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Why are progressive players better?
With all the hype flying around about progressive DVD players, many people have assumed that when they get their new progressive player home and plug it in, the difference will smack them in the face and it will be like watching a whole new film. We’re here to tell you that’s not so. If you don’t know what to look for, the difference between interlaced and progressive can be quite subtle. Not to say that there’s no improvement, but it’s not the kind of improvement that will knock most viewers off their feet. Once you understand the improvements, though, and know what to look for, we think most people will be hooked, and will no longer want to watch their DVDs in interlaced form.
The magnitude of the change you will see also depends on what you were watching before. If you switch from a regular interlaced TV to a progressive-scanned 480p picture, you should see a much smoother, more film-like picture, with much less obvious scan line structure, and more apparent vertical resolution. The difference should, in fact, be pretty obvious. But if, like most new high-end TVs, your TV has a built in deinterlacer (often called a “line doublerâ€), then the television has been converting your interlaced signal to 480p already, so the smoothness and lack of line structure are already there. So what can a progressive DVD player offer? Better deinterlacing, to start with. In other words, the deinterlacer in the DVD player is likely better than the one in your TV.
Most high-end TVs have a motion-adaptive deinterlacer, with no film mode, so they can’t recreate a perfect progressive film frame from film-originated sources. (The TV has its deinterlacer optimized just for video sources, such as news broadcasts.) But nearly all progressive DVD players, certainly all the ones we review here, have a deinterlacer with a film mode (remember, film sources contain 24 unique frames per second, and video sources contain 60 unique fields per second). The result is that when watching film- originated DVDs, you will get far less line twitter on thin horizontal and near-horizontal lines, you will keep full resolution on camera pans and zooms, and you will see less noise on high-detail areas. To see this effect, look at thin lines in the background, especially on slow camera movement. Look at high-detail areas of the picture, like trees and bushes, again especially on slow camera moves. Once you see how sharp and clear those areas look with good film-mode deinterlacing, you won’t want to go back.
If you don’t really see any difference, then perhaps your TV has a better deinterlacer than most, and includes a film mode. Then you will see very subtle differences, perhaps no difference at all, switching between progressive and interlaced output on your DVD player. The deinterlacer in the TV may be just as good as the one in the DVD player. Even in this case, though, the progressive player has an advantage: better resolution. When the television deinterlaces the analog signal, it has to digitize the signal, send it through a deinterlacing chip, and convert it back to analog to feed to the CRTs. That process inevitably loses some resolution. It might not be much. You might feel like you can live with it. But it would be a good idea to get a copy of the Avia DVD and look at the resolution pattern on it to see exactly how much you are losing. About 10 TVL (TV Lines) of loss is good, 15 is average, and 20 or more is bad. With the progressive DVD player, you should be able to get all 540 TVL. But if your TV has a good film-mode deinterlacer, and you feel like you can live with the resolution loss, then save yourself the money and get a nice interlaced player.
Sometimes you see folks commenting on the improved blacks and color saturation of their progressive players. This is a mirage. Progressive players are not supposed to improve black level or color saturation. The reason it may look different is that the standard black level on a progressive player is usually different from the standard black level on an interlaced player, for technical reasons having to do with conflicting TV standards. And when black levels go down, the saturation of colors on the screen inevitably goes up, because white is being removed from the color. Once you calibrate your display with Avia or Video Essentials, the color, contrast, and black level should look exactly the same with interlaced vs. progressive. The only advantage of a progressive DVD player is in the lack of interlace artifacts. Of course, if your progressive DVD player is a lot better than your old interlaced player, it may look better for a variety of reasons. But it still shouldn’t change your black level or color saturation.
Edited By sknath on 1036519792
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o: :O ???
..Dont think that watching the film on this kinda DVD ppl @ Hollywood would even bother watching the film in its entirety !