Blueray players! I want the best of both worlds!!

[admin_exported]

I am new to forums and new to Blue ray. I want the best of 2 worlds.I have been in stereo hi-fi since it was Mono so I have done myshare of chasing rainbows seeking small improvements and spending a lot of money.

I gave that up years ago when I got a good Quad stereo System which now drives the front mains of my surround sound.
My budget for a player is £300.
Blue ray world 1.
This should be easy. I have a 42" Toshiba 1080p hdmi I just wantGood picture and sound quality and good dvd upscaling. I might use a spare Yamaha 5.1 non hdmi some time in the future.
Blue ray world 2.
This is where I need you experts to help.

I have a 720p lcd projectorwith vga input which can handle 720p component and my surround can
handle 7.1 analogue audio. So I want dvd upscaling to 720p component,
blue ray downscaling to 720p component and 7.1 analogue sound.

The contenders were Pioneer 51fd, Sony 550 and Panasonic bd80.
I have found that the pioneer doesn't do 720p component,and the Sonydoesn't upscale to 720p component.

That leaves the Panasonic bd80.I can't find out if it will fill the bill or not. I suspect that
Panasonic will say " it should do " but that isn't good enough.
Can anyone out there give any advise? Or suggest another player?

Ethernet Internet access is nice but not essential nor is wireless Internet. In fact all these extras can result in noise and degraded performance.
Open to ideas

 

[Anonymous]

what projector do you have?

mine has a dvi input as well and you can get hdmi to dvi cables which would allow you to set the 550 to 720p over hdmi.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Fast eddie,thanks for the reply.

My projector is a Toshiba data projector with s-vdeo and 2 vga inputs which are dual function and can

handle up to 750p , no dvi I am afraid. I have tested it using a Linksys media player set to 720p, 4:3

letterbox using component out and it was fine on wide screen dvd movies.

I suppose I could spend £70/80 to get an hdmi to component/rgb converter but that seems a bit messy

and would take me over budget. Better then to pay more for the player (if I can find one) .

 

[Anonymous]

Now then fast eddie,or anyone else who is listening, am I right in assuming that all region 2 dvds and region B BD discs

are 50hz? If so then only Sony will give me 720p/1080i out from component for all my dvds and region B BD discs.

I have downloaded 4 operating manuals and spent hours on the phone to 3 lots of customer support.

Pioneer and Panasonic both say that they output 60hz discs at 720p/1080i upscaled or down but 50hz will be output at 576p.

It looks like Pioneer and Panasonic are only doing part of the job for region2/B, but give preferential treatment to 60hz areas.

Now I have to decide whether to go with Sony or not.