Okay I'm really confused!!!!!

[IanW]

I am really starting to get enthusiastic about getting a projector, however, I am really confused about the Progressive scan thing. I have searched through several threads on the forum, but nothing has answered this question:

Okay here we go. . . . . .

I understand what Progressive Scan is all about, but what I do not yet understand are the 480p, 525p 625p 1080p

I am currently very interested in the Sanyo Z1, however, this only lists 480p. I thought that NTSC Prog Scan was 525p and that the new Pal Prog Scan was 625P, so what does this mean about the Z1? Does this mean that this projector cannot handle the full potential of DVD Prog Scan?

Please help, this is driving me nuts.

Ian.

[John_N]

The number relates to the number of lines in the source.

480p = 480 lines progressive (eg progressive DVD).

525p = NTSC progressive (NTSC material has 525 lines)
625p = PAL progressive (PAL material has 625 lines)

DVD disks (whether PAL or NTSC) have 480 active lines on the disk at the most (ie - a DVD does not use the full resolution of interlaced PAL) and this can be output as NTSC or PAL by the modulator in the player.

If the player outputs 480p then this is merely all 480lines on the disk with no scaling and this is the trend for progressive DVD players since no scaling is needed, therefore it is cheaper.

Therefore 480p will be fine for DVD playback since most if not all progressive players output a 480p image AFAIK.

I believe that the 525p and 625p standards are more relevant to things like HDTV tuners etc rather than your progressive DVD player.

John

[gromet]

It is also explained to some extent in this thread by stevelup:

Sanyo PLV-Z1, What video modes does it support?

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

PAL progressive DVD players will output 576P this will be recognised by most display devices as 625P (as John says there are only 576 active picture content lines in the image)

If you want a display device that supports playback of Pal Progressive from a source which outputs such a signal you need to look for 625Por576P compatability.

Gordon

[John_N]

Progressive DVD players....

I can understand that NTSC progressive players might output 525p

and I can understand that a PAL player might output 576p (because of the number of active lines in the PAL image as Gordon says)

BUT I was under the impression that progressive scan players could also output 480p. After looking at it a bit more I have realised that maybe 480p is an NTSC standard and that since the NTSC system (525 lines) has 480 active lines too.

Hence I retract my previous post:

My understanding now is therefore:

480p = NTSC material (525 lines - active lines 480)
525p = NTSC material (525 lines)
576p = PAL material (576 active from 625)
625p = PAL material (625 lines)

DVDs DO however only contain at a maximum 480 lines of format and therefore I don't see why a progressive DVD player would go to all the trouble of displaying 576p when 480p would do. Maybe the frame rate is inherent in the standard or something?

Cheers
J

[markrushton]

Hi Guys

does this mean that a PAL dvd and a NSTC dvd will have the same vertical resolution? I buy PAL because I thought that they have greater clarity due to the higher vertical resolution. If this is not the case I will go for american.

thanks
Mark

[zaphod]

PAL DVD resolution is 720/704 x 576
compared to NTSC 720/704 x 480
see this site

http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technol...vid_videnc.htm


Zaphod

[John_N]

Yeah that's right. I already read that somewhere. DOH.

[severnsource]

Originally posted by IanW
I understand what Progressive Scan is all about, but what I do not yet understand are the 480p, 525p 625p 1080p

I am currently very interested in the Sanyo Z1, however, this only lists 480p. I thought that NTSC Prog Scan was 525p and that the new Pal Prog Scan was 625P, so what does this mean about the Z1? Does this mean that this projector cannot handle the full potential of DVD Prog Scan?

The Z1 can certainly handle the scan frequencies involved on its VGA input. It can actually display a 1280 x 1024 computer display at over 60Hz vertical refresh rate, which is a lot higher than progressive PAL. I would be very surprised if the Z1 couldn't cope with progresive PAL on its other inputs as well. (Don't have a progressive player so I can't check.)

If the image is correctly scaled it will only show 540 of the 576 active lines, but if you adjust the image size (see Rorschachs posts) it will scale the 576 into 540, with a slight loss of resolution.

Bill

[IanW]

Firstly guys, thanks for the response, secondly, I think that I am now even more confused

I have certainly never seen anything about 576P, so maybe 625P actually refers to 576???

I also thought that PAL discs had more information that NTSC discs the reason for this being. . . . On laserdisc (so not sure if this is the same for DVD???) only the NTSC version of Star Wars has Dolby Digital as the PAL version did not have enough room because of the extra picture data.

Looking through more threads I have noticed that the Epsom EW100 lists pretty much all the 'p's so maybe the Sanyo does not support the other resolutions? Surely when selling your product you want people to know everything that it can do, so if your PJ was 625p compatible you would list it?

Ian.

[John_N]

I think some of the confusion is my fault. Some of the stuff I wrote yesterday was wrong - I already knew this but I had got the figures fixed up in my head:

NTSC DVD disks have 480 lines stored.
PAL DVD disks have 576 lines stored.

an NTSC picture has 480 active lines out of a total of 525 lines.

a PAL picture has 576 active lines out of a total of 625 lines.

The rest of the lines in either format that are not active are used to hold other information, timing information, blanking etc I think.

I would imagine therefore that an NTSC progressive DVD player will output 480p and a PAL progressive DVD player will output 576p.

The bit I am not certain about is whether or not the same players could output 525p (ie - include the hidden lines on NTSC) or 625p - (include the hidden lines on PAL). I'm not sure about that to be honest.

And I don't have a foggiest about what the Z1 would and would not support. You would have thought they would write it down...

[mandlebrot]

Please not that some companies will not state PAL proggressive in the paper work etc, this could be due to the fact that it is not yet a ratified standard. An example of this is the Panasonic AE100 which has no mention of the PAL proggresive in the manual or on the site but it does indeed see and output this signal/resolution correctly, it even shows up has such in its menu. I have also heard of other recentish projectors that don't mention they can do it in paper work but it none the less.

The only way you will know for sure is either demo it with a player that can output PAL proggresive or ask someone on here who has the same PJ if they can help.