Did I just burn myself by buying cheap gear?

ChRoMe · 06-01-2008 9:23pm #1

Hey

I just bought one of these

Along with it I bought some component cables (€10) and a cheap DVD player (€50). When I first played a DVD the quality was average. After playing around with the settings selecting progressive scan on the DVD player and changing the aspect ratio it looked better.

Its good but Im pretty sure the picture can be better. There were two different brands of component cables in the store one for €60 and the the one I purchased. I might be wrong but I was under the impression that becuase its a digital signal cable quality shouldnt make a massive difference??

I made the same assumption with the DVD player. With it being such a mature technology I didnt think that the image quality would suffer? I know its not the DVD discs themselves as even when I turn on the player with no disk in the drive the spash screen with the logo of the manufacturer has obvious artifacts around the text (kinda looks like a compressed DIVX).

So educate me! Did I make totally incorrect assumptions and get burned by buying the cheap hardware?

Sad Professor · 06-01-2008 10:10pm

What dvd player did you get? You can't send a digital signal via component cables, they are analog only. You'd need a hdmi dvd player with a hdmi cable. But component/analog should still look as good. And never-mind the splash screen, what's the video like? Did you try another dvd?

big_moe · 06-01-2008 10:13pm

component is an analogue signal so the quality of the cables matters. i use an Ixos component cable, it was 69 quid for a 1 metre. the quality is stunning though.

for an HDTV i'd recommend an upscaling DVD player.. a decent one will cost 100. from decent manufacturers like panasonic, sony, jvc etc.

adam

ChRoMe · 06-01-2008 10:43pm

The DVD quality is good but Im pretty sure it could be better. I tried multiple DVD's all of them displaying pretty much the same.

The POS DVD player is here http://www.powercity.ie/?par=10-19-DVD25

Im not so sure that HDMI will solve this problem. I've read a fair bit about it and I dont think the problem is what connection is being used. adam's suggestion that the dvd player needing to upscale the image sounds reasonable.

Thanks for the info regarding component, learn something new everyday

Adam would this be a good option? http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=341243&view=detailed#ProductTabs

Adam

big_moe · 06-01-2008 10:50pm

yup, thats a great player. i've used its bigger bro, the dvd-s53, great player as well. only difference, the dvds53 upscales to 1080p and the dvds511 upscales to 1080i. thats all you'll need as your tv isnt 1080p

eamon234 · 06-01-2008 10:51pm

Generally if a DVD player already has a HDMI output the picture will look better either way - I had a cheap player connected by component picture was so so I picked up one just as cheap in Lidl with HDMI/USB/DIVX etc. and there is a definite and obvious improvement in quality.

Sad Professor · 06-01-2008 11:12pm

Also have you tried connecting the player with RGB SCART (you may have to enable RGB in the player settings)? Is it better or worse than what you're getting with component?

ChRoMe · 06-01-2008 11:13pm

Cool just ordered it. Now whats the story with HDMI do I still need to spend another 60-70 euro and buy a high quality cable?

ChRoMe · 06-01-2008 11:17pm

no i dont have a scart cable.

eamon234 · 06-01-2008 11:38pm

ChRoMe wrote: »

Cool just ordered it. Now whats the story with HDMI do I still need to spend another 60-70 euro and buy a high quality cable?

Feck no I paid €8 for mine in Lidl - gold plated works perfectly I think the whole cable pricing thing is a scam - retailers are selling this stuff at huge margins and are constantly pushing it on you when you try to buy an LCD.
To prove the point I compared it with one my mate bought for €60 - absolutely no difference

Did I just burn myself by buying cheap gear?

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