I was just wondering how well the DVDs that I've been burning onto single layer DVD-Rs with Shrink would work on: 1) A standard DVD player attatched to a 720P and 1080P HDTV 2) An HD DVD player attatched to an HD TV, since I know that the HD DVD players are supposed to upgrade standard DVDs to near HD quality. I'm just asking because I'm thinking of getting an HDTV and I am curious how my collection of burnt DVDs will look on them since you have to have shrink compress them to fit on single layer DVDs. Thanks all!
I usually do just the movie and keep the compression as low as possble and the movies look great on my 720p 40" Samsung LCD. Not nearly as good as HD and there will still be some letter boxing on some of the dvds (the dvd picture ratio determines that). Even movies with as much as 60% compression look pretty good no worse than regular TV.
Ok thanks, I was just worried that they would look crappy on the TV. Does anyone else have similar experiances with this or different even??
I have an Olevia HDTV. With it I use a Philips Model 5960 DVD player. It is an upconverting DVD player. The picture I get is very very good. I usually do movie only on my backup discs to keep the compression as high as possible. I haven't tried it with a regular DVD player. However I have an older TV with a regular player in another room. The picture I get with my upconverting player on the same disc is much better.
I have a 1080p LCD TV. Now understand that 1080p means 1080 fixed pixel de-interlaced lines are shown no matter what the input signal (480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) might be. So obviously the TV has a chip that upscales (480 or 720 to 1080) and de-interlaces (makes p out of i) for the final viewing product. Question then becomes "what is your Hi Def player putting out." I.E. is the TV or player doing the upscaling/de-interlacing? Or is it some combination of the two? You can usually set the player max HD output. The best choice is a somewhat subjective choice. I have a PS3 (FW 1.8) for the Blu-ray DVD format and a Toshiba A20 (Fw 1.5 I believe) for the HD-DVD format. Both players upscale and de-interlace about anything you throw at them to a 1080p output which then inputs to the TV. And I had a old conventional Pioneer DVD SD (480i) player for a while also in the entertainment system. To cut right to the chase, I found the PS3 played (i.e. upscaled/de-interlaced to 1080p) SD DVDs (Shrink created at 480i) best - better than the Toshiba A20 (upscaled/de-interlaced to 1080p), or the Pioneer (using the TV to upscale/de-interlace). I would rank these choices as PS3, A20, and last, Pioneer. Of course this is a subjective conclusion. I also compared the SD DVD dual-layer original to both the Backup SD backup and the Hi-Def DVD (either Blu-ray or HD-DVD or both) - but that's another topic... So to answer your question, IMHO, SD DVDs encoded using Shrink look fine on a 1080p TV - both using a standard DVD player (the TV does the upscaling/de-interlacing work) and a Hi Def player output at 1080p. I always use the Shrink AEC feature at Max Smoothness to encode any dual-layer SD DVD to single-layer size, and then Imgburn to actually burn the DVD+R on TY blanks. Another verbose, rambling reply that I hope helps someone...
I also compared the PS3 to the Toshiba HD-XA2 and HD-A1 for upconversion performance using the HQV Benchmark DVD. I reported my scores here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/3/512241 This was on a 60" Sony A2000 series SXRD (ISF calibrated).
Eatsushi Everyone knows the Toshiba HD-XA2 is the Gold Standard player, and costs about 3 times what I paid for the HD-A20. I just wanted a cheap 2nd generation 1080p HD-DVD player and the A20 fit the bill. The PS3 came about to give my grandson something to do when he visits (he has a X-box 360 at home), and I figured I could watch Blu-ray movies. Plus I'd have yet another computer to play with - I don't game at all. My system uses a cheap old Vizio 47" LCD TV (Costco's most popular model) that is nowhere in the same class as the Three S's (Sony, Sharp, and Samsung) when it comes to picture quality. I know it isn't as bright nor has the same fast response time of the Three S's, however it's good enough. I was going to wait a while to go Hi Def, but then I did the math and realized the TV, PS3, and HD-A20 would only set me back $2,550 USD, and I could use my existing audio amp and speakers, so I took the plunge. I agree with your analysis using quantitative benchmark tests, even though it isn't exactly comparing the HD-A20 model to the PS3. My A20 Toshiba player does seem to have better "picture detail" (less noise, jagged edges, and better de-interlacing), however, the PS3 does seem to have the better "color" and "presence" (nice subjective terms). I figure the PS3 will only get better with each FW upgrade since it is in essence a powerful computer - but who knows. I'll start watching SD DVDs on the A20, or at least switch between the two, based on your analysis.
@eatsushi: Thanks for the report. Have you tried the BluRay and HD DVD versions of the HQV Benchmark?
@dblbogey7: A friend of mine has ordered both discs and we'll be doing the tests as soon as they arrive.
