My Mates Is Better Than Mine.

I've been round to my mates house and watched Monsters Inc. and his TV setup was alot more vidid than mine.

Briefly explaining...

He has a Sony Wega (one of te first ones about 18 month+ old) and a Pioneer 717.

The picture colours were a lot more in your face and the picture depth was unbelievable, is this progressive scanning.

My current setup (until this week) was Toshiba 28" 5.1 TV + Pioneer 515.

I have also seen this style of depth on a plasma screen.

Little Help

 

There are a couple of possibilities re your m8's set up...

100Hz TV
RGB SCART using a high quality lead?

btw, the 717 is a quality player and probably better build than the 515

 

Neither the Sony Wega nor the Pioneer 717 support Progressive Scanning so this was not the case.

Was his a 32" set? Perhaps his contrast/colour/sharpness settings are better calibrated?

As Kevo says, the 717 was a quality player for it's time and it still probably performs better than the 515 but the 717 alone would not be responsible for the level of improvement you noticed.