The BEST DVD upscaling

[admin_exported]

I am soon to take the plunge into large screen/HD but tight funds mean that it will be a gradual process. I am starting with the Sony 46w4000 tv, and an upscaling DVD player and it is this that brings me here to ask advice.

Including home made discs, I have well over 600 DVD's, none of which I am anxious to buy/edit again in Blu Ray, so the best upscaling DVD picture is my first priority, as I want an improvement over my current (IMO excellent Pioneer 585/Toshiba 36ZP48 set to 576p) set up. Initially I was thinking about the best around the £100-150 mark, but then wondered how much better it would be if I spent £300-400? Will I see a marked improvement, is it worth the extra cash?

Secondly, I will go Blu Ray at some point, with new releases at least, so would any Blu Ray player, regardless of price, upscale better than the best £100-150 DVD deck, and if so how do they compare to the higher end DVD decks? I have no problem with paying Blu Ray money for a standard DVD player, if it is the best option for 46in of picture.

Finally, if I eventually buy an upscaling receiver, how do they compare to the best of the above bunch? Are there any that are good enough to render the above questions irrelevant?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

philnavigator:
I am soon to take the plunge into large screen/HD but tight funds mean that it will be a gradual process. I am starting with the Sony 46w4000 tv, and an upscaling DVD player and it is this that brings me here to ask advice.

Including home made discs, I have well over 600 DVD's, none of which I am anxious to buy/edit again in Blu Ray, so the best upscaling DVD picture is my first priority, as I want an improvement over my current (IMO excellent Pioneer 585/Toshiba 36ZP48 set to 576p) set up. Initially I was thinking about the best around the £100-150 mark, but then wondered how much better it would be if I spent £300-400? Will I see a marked improvement, is it worth the extra cash?

Secondly, I will go Blu Ray at some point, with new releases at least, so would any Blu Ray player, regardless of price, upscale better than the best £100-150 DVD deck, and if so how do they compare to the higher end DVD decks? I have no problem with paying Blu Ray money for a standard DVD player, if it is the best option for 46in of picture.

Finally, if I eventually buy an upscaling receiver, how do they compare to the best of the above bunch? Are there any that are good enough to render the above questions irrelevant?

I saw a Denon DV1940 at £129.99 yesterday! It's a fantastic upscaler. I would say that the new BD players out will be at least as good as budget upscaling dvd players. I will let you know more when my new BDPS550 arrives any day soon.

 

[Anonymous]

I seem to do nothing but plug Pioneer at the moment - too much concentration on what would look pretty with a Kuro I suppose! This link has been mentioned a couple of times if a DVD player appeals, it seems to have all the bells and whistles:

http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/3617

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with Gerrardasnails - the Denon DVD1940 is your best bet for a superb dvd upscaler, all the way to 1080p, up to the £300.00 mark.

 

[professorhat]

Is it better than the Toshiba XD-E500? Just a question, I haven't seen either in action but I know the above is very well rated...
Personally, I'd combine your budgets to the £500 - £600 range and forget the DVD player and just get a Blu-Ray player like the Panasonic DMP-BD55 or the Pioneer BDP-LX71 if you can stretch to it - these will upscale your DVDs very well indeed.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm gonna get shouted down here. But Oppo is the best upscaler. Just went through five different ones and the cheaper Oppo (didn't try the anchor bay model) pasted all of them.

imo

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Anonymous]

I have read a couple of reviews of the Toshiba XDE-500, and it seems to be regarded as the standard for upscaling on a £100-150 budget right now. I think I now need to rephrase my original question slightly....

Can I get a significent improvement over this Toshiba with either a DVD deck or a Blu-Ray, and if so how much do I have to spend? If improvement is only slight, even for a lot more cash, then I will buy the Toshiba now and get a Blu-Ray player when I have saved a wee bit more, but if the Panasonic/Pioneer Blu-Ray players can give better results with DVD, then I will just wait and buy one of those as my first 1080p source.

 

[Anonymous]

In a similar situ myself, have many DVD,s and want a good DVD player but I also want a good Blue ray player. I think the best thing to do is get a good Blue ray player.

When the WHF team are writing thier reviews It would be good if they could rate the Blue ray players as DVD players also.

My money is on a good Blue ray!

 

[Anonymous]

You can pick a denon 3930 for £500 ish if you shop around!

 

[Anonymous]

I'm waiting for the Panasonic DMP-BD30 (5 stars earlier this year) to come down in price when its replacement hits the shops in around 2 weeks time (14th Oct?). It was originally £350 but you can currently get it for £240 from Amazon.

I'm buggered if I'm going to pay over the odds for a player when you know damn well they're going to drop in price over the coming months.

