Best Upscaling HD DVD Player?


Recommended Posts

Hey guys I was wondering what the best upscaling dvd player would be. I've heard some suggestions about Toshiba, Samsung as the top quality brands. I'm not looking for something too expensive, but at least something that will give me a boost in quality over my current setup.

Right now I'm using an xbox (modded) with XBMC or Avalaunch DVD player that upscales to 720p, however this is obviously not the same as a dvd player, not to mention it uses Component video (and I've come to notice especially with xbox360 how inferior component video truly is). I'm looking for something HDMI since my set supports it.

Price wise I'm not 100% sure.. The 850 (I believe it's 850) Samsung model costs approx $150 CAD at the moment, which is roughly around $99 US. Hopefully nothing beyond $199, since that's a bit too much.. But any suggestion is welcome.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/414731-best-upscaling-hd-dvd-player/
Share on other sites

I have the 850. Got it for $130 US. Looks nice, but its my first HD upconvert player so I have nothing to compare it to. The main reason I decided on the Samsung is because it includes the HDMI cable. So if your trying to save some money, you might want to go with that. The HDMI cable itself costs over 100 bucks if you get a good one.

Why not just use hdmi converter?

He'd still have to run audio cables. Seems as though Oppo haven't updated their unit in a while. Then, you also have to realize, older connection means older HDCP revision which may cause some issues along the line.

He'd still have to run audio cables. Seems as though Oppo haven't updated their unit in a while. Then, you also have to realize, older connection means older HDCP revision which may cause some issues along the line.

OPPO doesn't have HDCP

so i dunno what u are talking about? :blink:

OPPO doesn't have HDCP

so i dunno what u are talking about? :blink:

Well, my bad. That could prove to be a problem in and of itself, though. Content protection is going to start appearing more and more as digital devices and connections become the norm.

what kind of tv are you getting. if 1080i is the highest resolution of your tv then go for the samsung one, i've heard good things about the sammy upconverting dvd player.

if your resolution is maxed at 1080p then you might have to look for a 1080p upconverting dvd player.

The Oppo is a very feature rich unit which is definitely worth a look. I also like the Samsung HD950 and the Sony DVPNS70H. The HD850 from Sammy is ok but there have been known issues with the software both this year and last.

What kind of software issues? See I can't find the 950 from both Future Shop and Best Buy, so I'll have to find a store that sells that model. I am steering towards a Samsung model more then others, though I'm still searching obviously. WOuldn't mind that Anynet integration ^_^ lol.

what kind of tv are you getting. if 1080i is the highest resolution of your tv then go for the samsung one, i've heard good things about the sammy upconverting dvd player.

if your resolution is maxed at 1080p then you might have to look for a 1080p upconverting dvd player.

I have the Samsung LN-R268W LCD HDTV (720p/1080i). If you've seen the Xbox360 Kiosk Demo unit that's the tv I have, just the 26" larger version. Though it uses a component connection (which looks like crap compared to the VGA cables).

So anyway, obviously 1080p isn't a concern for me.

I would get the OPPO first, then the Panasonic S77.

The OPPO is by far the best Upscaling player using the faroudja 2310 chip.

It has a ton of support, new firmware every month.

I own a S97 which is right up there with the OPPO, the S77 is the new model from this year.

I wouldnt touch the other models they have huge problems and are very expensive for there downfalls.

I would get the OPPO first, then the Panasonic S77.

The OPPO is by far the best Upscaling player using the faroudja 2310 chip.

It has a ton of support, new firmware every month.

I own a S97 which is right up there with the OPPO, the S77 is the new model from this year.

I wouldnt touch the other models they have huge problems and are very expensive for there downfalls.

I'll consider it, however chances are this "Oppo" dvd player is going to be hard as hell to find here in Ontario, Canada. Lol!

According to a user review in June 2005 in that site, this DVD player upscales to DVI only and not to component. Has that been fixed with firmware upgrade now? Can it be? There could be a hardware limitation. I noticed other players such as the LG upscales to both HDMI and component.

I don't think any player I've seen upscale on the analog component connections. What LG model are you looking at?

The LDA-531.

I got that information from the same site that sold Oppo in Canada. Here is the page.

LG Canada website also has that in the specification.

