Xbox as a DVD player

dwayneburke

Hi

I have a Xbox being used as a DVD player at the minute connected to a projector...would i bet better off getting a dedicated DVD player for this purpose i.e. will the image be much better?

Thinking of getting Toshiba SD330E Multi-region DVD Player from amzon for £124 inc P&P

Any ideas welcome

robbie1876

Hi Dwayne,

As good as the X-Box is, you will find the picture quality improves with a standalone DVD player once it's properly connected. DVD discs are recorded in a native component video format. Your projector can accept this raw component video format too. So in the interests of maintaining the purest picture possible, you should connect a component-capable DVD player to your projector with the suitable cables.

If you take any other output from a DVD player or X-Box etc, the picture is converted down from component to either RGB, S-Video or Composite. At this stage, some picture quality is lost. Also, the very nature of these other video formats means that some of the picture quality will degrade, compared to component video.

That Toshiba player seems to have all the right specs, component video output etc. I don't know anything about it personally, but the best DVD picture I ever seen was from a very expensive Toshiba DVD player at a trade show!

How is your Epson projector working out, by the way?

dwayneburke

hi robbie1876

i think i will go for the yamaha s540 as it has progressive scan...not too sure what this is but im told its the business etc..€1589 from richer sounds

not too up on all the cable jargon either but im taking component as meaning the red/green/blue cable outputs from the dvd player to the corresponding ones of the projector (is this right? will this give me the best quality?) and using the optical audio output to give me 5.1. DD sound.

the Epson PJ is fantastic watched LOTR and matrix on a 13ft by 7ft approx screen....fantastic did notice what i think is known as chicken wire on it but didnt mind as the size of the image was massive , brought it down to around 7ft by 3ft and you could hardly notice it...

have it hooked up to my sky digibox also (not as good quality but still the same if not better than any pub) only problem now is trying to shift the lads who are camped out on my doorstep who premantly want to watch it..

all the best

MisterAnarchy

I have a Thomson DVD player .
I've used this for the last 2 years to play my DVD's.
I'm finding that alot of the films I've backed up tend to skip a bit on this machine.
The discs are correctly burnt as they play back perfectly on a PS2.
I'm half thinking of getting the dvd playback kit for the xbox ,and use this to play backups and home movies.
Would this ensure a smooth playback ?

dwayneburke

i have never had one problem with DVD's....rent them always .Used to have samsung dvd player about 5 years ago and this disintegrated recently...hence that is why im using the XBOX..

robbie1876

Right, I'll try and explain progressive scan without boring you to tears!!

DVDs are encoded in component interlaced format. At some stage the video signal needs to be de-interlaced for the projector to display it. A de-interlaced signal is also known a progressive signal. All projectors have de-interlacing built in to them, and the de-interlacing chip is usually of a very high standard. By de-interlacing at the DVD (a progressive scan DVD player), you are by-passing the projector's own de-interlacing.

This is really only effective if you are using a high end DVD player with a superb de-interlacing chip. Otherwise, just let the projector do it. So when looking for a DVD player, unless you are going to spend upwards of €1000, don't worry about it being progressive scan or not. Just go with whichever one is getting the best reviews etc, once it has component video out it will be suitable.

You should definitely connect the DVD player using the component video cables. They are indeed coloured Red, Green and Blue, but are usually labelled Y, Y(p b) and Y(p r). Thats how you know its component video. Connect to the corresponding inputs on your projector like you said. You may need to set the output of the projector to component from the settings menu. This will give you the best possible picture, and help to remove any flickering or 'chicken wire' problems too.

Regarding sound, officially the optical output is not as good as the digital coaxial output for sound, but you won't notice the difference unless you have a seriously high end audio system to play with. So stick with it.

Good to hear the projector's working out!! God help you when Euro 2004 is on!! You'll never get rid of your mates then...

