Video Asylum

Posted by racerguy (A) on January 03, 2009 at 17:03:32

In Reply to: RE: X1 PJ; would an upscaling DVD player make a difference? posted by grantv on January 03, 2009 at 08:32:46

Commercially-available "upscaling" DVD players only "upscale" via their digital outputs (DVI or HDMI). Copy protection schemes built into commercial DVDs and DVD players limit component video output of commercial material to 480p. There are supposed to be ways to get around these schemes, and there have been players that could be "hacked" to allow higher-than-480p output from component video, but all have limitations/compromises.

If you want higher-than-480p resolution, you could get a Blu-ray player and watch Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray players can output 1080i via component video from Blu-ray discs that allow hi-rez output from component video (most, if not all, Blu-ray discs currently do). Note that a Blu-ray player will not output higher than 480p from component video on regular DVDs, so there will be no benefit gained there.