Samsung keeps standard DVDs in the battle with three new up-converters

Why join sides on the battle of "Blu-ray vs HD DVD," when the standard DVD format still has so much more to offer? Rather than making you place bets on which next-gen format will be the winner, Samsung is releasing three new upconverting DVD players: the lust-worthy HD1080P7, the HD870, and the AV9700. First up, the HD1080P7 resamples your fave movies from 420p all the way up to 1080p "true HD". It connects to your TV via HDMI-CEC -- for some added plug-and-play goodness between devices -- and sports a 10-in-2 memory card reader. Next, the HD870 upconverts DVDs only as high as 1080i, drops HDMI-CEC for plain ol' HDMI 1.3, and also loses the memory card reader. Lastly, the V9700 keeps the same feature set as the HD870, but adds a four-head Hi-Fi VCR. All three offer progressive scan and, interestingly enough, DivX playback; they are slated for Q1 release with pricing at $109.99 (HD1080P7), $89.99 (HD870), and $119.99 (V9700).

DVD-HD870

[embee @ Jan 7th 2007 5:43PM]

Damn that Samsung. Don't they know there's a (format) war on.

Just kidding. Way to piss on Sony's and Toshiba's parade.

[mike @ Jan 7th 2007 5:53PM]

What divx sweet! just divx or also Xvid? cause that would be killer!

[Mike D @ Jan 7th 2007 6:03PM]

is isn't cec built into hdmi 1.3?

[CaptCaveman @ Jan 7th 2007 6:15PM]

Yeah, but will they blend?

[Brennan @ Jan 7th 2007 8:12PM]

cool, finally 1080p upconverters. One question that really puzzles me is if these upconverters really do turn DVD to 1080i or p resolutions like the HD-DVDs n Blu-Rays?

reason i ask is because my dad just got the family an LC HD Upconverter DVD player *1080i highest* n i do notice right away the resolution difference.......but........i thought DVDs were not made to go to HD resolution n isnt it suppose to give a picture that is near HD? Wouldnt this get HD-DVD n Blu-Ray out of business since that 1080p converters r being made n r cheaper plus cheaper DVD movies?

can anyone help clear this for me? Thanks.

[gmr @ Jan 7th 2007 9:41PM]

No, becauce upconverted DVD's are technically still standard definition, it's just that the upconverting DVD players do a better job doing upconversion than HDTVs do. HD-DVDs and BluRay DVDs offer native 1080p.

[Brennan @ Jan 7th 2007 8:14PM]

my HDTV is a Sony 55-inch 1080i LCD HDTV, got it like 2003, has HDMI.

the LC HD Upconverter has HDMI too and we r using n HDMI cable from the machine to the HDTV.

[Brennan @ Jan 7th 2007 8:24PM]

sry i ment LG, not LC

[Brennan @ Jan 7th 2007 10:52PM]

so techniqully, when i watch the DVD movie 'TN: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby', im seeing near 1080i or the real 1080i HD resolution if it were n HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc?

[Nabster @ Jan 8th 2007 1:46AM]

Brennan. Here's the deal.

DVDs are only capable of displaying a image resolution of 720x480 pixels. Now this was amazing about 3-5 years ago, and they only look good on standard definition CRT TVs. This is because these older TVs dont have the capability of a resolution above 480p. When u put this same TV into a regular DVD player and watch it on a HDTV, it will look like pure crap. Now what upconverting DVD Players do is, upscale this 720x480 image to either a 1280x720 or 1920x1080 image. You must remember that its only upscaling the size of the image on an HDTV. The DVD format is not High Definition. No matter what you do, the video quality of a DVD is 1/6th the quality of an HD input.

So when u take ur regular Ricky Bobby DVD and use ur 1080i upscaler, u see the best possible picture attainable from a standard dvd on a HDTV. This is not the same as playing a HD DVD or BluRay disc on the same HDTV.

[Karl Viklund @ Jan 7th 2007 11:26PM]

Great. I want one of those.

[Nabster @ Jan 8th 2007 1:50AM]

"When u put this same TV..."

woops, i meant "When u put this same DVD..."

[Brennan @ Jan 8th 2007 2:21AM]

thx, makes perfect sense now, thank u.

[bkgelder @ Jan 8th 2007 10:24AM]

Upconverting is similar to zooming in on a picture, but more advanced. The output of a DVD is 480p lines, so it needs to zoom in just over 2x to enlarge that to a 1080p image. However, upconverting does more than just zoom in, it uses some image analysis algorithms to do better than just a standard zoom. Using these methods, upconverted 480p is almost as good as 1080p, but not quite. Results differ slightly depending on the method of upconverting. There are some reviews on the upconverting process if you want to search for them.