I have not read and still looking for the manual, just to confirm. I tried downloading it from LG Canada website, but when I click on the link it pops up a message window saying I was not authorized because the request did not come from the LG sites or the request information is empty. :wacko:

This player is available from Futureshop, but it is out of stock at the moment. Probably due to boxing week.

Actually, knowing you work for an electronics retailer, I was surprised you have not seen a player that upscales over analog. :yes: It suggests that there are probably not many players that do, and it just starting to appear now for component. There are a number of HDTV's without any DVI or HDMI connector out there. For example, the Panasonic models smaller than 26" only have up to component input. Those who have these models will be quite upset if they know that they can only upscale DVD via a connector that their TV's do not have.

Edited by slomo

I got a New HDTV + HD DVD player thats supposed to convert old style dvds to the new hd format....

Its This one Here..

The HD 850 features HD Up-conversion which is an all-digital process that takes a DVD signal and converts it to match your HDTV's native resolution. This conversion eliminates video distortion and provides a great picture.

Picture does look very nice =D

I did have to buy a cable for it though, My Tv did have the input the dvd wanted so had to buy a transformer...

Not sure if its any use to you, only around ?80 though

I don't think any player I've seen upscale on the analog component connections. What LG model are you looking at?

The xbox does (modded of course). Then again it's not a dedicated dvd player (thus quality isn't as good as a good brandname upscale dvd player).

The LDA-531.

I got that information from the same site that sold Oppo in Canada. Here is the page.

LG Canada website also has that in the specification.

I have not read and still looking for the manual, just to confirm. I tried downloading it from LG Canada website, but when I click on the link it pops up a message window saying I was not authorized because the request did not come from the LG sites or the request information is empty. :wacko:

This player is available from Futureshop, but it is out of stock at the moment. Probably due to boxing week.

Actually, knowing you work for an electronics retailer, I was surprised you have not seen a player that upscales over analog. :yes: It suggests that there are probably not many players that do, and it just starting to appear now for component. There are a number of HDTV's without any DVI or HDMI connector out there. For example, the Panasonic models smaller than 26" only have up to component input. Those who have these models will be quite upset if they know that they can only upscale DVD via a connector that their TV's do not have.

I was talkign about this with some fellow best buy associates from around the country today and one guy mentioned how, in the manual, it states it only does upconversion over component video for DVD-R. While this sounds a little bogus, it may be something to keep in mind.

I was talkign about this with some fellow best buy associates from around the country today and one guy mentioned how, in the manual, it states it only does upconversion over component video for DVD-R. While this sounds a little bogus, it may be something to keep in mind.

I found a site with several user reviews that mentioned that also: upconversion over component only if you backup the original (silver, pressed) DVD-ROM, i.e. backup copy upconverts over component, original upconverts over HDMI. I was not quite sure what to make of that. What I think was maybe: 1. because of a bug, or 2. because LG or the upconversion chipset maker does not want to upconvert content protected DVD-ROM over component (analog). I was leaning towards #2 because I thought a bug this big is not likely to pass through QA and now you wrote that it is stated in the manual, so that 'feature' was intentional.

Note that an original DVD-ROM is encrypted and if I burn a backup copy of it with DVD Shrink, DVD Fab, etc. it is decrypted and is no longer a content protected material. The only way for a DVD player to know whether a DVD is content protected is through whether it is encrypted. So I think this is their way to let you to be able to upconverts home made movies on DVD and at the same time honour content protection. :yes:

According to a user review in June 2005 in that site, this DVD player upscales to DVI only and not to component. Has that been fixed with firmware upgrade now? Can it be? There could be a hardware limitation. I noticed other players such as the LG upscales to both HDMI and component.

I'm pretty sure you can still do upscaling if you use the dvi to hdmi converter which Oppo includes with the dvd player. Or am I wrong to assume this?

I'm pretty sure you can still do upscaling if you use the dvi to hdmi converter which Oppo includes with the dvd player. Or am I wrong to assume this?

I am sure it would upscale. However, what I want to do is upscale over component, not DVI or HDMI. This is to give an option for some smaller screen HDTV's which only have component (no DVI nor HDMI). There was a user review in the site that said that the Oppo does not upscale over component.

