Hey guys...

been following the posts for a while now, and am considering buying the guide! The results from most of these projectors are awesome!

Anyways, I was just wondering which is better for quality? A Home Theatre PC with a Digital TV Tuner card, dvd rom, etc...or a progressive scan dvd player with a video upscaler? Is there a big difference? Advantages and disadvantages of each?

Cheers from Australia!

It really depends on your budget and what your main use for the projector is going to be.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both -- the HTPC is good because you can turn it into a DVR (TIVOish) and all that, and store your TV shows on the Harddrive, get extended TV listings via MYTHtv or other services, and the picture quality is outstanding from DVDs on a PC, plus computer gaming is built in if you are into that.

Once major disadvantage (at least for me...) is that Digital Capture cards on PCs will not give good performance if you route a Console Gaming system through it -- too much delay (lag between the console and the video is about 1.5 seconds on the PVR-250 from Happaugue with my Xbox). Depending on your choice of video card, the output settings may also not be as adjustable as the N6 or other scalers.

If you can afford it -- a hybrid system of both a HTPC and a scaler is hard to beat and covers all the bases. (or whatever you call them in Cricket...)

~DM~

Same as in Ice Hockey.........Creases.

I would like to clarify that this is for a PVR tuner card and not for regular capture cards like the PixelView XCapture that does not invoke a delay as it does not timeshift.

Here is a tweak that you can use to turn off the timeshifting feature in the Happaugue cards: Enable Live Preview , bypass encoder for 0 delay and fast channel change

Hope this helps


peace

Sorry..I'm a bit of a noob at this but those new dvd players with the ability to output at 480p, 1080i etc..that just basically does what an upscaler does yeah? except it's just done within the dvd player itself.

And when u play a dvd on the computer, the video card is the upscaler...and from what i gather, you guys think that the good video cards will upscale better than other upscalers such as the N6 coupled with a dvd player?

How does the computer deal with progressive scan? Does the software dvd player just do it? Hang on..what exactly IS progressive scan..is it just upscaling as well?

Thanks!

No muffdaddy Progresive scan is not upscaling.
lets take 480i and 480p
there are 480 lines of resolution or pixels on your standard CRT screen in the 480i
mode the lines are decoded and sent to the display in a odd numered lines then even numbered {IE1,3,5,7,9,to 479}then {2,4,6,8,480}this is known as interlacing.
On large screens this can be seen as a jerky picture interlacing has been the standard since they invented television.

Now with Digital enter 480p it means that the lines are updated in numercal order Ie {123456-480} which gives the smoothest refresh on large screens.

so when u view a dvd on ur computer using ur lcd monitor (or projector)...is it "scanned progressively"?

Yes, all video cards output progressive signals natively.


peace

Has anyone looked into the LGDV7832 DVD or its twin the Zenith DVB318 for upscaling their DVD's via component. It also has a DVI cable however I hear through reviews that it has a few problems with its DVI but it is supposed to have a great component upscaler. Price is around 165$.

Also, could someone explain how a person could get around the copyright protection of a commercial DVD that restrict DVI to 480p. It would seem that it would be useless to have a DVI interface that can upscale to 720p or 1080i if you are limited to 480p. Would it not be better to just buy a great component upscaler where their are no restrictions on upscaling? According to some reviews, the upscaler via component on this DVD player was a tad bit better than what had been noticed on 720p DVI from a higher priced DVD player and on a PC.

huh? sorry i dont think I understand. A dvd contains only 480i info. The player may have a de-interlacer in it to send out 480p. As for higher resolutions it is not the conector it is whether or not the DVD player has a built in upscaler. It is not "disabled" it is simply not there period.


Then again maybe I dont understand your question.

Yes, I am speaking of an upscaler in the DVD. From what I gathered on another forum, due to copy protection, commercial DVD's cannot be upscaled and sent through DVI. You are only limited to 480p. Being HDCP compliant means that most store bought dvds cannot be scaled, but home made video can. I guess a person could put it through DVD X Copy, compress it and take out the copy protection. With component, however,this would not be a problem.

If I am totally of base, let me know. I'm still in the learning phase and I do not wish to put out bad info. Thanks.

sorry I never heard about that. Seems a little like a waste to hook up a dvd player to a HDTV with dvi if that is the case.

Oh well my dvd player dont have a dvi or upscaler so it don't matter to me but I will definately keep this in mind in the future.

Yeah, it seems like a waste to me as well- as far as dvi. However, that was the reason I made the comment about component output. Seems that if you convert it to analog first you can then upscale it as much as you wish. So if you can find a DVD player with a great component upscaler then you can enjoy higher definition pics.

DVD media will simply not fit HD content. You would need more then 10Gb to fit high definition in the disk.

I own the zenith DVB318 and it does upconverts to 720p and 1080i thru component and DVI. My question is how can I connect this dvd player to the PJ and get the benefit of the upconversion? Can I use a component to vga cable?

You need to use somthing like the N6 with component inputs. That player has HDCP thru the DVI output and cannot be hooked up to a display device that is not compliant.

What is the native rez of your monitor? If it is 1280x1024 you might get lucky by it being able to take a 1280x720 signal and just using the 720 lines and not trying to stretch it to fill the screen.
If that is the case I would set the DVD player to scale to 720p and send it out to the N6 via component with the N6 outputing 1280x720 for just one conversion, thus giving you a true 16:9 resolution. This is if your monitor is 1280x1024.

If your monitor is 1024x768 set the DVD player to output 1080i with the N6 outputing 1024x768. Your going to go thru 2 conversions anyways so might as well start with a higer rez.


peace

Thanks for the clarification. I'll be using a 15" LCD, so thats 1024x 768. I thought that LCD's were able to rescale to its native resolution. I guess not.

So I think I might need to get a N6 or a HTPC. Or maybe the BenQ Q150a. It has a built in scaler but too $$$ and don't know if it has an FFC issue

Thanks again