 

[Anonymous]

If all your discs are Region 2 then there's no problem. I'd go for a decent BluRay player (it's one less piece of kit under your TV and one less HDMI to find a home for, after all) and upscale with that. Yes, the 1940 or others might have an edge, but balance that with the fact that you're going to go Blu anyway and it seems a no brainer to me. It's hundred quid and more that you don't need to spend.
If you have Region 1 DVDs in your collection, then it's another issue and you'll need to go dual format!

 

[Anonymous]

I now have the panasonic bd30 which is great at upscaling on my 42pz85b IMO, I have quite a few region 1 dvds aswell so i made it multi region for dvd's with a remote hack as i needed one box solution because of space constraints.

 

[Anonymous]

I have been using the Oppo 983 with the Anchor Bay chip for a couple of months with a 50" kuro. It is the best upscaler I have seen. I know it is slightly expensive but it has the same upscaler as much more expensive machines, is region free, and plays almost all formats of movies and discs. I bought it over the internet, and I have to say that I have not regreted the purchase. The usb at the back is also a very nice feature, as I have connected a hard drive and it plays anything from that. Also, the sound is amazing!!! It is a step above most. Obviously, it is a bit weird to be talking about dvd players nowadays, when there is HD tv etc, but if you have a large dvd collection the oppo offers a great deal. Not to mention that it plays DVD-audio and SACD. That said, the quality is not that of a blu ray. But it is still the best standard def quality I have come across.

Only problem I have encountered, is that the subtitles are not very synchronized. Other than that, the image and the sound are FANTASTIC.

Check out the reviews as well if you have any doubts. I cannot wait for their blue ray player. they announced that they will be coming out with one soon, hopefully it will be region free as well.

Reading my post, it sounds like I work for the company, but I can assure you I have absolutely nothing to do with them. I just think that their products are very well designed and worth their money.

 

[Pete Shields]

Looks like this player could do the job for me as I too want to get Bluray amd cut down on the HDMI sockets. I too have a box full of region 1 disks.

stu31, what is the multiregion hack to make the player multi region dvd?

 

[Anonymous]

See!

You've got to give the Oppo a whirl before you roll your eyes. I have the cheap one and it's got basically the same upconversion hardware as (much) more expensive AV amps. And he's right, the things will play anything.

 

[Pete Shields]

I will also be considering the BD35 and possibly stretching to the BD50.

Are multi region remote hacks also available for these players and where could I find them on the net?

My 2 year Yamaha amp does not have HDMI inputs, so am I best going for the BD30 and let the player decode the HD audio then to my amp with interconnects, or should I just stick to my usual single digital interconnect. Which will be best and should the provision of these interconnects sway my choice of Bluray player?

 

[Anonymous]

Pete Shields, If you go on Ebay and put "panasonic hack" in the search box you'll find it, its 11.99 and 1.49 postage. Its basically a remote control which you aim at the player whilst pressing the yellow button for a few seconds and thats it multi region (dvd) heaven ! lol

I see its now been confirmed as working for the BD50 aswell hope this helps.

 

[shado]

I have the Panasonic BD-30 player and I compared X Men - The Last Stand where I had the DVD version and my brother in law had the Blu ray. Out of the two tbh, I preferred the softer version that the DVD had to offer and Blu ray only showed better resolution on the camoflague pattern of the troops clothing, and the tarmac definition on the San Francisco bridge in the scene when Magneto moves the bridge over to Alcatraz. The picture quality and colour definition of both discs were on par.

This is a relief to me as the BD-30 is up with the best when it comes to upscaling and I do not need to replace my existing movie collection.

 

[Pete Shields]

I was all set today to buy the Panasonic BD-30 and go for the remote hack to play my region 1's.

I paid a visit to Superfi, and the guy was great but firstly told me that the remote region hack would screw up the Bluray on the player.

Also, and more importantly, I would be best to wait for the newer v2 models arrived in the next 2 weeks as these would be a great improvement and I should really consider going for the pioneer at £600.

Will I be getting much more over the BD-30 for the extra cash?

 

[Anonymous]

I'd wait for the 35 to finally hit the shelves (due around the 14th Oct) and see how much the 30 drops in price by. Amazon have reduced it slightly over the last couple of days to £239 (from £254 I think).

It's still early days yet for BluRay players so prices will probably tumble over the next year (look through some old issues of What Hi-Fi for a reminder of what they used to be!!).

Save your cash on the player and use it to buy discs (only a suggestion of course!!).

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

Wavey Davey:

I'm waiting for the Panasonic DMP-BD30 (5 stars earlier this year) to come down in price when its replacement hits the shops in around 2 weeks time (14th Oct?). It was originally £350 but you can currently get it for £240 from Amazon.

I'm buggered if I'm going to pay over the odds for a player when you know damn well they're going to drop in price over the coming months.

Are we related?-