Noticeable difference on cheaper HDTV with progressive scan DVD player?

Question

My girlfriend recently picked up a 32" 720p HDTV. Its one of the cheaper HDTV's around right now. It shows in some of the specs, the most striking being a 1500:1 contrast ratio. She only picked it up because she wanted a flat tv and flat tv's cost only a little less than this one so she figured it was the better deal

My girlfriend is not technical, nor particularly prone to closely scrutenize image quality. She currently has only a older DVD player hooked up to the tv so it only has component output. She finds the quality improvement noticeable with just this setup.

I was thinking of getting her a progressive scan DVD player with HDMI output to help maximize the image quality, but I'm wondering if the differences will be noticeable to the relatively untrained eyes of my girlfriend.

So to simplify, regular dvd vs prog-scan dvd w/hdmi on lower end 32" HDTV with 1500:1 contrast ratio. Noticable difference to the average person?

Answer 1

Honestly, I do not believe you will see much of a difference using the HDMI output over the Component output. Component output is actually capable of trasmitting 1080p they just dont do it because of copywrite issues. You can still use your component output with a progressive scan DVD player too.

Not only that, I have sat in front of my TV and switched back and forth from progressive scan to interlaced and have not seen much difference. There is a difference but not a big one. Chances are you will not really notice the difference unless you do a side by side comparison or a switch back and forth like I did. Your mind can play tricks on you. The best way to do it is with a blind test and switch from progressive to interlaced without knowing which one it is set to in the first place.

Kind of like what an eye doctor does.

"Which is clearer lense 1 or 2, 2 or 3"?

And yes they have become dirt cheap. I do not know where you live But we have Menards here and just before Christmas they had Progressive scan DVD players for 14.99. If that aint dirt cheap, I don't know what is. Granted they were big time cheapos but they still claimed to be progressive scan.

How good the image really was I'll never know.

I don't think you'll get an HDMI connection on a DVD player that cheap though.

Answer 2

Progressive scan DVD players have gotten dirt cheap, so get her one even if she can't see the difference she will like getting a gift.

Answer 3

Hi Steve -

I'm afraid the answer to your question is a big "it depends."

Your gf's tv is displaying a progressive image, rather than an interlaced one, but it's the tv set that's doing the conversion.  If you get a progressive scan dvd player, it will be the dvd player doing the conversion instead.  This could be significantly better, or it could be worse, or it could be about the same.

Here's an analogy - back in the old days I had a TV and a VCR. The VCR had a tuner in it, just like the TV.  I figured out that the VCRs tuner gave me a better picture than the built-in tuner in the TV.  But I hadn't purchased it knowing that was true, it was luck of the draw.  

So if you get a good player (probably not one for $50) you can almost certainly improve the picture quality, but if you get a junky one it won't necessarily help at all...