Robbie

dwayneburke

Thats bang on robbie1876...

makes sense when u put it like that....so your saying to me its pretty much pointless paying the extra €€€'s for progressive and go for the standard home dvd Player (half decent of course...was looking at`

Pioneer DV2650 (Multi-region) - €100
Panasonic DVDS35 (Multi-region) - €120
Yamaha DVDS540 (multi Region) - €160

That is very interesting about the optical out being not as good "officially" as the coax... i would have thought it was the other way around...

And yes im looking forward to the Euro2004 as well.....:D

Cheers for the help

MoosemaN

robbie1876

Hmm, I can promise you that I get much better picture from My Philips DVD963 SA than you can get from any Interlaced DVD player in the same price region.

It is connected with component video.

You can get a pretty decent picture from the Xbox, but then you need to chip it and put on an American High-definition pack.
Then you can get all the resolutions from it up to 1080i

Please prove me wrong.

robbie1876

Hi Mooseman,

That Philips DVD player sounds quite interesting, but I've never seen the picture from it before. My favourite DVD player in that price range (€500 or so, right?) is the Pioneer DV-565A, which apart from also having Progressive Scan output and SACD, is DVD-A compatible too, which is a nice bonus.

Are you running the Philips into a projector? If so, what difference does it make to the picture if you turn Progressive Scan output off? In other words, when the projector is doing the de-interlacing, not the DVD player. I'd be curious to know if you can spot any difference!

It's worth pointing out too, that Progressive Scan output from a DVD player only works on NTSC discs. This is true of every DVD player I know apart from the Arcam DV89 which can output progressive from a PAL DVD. So in other words, all this is irrelevent if you are watching European PAL discs.

Thats quite interesting about the upgrade for 1080i on the Xbox. I still reckon most decent standalone DVD players will outperform it, purely because of the dedicated video processing on any decent DVD player. I must check it out though.

Cheers,

Robbie

MoosemaN

Robbie1876,

I can run it in Progressive in both Pal and NTSC.

It is a very good DVD player paid 399 Euros for it from Germany 6 months ago.

Running it to my Panasonic PT-AE300 which is up to 800 hours of DVD-watching (poor thing)

My girlfriend is over here visiting from Sweden, so I cannot take pictures of the difference right now. But I should be able to do this for you in a later on stage.

But I must say that especially for a Person that is going to use a projector; to put a lot of research into what DVD-player to run.

I find that My DVD-player gives a better picture than the Xbox.

robbie1876

Thats quite interesting that it can handle progressive in PAL and NTSC. It was inevitable that after Arcam figured it out, a lot more companies would release PAL progresive equipment.

Sounds like a nice setup you have. What I was saying earlier about the de-interlacing chip being better in the projector than the DVD is most likely true in your case. The Panny AE300 is one of my favourite projectors, and my experience first hand with the Pioneer DVD I mentioned earlier, was that the result was better with progressive off, and the AE300 doing the de-interlacing. You should definitely try it for comparison!

My girlfriend is over here visiting from Sweden, so I cannot take pictures of the difference right now.

Camera's in use, what with your swedish girlfriend being around, eh?

MoosemaN

I will give it a try before I give my final answer.

I have just seen the difference when playing games on my Xbox running 720p and 525p compared to Interlanced.. The pictures is much better.

For thoose who wonder what progressive is:
[URL=http://]http://www.avdeals.com/classroom/Proscanexplained.htm[/URL]

Originally posted by robbie1876
Camera's in use, what with your swedish girlfriend being around, eh?

Hehe, do not want to go into to many personal things about my girlfriend

dwayneburke

Just my penny's worth

got the RGB cable today....what a difference a cable makes....its fantastic the differnce compared to the phono cable....i will never go back..

DVD's look so much alive now...and couler is much better

Cheers

ZENER

Good thread guys - learning lots about PS.

