My DVD/VCR player is of good quality and only 3 years old (Panasonic DIGA DMR-EZ488VEDBK/VR) and plays via an HDMI cable into my highest-definition Panasonic TV. The player is not HD, neverthless the playback on tape and disk is poor, being dim and fuzzy. If I got a Blu Ray player, would it be likely to improve the results on DVD disks?
I am not interested in playing Blu Ray disks themselves as I like foreign and old films and the Blu Ray selection of them is poor, although it may improve.
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Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: modern DVD players, designed with HD in mind, 'upscale' their output to make best use of the HD display. Blu-ray players do the same with non-HD discs. It works pretty well - certainly DVDs played from our Playstation 3 into our base-model Sony 40" TV look almost as good as Blu-rays.
The only downside to this that I can see is the occasional artefact of the upscaling process. Brightly-lit faces in dark scenes sometimes 'swim' disconcertingly against the background, and fast movement doesn't always look quite right, but generally it's a small price to pay for more believable image quality.
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When my wife plays her Rosemary Conley's ULTIMATE whole body workout DVD (originally made for VCR tape) on my Panasonic Blu-ray player, the picture is no better than on my 50 squid LG DVD recorder.
So I'd say don't waste your money on a Blu-ray player unless you wanna watch Blu-ray DVD's.
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Also depends on your telly. Mine upscales non HD inputs and doesn't need a blu-ray to do it. So my early DVD player is just fine.
True, some upscalers are good and others pants, but my TV is a good one.
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One of the reasons I'm not interested in an HDTV is that it makes old content look crap...
It's a bit of a lottery whether new gear will improve things a bit or not. Upscaling is quite tricky to do well, some TVs are better at it than others, some Blu-Ray players are better at it than others, so sometimes it makes sense to let the telly do the upscaling, sometimes better done at source.
Short answer: probably not
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It really depends on the set. Or the age of.
Older large screens do look really naff. The larger they are the worse they look. Friend of mine has one that looks so fuzzy you would swear it was 3d and you were not wearing the glasses.
I have to say, that old media (old dvds, old films, etc) look really good on my Sony Blu Ray / Sony 32 inch tele.
But then I would say that wouldn't I.
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I have just got a new Sony TV with a Sony Blue Ray player thrown in, plus two Blue Ray DVDs - Harry Potter - and I'm not impressed with the quality of the discs. The HD channels on my TV are far superior.
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>> I have just got a new Sony TV with a Sony Blue Ray player thrown
>> in, plus two Blue Ray DVDs - Harry Potter - and I'm not impressed with
>> the quality of the discs. The HD channels on my TV are far superior.
Understandable the quality of the original film was pretty poor too.
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DVDs look brilliant on my Panasonic Blueray player and on my 22" LG 1080P TV. The colour definition is a lot better on DVDs than they were with my old none HD player.
Also you can get decent BR players quite cheap now, so I would always buy a Blue Ray over a DVD but if your choice is keep your existing unit or buy a new one I would probably wait a while longer or see if you can borrow a friends HD source to see if it improves things.
Is a bit of a gamble as it does depend purely on your TV.
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Thanks for all the above. I will put this on hold for a while.
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DVDs on Blu Ray Players - WillDeBeest
