Brain-picking dumb-ass newbie arrives...

[Clippy]

... in need of some answers/advice.
Bought me one of those 50' Sagem's from Comet (the demo was hard to resist), I've had it a month and I am very pleased with it (most of the time). Sky looks OK running through a scart but some channels are a little poor (I have read some channels use different amounts of data/bandwidth) but I can live with that. My poor old DVD/VCR combi is looking rather dated now and I have a dilema, it was only cheap (it's a Daewoo, again running through a scart). This looked fine on my old Sony 29' 4:3 but not any more. Things seem to have moved on significantly and the range of inputs is daunting. I guess I want a good picture and the ability to play some HDTV material (it's the only way to persuade our-lass that the purchase was worthy). Keep reading about these media-centre PC's and it sounds like the best bet. Do DVD's look good when played through these or am I kidding myself (would use the HDI input). Can these boxes upscale images succesfully and is it possible to implement AA/AF on the fly, again to improve picture quality. Am I better of buying a decent DVD player and going in via progressive-scan (what is this by the way) I don't fancy the sound of interlacing as it used to give me a headache on my Amiga, although that was a few years ago. Sorry for the basic nature of these questions, I have read through a lot of the forums here but all seem to assume a decent knowledge of the subject, which I don't have. I would be grateful for any pointers on this subject and must apologise for the long-drawn out first post.
Over to you guys

 

[St_ve]

Hi i'm using a PC as a DVDplayer monitor ect at the moment & it's superb.
Before making any decisions why don't you connect up to your Sagem 50 & give it a try
you should get a very good picture through VGA & even better through the DVI.
just make sure u have the latest graphic card drivers & select 1280 by 720 before u connect to the tv. In the Sagems menu there should be an option under Data to change from HD to PC(might be different as i have a Optoma RD50 so read your manual)On my set & prob yours if u use a DVI input you will not see the Bios posting first thing u see is Windows launching.
By the way if you want see the latest more topical threads first go to the top of the page & click on your forum settings this will take you to your control panel for this forum, click on edit options & change to hybrid in display modes.
For more info on using a PC i sugest u check out the couple of threads i started also
DlP tvs and HTPC started by Razor
To see the sort of quality you can expect by connecting a PC go to Show us yours
& check out the screengrabs i've posted.
And if you want to see a very good broadcast picture watch wildlife on one.

 

[Clippy]

Thanks for the quick responce St ve. Can I just ask what software you run your DVD's through. It seems there are a few player/codec options to get the most from the picture. You are right about BBC/wildlife shows, quite spectacular. Sky movies are good too. My PC is showing it's age and won't run the HDTV stuff from the Microsoft site. I guess I just wanted to know if a decent DVD player could output better quality than a dedicated PC. Had a look at a PC running Windows Media Centre this weekend and was most impressed. From all the screenshots I've seen I got the idea into my head it was just an interface but it's based on XP Pro and you can drop down into normal windows anytime (couldn't figure out how I was gunna play my MAME (arcade) collection as it's DOS based), problem solved, so I won't take much convincing now. Hehe. Our-lass will be pleased (Not).

 

[St_ve]

You only need a more powerfull PC for the HiDef stuff
I have used my Pal Joey's Pentium 3 850Mz celeron 256MB ram with Windows millenium & a Nvidia TNT card with 32MB ram through the VGA connection & got a very good picture . I find WinDVD6 to give the best picture i had a problem with codecs or something that made it hard to tell between that & Powerdv6 but now it's fixed winDVD is better.The picture is so far ahead of my old DVD player it's uncanny(don't know how it compares with a top player like an Arcam 79) Its the best picture i've ever seen.I'll be building a Home Theatre PC in a couple of month's i would like to use Windows Media Centre on it but i won't be able to afford it,it has had some good reviews.If you find out which is best as a DVD player, PC or something like a Denon3910 ect let us know.
As far as i'm aware if Mame works on Windows Xp you should be all right.

The DLPset should upscale the picture for you with a seperate DVD player
with a PC software DVD player i'd guess it's the PC