Just one thing though - RGB is not Component. RGB is three signals Red Green and Blue, component video comprises of the luminance (Y) signal and two colour difference signals B-Y and R-Y, the green is calculated internaly in a matrix circuit.

About the projector handling the de-interlacing, does it not have to convert the analogue signal back to digital to do this, so that means the signal goes from digital (DVD) to analogue (DVD output) to digital (projector) Does that not degrade the picture ?

How does PS deal with sources that were originally film based shot at 24fps? I can under stand how it could benefit video sourced material with 50 or 60 interlaced fields where their are 50 or 60 different images or fiels per second, can anyone explain ?

Tinky

robbie1876

Just one thing though - RGB is not Component.

Good point, although an RGB cable is pretty much the same as a component cable. You'll find that cables that claim to be component cables still have the plugs coloured RGB. This is because most DVD players share the component and RGB output jacks.

Dwayne, when you say you have the RGB cable, is it the RGB from the X-Box you are using or from a DVD player? I'm delighted that you noticed a massive difference moving up from composite to RGB. Your next step is component from a suitable DVD player. Although, you won't notice the same big leap in quality going from RGB to component as you did going from composite to RGB. It is still worthwhile doing, though.

About the projector handling the de-interlacing, does it not have to convert the analogue signal back to digital to do this, so that means the signal goes from digital (DVD) to analogue (DVD output) to digital (projector) Does that not degrade the picture ?

You are correct on this, it does degrade the picture quality slightly. But there are a couple of things to consider. DVDs are recorded in component video format, so when a DVD player converts from digital component to analogue component, there is no video processing involved, just a straight D/A conversion. Even basic DVD players can perfom this operation to a very high standard. On the other hand, if you use the RGB, S-Video or composite outputs, the DVD player must convert the video format. This is where you notice big differences in the quality of DVD players.

De-interlacing is video processing, and the results you get are totally dependant on the quality of the de-interlacing chip. Generally speaking, most good projectors have good superb de-interlacing abilities. By sending the pojector a high quality interlaced component signal, there will indeed be two transfers between analogue and digital.

By de-interlacing at the DVD player, you run the risk of the de-interlacing chip not being as good as the projector's one. The opposite could be true of course too, that the DVD player's chip is better. However, when the progressive picture reaches the projector, it will still be converted to digital, because it still has to pass through the projector's scaler. The scaler takes the incoming picture format and converts it to the native resolution of the projector. i.e. if a DVD is outputting 720x576 (PAL DVDs), the scaler will convert this to 960x540 (Panasonic AE300). So the picture still passes through 2 D/A conversions.

How does PS deal with sources that were originally film based shot at 24fps? I can under stand how it could benefit video sourced material with 50 or 60 interlaced fields where their are 50 or 60 different images or fiels per second, can anyone explain ?

Never thought of this! I have no idea, but I'd be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on this too.

MoosemaN

Films are normally shot at a frame rate of 24 frames per second. This is also the rate used to transfer the vast majority of films to DVD-Video. In other words, DVD-Video movies are usually recorded as 24-frame progressive scan images. So what happens when they are reproduced as an interlaced image? To match the TV field rate of 60 fields per second, each of the film's 24 frames must be shown either twice or three times in an alternating sequence. This kind of conversion sometimes causes two different film frames to overlap as they make up one TV frame, causing visible jaggedness along contours in the picture.

With progressive scanning, this kind of frame overlap doesn't occur. To match the TV field rate of 60 fields per second, it's still necessary to scan each film frame two or three times, as in interlaced scanning. But this is followed by a pattern detection algorithm, that determines which fields should be paired to reassemble the frames as they were on film. This process, called inverse 3:2 pull-down, results in a series of complete de-interlaced frames.

Is this the answer you where looking for?

What you have to look for when you are buying a PS DVD player is which chip it is using.

For ex. The Philips is using a Faroudja DCDi FLI2310, which is a very good chipset.

And also look at how many bit the output is on the component signal.