Best way to preserve 16:9 DVD's to widescreen HD TV

[thefiddler]

My family had a widescreen TV and 5.1 stereo system installed while I was away at school, and on a trip out of the country. So I didn't have much input in how it was setup. Realy the sound is awesome, and the TV is great too, the problem is the video coming into the TV. Luckily at this point it looks like we'll be calling the guy back who set it up and changing some things around. I just want to get informed on this one thing before I talk with him.

How do I send a widescreen signal to the TV from the DVD player. Right now it's hooked up through composite cables. it looks great in 4:3 mode but doesn't recognize when a widescreen signal is being sent through, so it has to "zoom" in on the letterboxed 4:3 to get 16:9. This isn't a big deal, but I can see the quality difference. And since DVD's aren't HD in the first place, any quality reduction is undesirable to me.

So how do you output a true 16:9 signal? Is the only option a DVD box that upsamples to HD, then input pure digital through HDMI? Or is there regular progressive scan DVD players that will do HDMI without upsampling? Or does something else in the system just need to be setup differently?

I know a little about all this, just not enough about the consumer hardware end. Thanks in advance for any help/tips/pointers.

[manono]

Hi-

Congrats on the new TV. Are you sure this set-up/installation guy knew anything at all about what he was doing? You weren't there, so there's no real way to know, but from the evidence he left behind, I'd say no.

First, get rid of the composite cables as quickly as you can. Go down to Wal-Mart and get a $20 set of component cables and set up the DVD Player for 16:9 output. If both the player and the TV can take a digital connection (DVI or HDMI), then you might consider getting a cable for that. Otherwise, don't bother with a converter box for analog->digital, if that's what you were asking.

To send a widescreen signal from DVD player to TV, you first have to be playing a 16:9 DVD. On the back of the case it'll say something like 16:9 or Enhanced for Widescreen TV sets, or some such. There are many widescreen 4:3 DVDs out there. They all look like junk on a good TV set. From your description, you may have been testing with one.

Also, calibrate the TV. This can be done as simply as using the THX Optimizer found on the Star Wars DVDs, as well as many others, or as elaborately as using the AVIA or Digital Video Essentials DVDs, or even more elaborately as paying a professional $200 for the job. You can't expect a good picture until after it's been calibrated. Out of the box, or in a showroom, they are often very bad. I don't think you need to call the guy back, though. Perhaps others, such as the resident expert here, edDV, will have other suggestions, elaborations, or even corrections. Good luck and have fun watching your favorite movies in all their enhanced glory.

[thefiddler]

Ooops, my bad. He did use component cables. I just wasn't thinking and typed composite for some reason.

Anyway, I'm glad you said that. I just checked and it was just a setting on the DVD player. It wasn't set to send out a widescreen signal throught the component output. Now it looks great.

Yeah, I think the guy is pretty good at what he does (though it looks like the DVD player he setup has HDMI and he didn't hook it up that way). He was planning on coming back to finish up some stuff he didn't do before. So maybe he just forgot about that setting while doing the initial setup. It's really a pretty sweet system, he just had a few things left to setup.

I'll try the THX optimizer when I get a chance, but for now it looks way better. I also set it to output progressive for all DVD's. I assume this is a good choice since it's a plasma TV.

[BJ_M]

HDMI doesnt always have the better picture - in fact the new samsung bluray players look better on component reports suggest as one example ...

and yes -- set to progressive widescreen for plasmas ... if there is a black level setting ... set it at the lower setting so blacks look black and not grey (not every dvd player has this) ...

if you have cable or sat. , get HD and set it up also ...

[manono]

...(though it looks like the DVD player he setup has HDMI and he didn't hook it up that way).

So both the player and the TV set have HDMI ports? Then, if the TV set is big enough, you may be able to benefit from an all digital connection, which should give you a cleaner, less noisy signal. You can't really expect him to have set it up using HDMI unless either the TV or the DVD player came with an HDMI cable. They can be fairly expensive, but this place has good ones for very reasonable prices:

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/dvi/index.htm

I also set it to output progressive for all DVD's. I assume this is a good choice since it's a plasma TV.

Depends on which does the better interlace->progressive conversion, the player or the TV. In general though, it's better to let the player do it, yes. It just depends on how good your DVD player is.

[thefiddler]

The TV is a 50" or 52" Panasonic plasma. The Component signal right now looks pretty darn good. The DVD player does have an HDMI output (at least I assume it does since its in the settings, haven't actually looked at the back of the thing). And it's a Sony 400 disc carousel, so I assume it should do pretty good progressive conversion. Don't know about black level, will look into that. Though there are several cinema display modes and a custom one which I assume allows you to adjust stuff like black level.

Thanks a lot guys.

[BJ_M]

if it is a 555, use component cables , if it is a 777 - it doesnt have HDMI, though it is a tank workhorse ..

i have 2 of the 777's , which output to the whole house

[thefiddler]

It has the HDMI logo right on the front I just noticed. So that's an option.