) Just how important is progressive scan for projectors like those? I have seen DVD players featuring progressive scan, others featuring HDMI output, and some featuring both. Is progressive scan necessary with a direct HDMI connection?
c) If I finally choose to buy a new DVD player, should I choose someone with both Prog. Sc. and HDMI or one of them is adecuate?
d) If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to feed me back.

Thanx!

[DEANO-B]

Hi - This has been discussed a few times before so for more information do a quick search, but basically your better off with a PC. Also go for the Z4 rather than the 900 as Pannys CS are useless and if your PJ breaks down you will more likely be without it for a few months.

I suppose "CS" means "Service" (sorry, I am Greek and I do not "catch" abbreviations very well). Well, anyway this is no option to me, since "service" in my country is, unfortunately, only a word in the vocabulary , used only when they are trying to sell you

[JorisS]

Billy, CS stands for Customer Service. So yeah you were on the right track

In short, from what I've learned during the last few weeks, running from a PC gives the best results, which in order to achieve similar results would otherwise demand a lotsa-£ dvd player.

Then again, from personal experience, a dvd can be plugged in, hooked up, and it will play your movies and all you wish to play (supposing it supports the formats you wish to play, that is). A pc can and WILL per definition give you hours of struggling, testing, comparing, experimenting, crashing, bugging, etc.
However, SHOULD you get the thing sorted, as said, the image quality is really superb. I was truly stunned with the vibrant colours I got out of my pc, in comparison to the DVD player I used (Harman Kardon, nothing fancy but surely no cheap crap either).

If you want to read more about using your pc as source, you should check the Entertainment Computers & Components in this forum, that's where all the talk about this topic is done. Popular programs are Theatertek and fddshow, the first being an actual viewer, the second being a (post-processing) coder/code-pack which can even enhance image quality on regular dvd's quite drastically.

Having said that I will now return to struggling with my configuration, as I still haven't figured it all out

[FlyingBig]

More difficult to setup but i would have to go with PC. Not only can it do anything a standalone dvd player can do but it doesn't suffer from minor lip sync issues.

Thanks for the feedback, I think I will give it a shot with my PC first...
But still, if I finally choose the DVD player solution, do you think HDMI will be sufficient? What is the cost for a DVI-to-HDMI cable?