Can a standard DVD player be converted for HDMI?

Question

Just got a new Philips plasma 50" screen TV with 2 HDVI inlets. Have a practically new, and hardly ever used, Sony DVD player with standard Red-Yellow-White cables. Is there a HDVI cable that can somehow be used with this DVD player, or should I scrap it and buy new one. It is in excellent shape and would hate to have to discard.

Answer 1

Unfortunately the Red-Yellow-White cables are just Composite video with 2-channel audio.  The video quality of this is mediocre.  Most likely your DVD Player also has Component output (Red-Green-Blue) which would be better to run to your new TV then just the old composite video out.   As for converting it to HDMI, you can get a converter, but the price you'd pay would not be justifiable considering you can purchase a DVD Player with HDMI output for under $100.  

Now if you Truly want to enjoy the resolution capabilities of your 50" Plasma, you need to feed it a true Hi-Def signal from  on of the newer format players, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.   And yes you can get a combo player that plays both formats as well as the traditional DVD disc.   LG makes the unit which was introduced last year.

Answer 2

Practically no. HDMI is digital and composite (yellow) and component (red/green/blue) are analog. And even if you could it would only be 480i (or p if a progressive player). You need an upconverting DVD player or true HD disk player (Blu-ray or HD DVD) to get HD output over HDMI.

BTW, your HDTV will upconvert from 480i/p to it's native HD resolution (use component cables to get the best picture), however most HDTVs do not do as good a job as a good upconverting DVD player (See link).

If your new TV is 720p format you should consider a good upconverting DVD player since your TV won't provide significant benefit from HD disks (in my view certainly not worth the premium price of disks). Of course this would be for you to decide.

If your Phillips HDTV is 1080p you might be better off buying an HD disk player. Both formats upconvert normal DVDs as well as play their respective format HD disks. If you are prepared to pay the premium price for HD disks over DVD, Blu-ray is the better choice since it is the most likely survivor of the HD "format wars" ... but it's more expensive (~$400) than HD DVD players (from ~$125).

Even with Blu-ray being the probable survivor format, there are still circumstances where purchsing an HD DVD player makes sense. I suggest if you consider it as an upconverting DVD player (that will also play HD DVD disks) and compare to DVD only upconverters the prices are close. And if you can buy with the 5 free HD DVD disks (or 10 that Amazon were offering recently) it almost becomes a no brainer.

Silencet... is not a fan of upconverting, however he is wrong about the potential quality of the output. While some upconverters don't do a good job, the better ones (e.g. Reon HQV, Faroudja/Genesis) do a remarkable job. No, you can't put in detail that wasn't originally there, but you can get an image that at 720p is only slightly soft relative to true HD. I don't claim upconverters beat 1080p HD, but it's still a very watchable picture.

I can speak from experience since I use an HD-A2 HD DVD player as my primary player in my home theatre, and the image on my 110" screen and 720p projector looks pretty darn good to me. HD DVDs (which are acknowledged as having the same video quality as Blu-ray) look only slightly better -- not enough for me to have bothered buying more than one or two.

So .. there's the info. Balance your options and decide. Happy watching of your new HDTV.

Answer 3

No DVD players play in HD, the resolution you get out of a set of composites are the best it gets and for DVD hi-def isn't really offered.  Can it be converted to HDMI, well in theory yes it can but you will not get upscaled resolution.  Realistically upscaling itself is a joke, it utilizes an age old dithering technique to give the illusion of HD.  You have 2 realistic choices for HD video and thats Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and I wouldn't even bother with those until a combined unit is produced and the prices drop....a lot

Answer 4

You want to use COMPONENT cables with that DVD player (and your TV should have two of these inputs).

You cannot retro-fit the player, so you have 3 choices:

A) Live with it

B) Get a AV Receiver that does HDMI up-conversion. Feed all sources to the receiver, then 1 HDMI cable to the TV

C) Replace the player with a $200 HD-DVD player or $350 BluRay player that not only gives you HDMI - but real HD as well.  Sell the DVD player on CraigsList/Ebay.