Cheap upscaling DVD Player for 1080p?

Basq

Bought a 37" Sharp Aquos HD (1080p) LCD TV and quality of standard DVD is well fairly reasonable. When the TruD feature is on, it's crisp but playback suffers. But when it's off, it's less crisp but plays fine so it's a toss-up!

Anyways, i just read about a number of upscaling DVD players and i read about the Samsung HD860 (currently for sale on Adverts) but i need to upscale to 1080p.. Samsung only does to 1080i.

Any suggestions for cheap solutions, and where to buy? I'm not quite ready for splurging on HD-DVD / BluRay players just yet.

PS - oh.. while we're on the subject, does anyone know if i was to buy the HD-DVD drive for the XBox 360 - would this upscale my existing DVD's? I'd assume not but best to get clarification!

Basq

Hmmm.. think i got an answer for my upscaling question for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive anyways.

Q. Does the Xbox 360 upscale standard DVD movies?

A. Absolutely, but only if you’re using the VGA connection. During the so-called “Spring Dashboard Update” Microsoft enabled DVD upscaling over the VGA connection, so if you’re using VGA you’ll see movies in whatever resolution you’ve set in the dashboard. However, this is only over VGA. Also, with Fall Dashboard Update, standard DVD movies will be upscaled to 1080p on displays that support it, again only over the VGA connection.

Source

Might be the way to go considering you can get 5 free HD-DVD's with it right now.

Any opinions?

slave1

Hi Bas, just bought the Sony NS78 from Pixmania, plays divx, did a lot of shopping around and Pix were the cheapest, ordered Monday, delivered Friday, €99.50 or €101.50 depending on silver/black, ex postage
http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/597485/art/sony/dvp-ns78hs-dvd-player.html
is also in PCity @ €122
http://www.powercity.ie/index.php?par=10-19-NS78B
Have it hooked up to my 55" FullHD tv and happy with results, being honest marginally better than my existing Sony NS76 1080i upscaler so if you wanted a cheap 1080i that model was heavily reduced last time I was in the smoke, circa €70
IMHO if you have a good tv then its a bit of false economy to buy the cheapest upscaler, in this case the Sony is not far off being the cheapest so I'd recommend
Here's a good thread on the 78
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=607779

Re the 360, yeah great deal with the -limited selection - HDDVD offer but the Sony will kick its ass quality wise on upscaling DVDs
see here for a lot more info as I'm not a 360 owner
http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=295

Wolff

A 100 euro upscaling dvd player would be as good as the HD Dvd drive

I have an xbox 360 - PS3 - old xbox with Media centre on it and a Denon 1930 - all have upscaling abilities - the Denon wins hands down because of the chip it uses and the fact it cost the same as the 360 and the ps3 so the more you pay as usual the better it gets - the ps3 is not bad but still not as good

The Xbox is an excellent upscaler BTW if you have one around it can be modded

If I were you id go for the hd dvd drive especially now with the deal -

hope this helps

311

Thanks to mathias on boards ,I tried connecting a bog standard DVD player via component.

The quality is actually ok ,considering the quality of the dvd player.

Basq

Cheers for the input lads but decided to just buy a HD VGA cable for the XBox 360 which upscales to 1080p.

Was connecting via standard component with only outputs 480i (or something to that affect).

Thanks again.