Hi mate.

AFAIK, most DVD players you buy don't actually output a HD image. That we have to leave to the upcoming next gen technologies (Bluray, HDDVD). Progressive scan usually means that you'll be getting a 480p image out of your DVD player - although that may change once next gen kicks in and you get HDMI inputs, which can push 720p (and theoretically 1080p).

As to whether they'll improve your picture quality also depends on the TV. My experience with progressive scan is that it makes the edges a little softer than what I would get with my Pixel Plus 2, which is why I use the latter via component for DVDs. However, generally images are smoother, colours are richer, and you can say goodbye to annoying dot crawl.

I'm sure there are others out there who can add to this, but IMHO at the moment, if you're using a sub 40" CRT, progressive scan via component is the way to go.

All,
May I ask, do you know of other forums for discussing AV stuffs (Malaysia-
related)? Sometimes I have questions that are not console-gaming related
that I wish to discuss/consult.

Eg. I bought a wireless AV sender/receiver yesterday but the IR extender
wouldn't work with astro's remote control.

Thanks

i only know this thread for AV discussion in malaysia. maybe you can try CARI forum, but i never go there so dunno got or not.

or you could just go to any AV shop and discuss with their knowledgeable staff. (this is just a joke)

erm...wanna ask a Q...

can i have progresive scan mode from a progressive scan dvd player via a component cable??

normal crt tv do support 480p?

Normally you'd have to enable progressive scan mode on your DVD player AND have a progressive scan-TV. Be careful though, once you enable the prog scan on your DVD player, there's a possibility no image will be present if you connect it to non progressive component inputs. On normal CRTs, using component cables won't unlock prog scan, but you'll definitely see an increase in picture quality.

agingamer: There used to be super good forum at dvdmalaysia.tk. It kinda died a while back, but it may be resurrected. That was a really good AV forum, IMHO.

seems active enough. thanks for the link.

I thought you've gone mad when you said "knowledgeable staff" and was about to send you 10,000 flame mails but luckily i've read your last note....ha-ha!!!

Sometimes really dunno laugh or cry at the pathetic morons at most AV and electrical shops who is so ignorant and sometimes LCLY when they know NOTHING....

Aginggamer: Interested in ur gadget...what it is suppose to do? Send wireless signal to ASTRO DMT unit??

If i'm not mistaken, it allows two tvs to share one DMT and you can change channels by pointing the remote to any one of the two. I think it's cool myself.

Wooi yoh! Got such thing ah!! I'm interested!! My ASTRO is connected to 3 TV's (ha ha! Try beat that! ) When i'm upstair i cannot change channels as the remote is downstair!

So anyone has actually a working unit of this kinda gadget?? Where can buy this? Pasar Road??

Heheh...AFAIK my dad uses it at his house to connect one DMT to 2 TVs, and all he had to do was to call his friendly electrician. I'm pretty sure most electrical supply shops have some flavour of the thing (I've seen at least 4 kinds). I dunno about three TVs though..heheh. How did you pull it off?

I got mine from Pasar rd. Found 2 types. One smaller(RM330) and the other shaped like UFO (RM280).

It has 2 features:
1. Wireless AV function:
AV source(eg. Astro) -> [xmitter] ...)))...[receiver] -> TV (2nd TV)

2. IR extender function:
Astro remote ...))) [ir recv]-[receiver] ...)))...[xmitter]-[ir send] ...))) [Astro DMT]

Unfortunately, the remote feature does not work with Astro's remote control.
It works with others, eg. I changed my living room's TV channel from
my bedroom.

Similar products also available URL below, but I dunno their prices.
http://www.techgadgets.com.my/tgsb/entertainment.htm

Thanks for the info AFAIK!

Another thing to look out for, if I am not wrong. Most old tube TVs are 50hz, which means if you look away, out of the corner of your eye you can see the image flickering quite badly.

New TVs can handle 100Hz, which means less flickering and more images per second. I always understood this to be progressive scan?

Can someone correct me if I am wrong?

