436XDE and HDMI resolutions

GarySargent

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Hi,

Why when I select 720p in my DVD player connected via HDMI does my 436XDE say 750p in the info banner? Same with 1080i, shows 1125i.

This is a Sony RXD-HXD910 DVD/HDD recorder I'm using.

The Sony manual says it will output 1280x720p and 1920x1080i.

Also what is the best setting to use with the 436XDE - 720p or 1080i?

Thanks,

Gary.
 
It maybe due to the fact that the lines used also contain unseen data. For example, a lot of screens show PAL at 625 lines.
 
Does that mean it is rescaling the picture though which would affect quality?
 
The XDE always rescales the picture, nothing you can do about it. It's resolution being 1024/768, is nothing like any video resolution. A school of thought says that scaling anything twice must be worse than scaling it once, which would make an upscaling DVD player a total waste of time! Even displays which are actually 1280/720 may well have 5% or more of overscan, meaning in spite of being HD native, they will still be rescaling the image, to make it effectively bigger than 1280/720. On many, even most, displays, like the XDE, this overscan is not adjustable, just built in. Pants, isn't it?
 
The 436 does seem to scale pretty well for a telly.
 
For a telly, yes. But if you think it's pretty sharp, that's because you have not seen a plasma pixel mapped.
 
MAW said:
which would make an upscaling DVD player a total waste of time!
Absolutely ideal? No. Total waste of time? No.
 
That's a bit of a selective snip, I did not actually say they were a waste of time. But in your setup, you have 3 scalers, one of which is compulsory, do you use 720 output from the 868 or 576. If 576, did you consider the 668 DVD?
Dom, have you not seen a plasma with a pixel mapped PC or scaler? Something like a vga input on the xde, or a MXE on DVI?
 
MAW said:
That's a bit of a selective snip, I did not actually say they were a waste of time. But in your setup, you have 3 scalers, one of which is compulsory, do you use 720 output from the 868 or 576. If 576, did you consider the 668 DVD?
Dom, have you not seen a plasma with a pixel mapped PC or scaler? Something like a vga input on the xde, or a MXE on DVI?

I use 576i HDMI so the Lumagen does the deinterlacing, and scales to 720p. I guess that means there are two scaling processes going on. Like I say, perfect no, but it yields very good results.
I don't think the 668 can do 576i HDMI and in any case I purchased the player before I got the Lumagen. 720p from the player was nice too and of course the 668 cannot do this. My current setup has evolved, my next will be more carefully chosen, but the results are still very good.
 
Yes, they can look pretty classy after Gordon and his scalers are introduced to the equation. BTW does 576i work straight to the screen? I can't find out if it does, no info from Pioneer. Does anyone know for sure if 576i works?
 
MAW said:
Yes, they can look pretty classy after Gordon and his scalers are introduced to the equation. BTW does 576i work straight to the screen? I can't find out if it does, no info from Pioneer. Does anyone know for sure if 576i works?

I'm not sure to be honest, and I'm too lazy to find out at the moment :)
 
damo_in_sale said:
My current setup has evolved, my next will be more carefully chosen, but the results are still very good.

Actually, I'm doing myself a mis-service there. At the time of purchase there was only one plasma, as far as I am/was aware, that would be HDReady, and I bought it.
 
Dom, have you not seen a plasma with a pixel mapped PC or scaler? Something like a vga input on the xde, or a MXE on DVI?[/QUOTE]

I have, but not with the Pioneer, a colleague who tried it felt the Pioneer didn't seem to benefit much from an external scaler as apparently it still uses its own scaler as well even when receiving native resolution. That's what he said anyway.
 
MAW said:
Dom, have you not seen a plasma with a pixel mapped PC or scaler? Something like a vga input on the xde, or a MXE on DVI?

MAW,

Not wanting to drag this too OT, but when you say feeding a xde a 1:1 pixel mapped signal from a PC, do you mean sending a 1024x768 VGA signal from a PC to the media box? Does this bypass the internal scaling of the media box/panel?

Cheers

Rob
 
That's the only way to do it yes. The biggest problem is not resolution but refresh rate. It does play fast and loose with that, but it is possible to get pixel mapped, with test patterns to help you. You can find useful ones on the web.
 

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