Another option is perhaps a DVI or HDMI converter to component, but is there such a device and is the quality better than if the DVD player upscales to component directly?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Same Internet Archive seemed to grab the new version https://web.archive.org/web/20...d/Setup_MakeMKV_v1.18.4.exe
    • Windows 11 KB5094126, KB5093998 bugging out Office apps but it may not be Microsoft's fault by Sayan Sen Microsoft last week released Windows 11 KB5094126 and KB5093998 as the latest Patch Tuesday updates. Following that the company also published the accompanying dynamic updates under KB5094149, KB5095971, and KB5094156. Although the tech giant did not acknowledge any major problems, some users online reported various issues ranging from OneDrive and Dropbox access problems, BitLocker recovery lockouts, to blue screens and BSODs. You can read about them in this dedicated piece. While there is still no confirmation about those problems from Microsoft the company has admitted to another bug which we did not report on. The tech giant has confirmed it has received reports of an issue in which certain third-party applications may be unable to launch Microsoft Office apps or open Office documents after installing the Patch Tuesday. This affects both Windows 11 as well as Windows 10. The company says the problem impacts a subset of applications that rely on OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) automation to communicate with Microsoft Office programs. According to Microsoft, affected scenarios involve third-party software attempting to open Office applications or documents from within their own interface. In such cases, the Office program may fail to launch altogether, or the requested document may not open. Oddly there may not be any error message, which probably makes the issue difficult to diagnose. The bug affects several Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and other apps in the Microsoft Office suite when they are launched through the affected software. These include tax and accounting software such as CCH Engagement and Workpaper Manager, dental practice management solutions like Dentrix and Softdent, as well as the popular research and reference management tool Zotero. Microsoft adds that other applications using similar Office integration methods could also experience the same problematic behavior. To understand the issue it is important to look at OLE, the Microsoft technology involved. OLE allows different applications to work together and share data, while its Automation feature lets one program control another. Thus this enables third-party software to launch Microsoft Office apps, open documents, and perform tasks automatically without requiring users to switch between programs. Because many accounting, healthcare, research, and business applications rely on OLE automation to interact with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps, any disruption can break those workflows. As a result, affected software may be unable to open Office documents or launch Office applications even though the programs themselves continue to work normally. At the moment the company has not provided a permanent fix though it has confirmed that engineers are actively working on a resolution, which will be delivered through a future Windows update. As such additional details will be shared once more information becomes available. In the meantime, Microsoft recommends a simple workaround for affected users whic is to open the Office application or document directly rather than launching it through the third-party program. For enterprise customers and organizations managing larger deployments, Microsoft says an additional mitigation is available. Admins experiencing the problem on their managed devices are advised to contact Microsoft Support for business to obtain and apply the workaround.
    • It saddens me when cars are such dull colours now. Mine is bright metallic blue and I absolutely adore it for standing out in contrast to that depressing backdrop of traffic.
    • Sparkle 2.20.0 by Razvan Serea Sparkle is a free, open-source Windows optimization tool designed to make your PC faster, cleaner, and more private. With Sparkle, you can easily debloat Windows by removing unnecessary apps and services, disable Microsoft tracking to enhance privacy, and apply performance tweaks to boost speed. Its cleaner removes junk and temporary files, while every change is safe and fully reversible. Sparkle also features a modern, user-friendly interface with automatic updates, making system maintenance simple. Explore over 39 tweaks, from disabling telemetry and hibernation to optimizing network and game settings, all aimed at customizing and enhancing your Windows experience. Sparkle supports Windows 10 and 11. Sparkle 2.20.0 changelog: Debloat Tweak has animated border New homepage loading UI New Tweak Modal (Markdown Supported) Refactored GPU Detection Added Tests with vitest Added foobar2000 to apps Added Localsend to apps Updated Modal Styles Added styles for disabled inputs Added Animated Border to debloat-windows tweak Bumped dependencies Refactor System info logic for speed Tweak info modals now support Markdown Added Clear System info cache to settings Redesigned Home Page Loading UI Changed Some Icons around the app Download: Sparkle 2.20.0 | Portable | ~100.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Sparkle Website | Github | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • lol it was a typo, fixed! haha imagine an actual 4TB Gen4 NVMe for $40 in 2026
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      Dys Topia earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Conversation Starter
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Year In
      Console General earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      517
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      184
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      106
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      88
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!