No! No! No! 100Hz is NOT progressive scan at all!! It simply shows the images at double the frequency PAL(50Hz)=>100Hz, NTSC(60Hz)=>120Hz. It's just like ur monitor frequency. Try setting it to 60Hz and you'll feel kepala pening. The monitor should be set to 85hz and above to get a stable image.

Ur standard CRT shows 480i (interlaced), meaning it only shows half of the horizontal resolution (240) of frame 1 and then the other half of frame 2. Thus, you get to see 2 frames been "interlaced" every 1/25th or 1/30th second depending on PAL or NTSC.

With progressive scan. you see the FULL frame every time, thus your images are much much sharper, just like ur monitor.

Also, even with progressive DVD player, currently the DVD media are not really encoded properly. I read some tech stuff which i can't really understand, but it basically means the quality even with progressive scan TV and DVD player, it's not really 100% progressive due to current DVD media are encoded, but still much much better than crappy interlace.

btw, when ur watching in HDTV mode, you won't get 100Hz/120Hz as it'll drop to 50Hz/60Hz. But due to the stable full frame images, u won't get flikery images even at lower refresh rate.

Lord Ashe: how i get 3 TVs to ASTRO? 1 use composite AV, then an RF splitter behind the DMT unit to go upstair to 2 TVs.

PAL is 50 Fields Per second, because long ago the TV designers relied on the power socket's AC frequency to generate the scanning sawtooth waveform. Likewise for NTSC, because the US and Japan use 60Hz AC power, they have 60 fields per second. Two fields, odd and even, make a complete frame. That's why you'll often hear that PAL has 25fps and NTSC has 29.95fps.

100 or 120Hz TVs actually take each interlaced field and then doubles the lines to make a full frame. It also shows the rebuilt "frame" twice, that's how you get 100/120Hz from a 25/30fps PAL or NTSC source. The final image is actually "progressive" but because it's taken from an interlaced input so you'll get nasty de-interlacing artifacts.

The main confusion that used to arise from 100Hz sets is while the output is progressive, but the input front ends on some sets don't take progressive inputs! So we had a bunch of people who had 100Hz capable TVs who all of the sudden couldn't use progressive scan mode on console games. Nowadays new TVs are stamped with the "HD ready" logo, so we don't run into this problem that much anymore.

it was something about how the dvd was encoded, either 3-2 or 4-2 pulldown, or something like that. and then the dvd also sometime mis-flagged for which pulldown should be use. if you play a mis-flagged dvd with progressive scan tv, you would notice the jaggie become worse.

the name progressive really will mislead people that it will display better picture. while the tv really was displaying it in progressive, what the user actually getting is nothing more than "line doubler"

Hehe..true. In fact, Pixel Plus 2 is just that - a very good line doubler

Actually, all the major HDTV brand uses some kinda line doubler technology...vertically and horizontally. Some even got the nerve to call it line-quadrauple due to this...ah well...u can't argue with marketing people...

Actually, some line doubler does really good job, and in Pixel Plus 2 case...exceptional job! (although the images does look a bit hyper realistic at time...but i can't say that's a con).

SONY uses DRC (Digital Reality Creation), another propriatery algorithm which does a good job.

TOSHIBA recently promote their METABRAIN tech...same thing, different algorithm.

IMO, line doubler is okay. But things like "100Hz" is just frame doublers!!!!

Yeah. PP2 can make some DVDs look like they were shot on video. But somehow I love the effect!

DRC IMHO is the best kind of tech for non HDTV sets as even crappy signals look a bit better on Sony CRTs with DRC.

Haven't seen the Metabrain, must check it out!

PP2 is line doubler only when processing interlace signal. but when 480p or better, it's will be progressive mode. correct me if i'm wrong.

but those 100Hz tv is only line doubler, it doesn't support 480p. again, correct me if i'm wrong.

line doubler only when displaying interlace signal right?

i was researching about HDTV and i stumble upon this site which is a great guide for HDTV noobies like me. Maybe u guys can check it out altho some of the TV shown there, i dun think got sell here:

http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5102926-1.html?tag=eye