$11,000 DVD Player any better than a DVD-R Drive?

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

When I go to the airport they give out free magazines, one of them being "the perfect vision," an upscale A/V magazine. As I was reading through the March/April 2004 issue (bimonthly mag) I noticed that there was a DVD player that cost $11,250 dollars, the Ayre D-1x (ayre.com). Now I was thinking about making a PC home theater system for use with my HDTV and obviously I want the best video quality possible. So...

Is there really going to be an amazing difference between a pioneer DVD-R burner playing the DVD or a 11k dvd player? I mean, I am not in the market for a DVD player over $300 dollars, but I am just really curious how you can improve (thousands of dollars worth of improvements I would assume) a digital image getting passed over digital connection!

Any internet links would be much appreciated. Also, is there a 'better' dvd player/burner that I should be looking at for better video reproduction (although I think DVD looks really good as it is).

The TV is a 30" Sharp LCD HDTV.

[FulciLives]

In my opinion you shouldn't consider an HTPC unless you are either using it as a PVR type device with a dedicated MPEG-2 encoder/decoder or ... well read on.

The PVR option will give you "standard" DVD quality in other words 480i

Best product for such use IMHO is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 which features both inputs and outputs.

Perhaps not the "best" capture solution but works great in a PVR type set-up where you intend to watch something then delete it afterwards.

Even with carefull enough tweaking you could use it to burn the recorded content to a DVD if you want. After all it does give more flexability than a stand alone DVD recorder.

With this type of solution you are still best IMHO of using a stand alone DVD player for playback of commercial DVD discs especially those that are progressive (assuming you have a progressive TV display).

The other reason to use a HTPC is if you want to tweak the output via your video card output to stimulate a resolution in excess of the standard resolution of the DVD format.

For instance ... a 16x9 EDTV Plasma uses a resolution of 852x480 (NTSC format) which is a perfect match for 16x9 NTSC DVD content.

But a 16x9 HDTV Plasma uses a higher resolution (I forget but I think it is 1024x768 but it might be different). The point is the native resolution of the device is higher than what the DVD format is.

Now here is where the "magic" comes into play. You tweak the video out of your computer to resize (or scale) your DVD image to MATCH the native resolution of your TV display (which uses a resolution higher than DVD).

This can work and work wonders HOWEVER it is a REAL pain-in-the-ass and can get very technical with all the various tweaks you need to do to get it "just right".

There are stand alone boxes that do this kind of "up conversion" but often times they are just as expensive as putting together an HTPC and are not as flexable as an HTPC ... but then again they are easy to use hehehe

The seasoned HTPC user will tell you that the HTPC solution is better than the stand alone up conversion devices but sometimes I really wonder if that is true.

For more information on this you might want to look at the HTPC forum located at AVS FORUM.COM

Hope I've shed some light on your question.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
The up conversion stand alone devices I speak of are often called scalers. These are high end expensive things. You won't find them at Circuit City or Best Buy hehehe

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

Thx for the info, i know about upconversion and all that other good stuff (and you can actually get DVD players that will upconvert to 1080i for only $199, "V, Inc. Bravo D-1" with DVI output) but I was mainly focused on the electronic side of the DVD player, as in the mechanisms. I mean, I just don't understand where the justification is to make something that does the same thing but costs thousands more.

As far as the HTPC goes I do want to do a Tivo style thing, but I think I will wait until I can afford to copy HDTV (another predicament in itself).

As far as TVs go though the TV I have has 1,280 x 768 resolution (720p) I think I am just going to wait until HD-DVDs come out before I tackle this monster.

Thank you!

ps. If anyone can tell me what you can see with a 12k dvd player over a 200 dollar dvd player i would love to know.

[FulciLives]

Well if you ask me the only way to capture HDTV now while keeping your sanity is to use a JVC D Theatre VHS VCR or whatever they call them.

Computer capture of true HDTV just is too mucked up right now and trying to make it worth it will just drive you insane.

Also you sound smart so why the question. Surely you know the more expensive players have better processing chips and DVI output and all that.

Ain't no video shit worth $11,000 though ... at least IMHO

Of course if you are filthy rich then yeah sure what the hell.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SteelSpy]

People who spend 12k on a DVD player don't read threads on the net.

really curious how you can improve (thousands of dollars worth of improvements I would assume) a digital image getting passed over digital connection!

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all current DVD to TV/monitor connections analog? Composite, S-video, component.
I thought the only "digital connection" available would be firewire.

[disturbed1]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all current DVD to TV/monitor connections analog? Composite, S-video, component.
I thought the only "digital connection" available would be firewire.

DVI. upto 2048x1536 (60hz) dual link, 1920x1080 (60hz) single link.

The AD-DA and DA-AD converters are what would up the price. Much like buying a standard Kenwood or JVC CD player, then stepping upto a unit that uses Burr-Brown integrated circuits. If you have the ears/eyes and equiptment, there is a definite difference in quality.

If you buy your home theatre stuff from the local stores, theres no need to look for anything better than what they sell. Circuit City and Best Buy tend to top out with mid line Onkyo and Denon. Not bad, but not even close to some of the good stuff out there.

Comparing pro home theatre componets to local store bought is like comparing a Soundblaster to anything made by M-Audio.

Just like the extreme PC stuff (8 Xeons with 16GB ram ) the same is available for home entertainment.

[FulciLives]

People who spend 12k on a DVD player don't read threads on the net.

really curious how you can improve (thousands of dollars worth of improvements I would assume) a digital image getting passed over digital connection!

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all current DVD to TV/monitor connections analog? Composite, S-video, component.
I thought the only "digital connection" available would be firewire.

Well that really is not true. There is DVI for instance. This sends a digital video signal from the DVD player to the TV display.

Of course most people don't have the money to buy that kind of equipment.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[bugster]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all current DVD to TV/monitor connections analog? Composite, S-video, component.
I thought the only "digital connection" available would be firewire.

I am correcting you. DVI is a digital display connection technology (see here .

And I believe SDI is too, though a quick google found no suitable references for me to be 100% sure.

[[*]_BonKerS_[*]]

Disturbed is right, DVI is all digital, which is why you want to connect your DVD player to your plasma/LCD TV with DVI for the best picture (but I'm sure that many will argue).

And yes, while rich people may not scour the web for info on their overpriced DVD player the people that work in these video stores probably do :) Although I am sure there are a few millionaires on this forum who are just super nerdy.

I know I am a hundredaire!

[hech54]

Wow...there I was thinking the Sony ES line was overpriced..