Dark picture, poor quality

[maxid]

Dont know if anyone can help. In the first battle scene of Gladiator, the dark areas are pixelated and grainy (almost large dots). On Harry Potter, the prisoner of A.., during the broom stick flying scenes, the clouds are pixelated.
I have a philips DVP 5100 with a Samsung plasma. I have turned on the progressive scan. I thought it was down to my other goodmans player.

Can anyone tell me if its the films? or is it likely to be plasma or dvd player problem?

thanks

[guns1inger]

Don't take these questions personally, but they have to be asked

Are these original disks ?
If not, have they been recompressed ?
If they have, did you do it yourself, and if so, how ?

To be honest, I find most plasma TVs (except, perhaps for the very top of the line HD models) have a real problem with colour banding and often produce this kind of image, regardless of quality of source.

That is not to say that it isn't the source material, but if it is you should be able to see it on any TV.

[ROF]

These movies look fine on my Plasma screen. No pixelation at all. I have the disc sets for both HP:PoA and Gladiator.

[maxid]

hi, the dvds are originals. Could it be the player? even with progressive scan? never thought to try a normal tv!

[ROF]

have you tried the picture enhancement settings on the DVD Players menu?

[garryheather]

The plasma probably has some edge "enhancement" (!!) going on too - might be worth seeing if you can turn that off. Look for terms like "Theatre" or "Cinema" mode or anything DSP related - these are often cheap effects that prevent you seeing the movie as the director intended...

[=CrAzYG33K=]

isn't the Philips DVP5100 the one with the DivX functionality..??
uhmm.. I'd heard a lot of problems about that model
Does it play divx CDs and burned DVDs fine?
Not that it is off-topic.. but I think this has something to do with the DVD player!