Samsung DVD-HD950 HD Conversion DVD Player , Black
Why do you want to scale your picture so many times?
It just kills me when people like the reviewer before last say things that aren't true, acting like they know what they are talking about.  There is not ONE SINGLE DVD on the market that is encoded at 480p.  Every available DVD out there HAS to be encoded at 480i, or it would not be compatable with the DVD standard. <br /> <br />Having said that and cleared up the misconception, I must comment on other things said about this player and about the capability that it provides.  I have no argument that DVI and HDMI are the very best ways to connect a DVD player to your HDTV, if you have that available.  Those will show a small improvement over component(Y, Pb, Pr), and they will show a VAST improvement over S-Video and composite video.  There shouldn't even BE composite and S-Video out on this player, because those two connection methods only support 480i signals.  It won't do any good to choose anything else in the setup of this player if you use one of those connections, you'll get 480i no matter what. <br /> <br />Also, there is also no argument that progressive-scan (taking the 480i image and combining the interlaced frames into a non-interlaced, 480p signal) DVD players are also a very good way to improve your DVD viewing on an HDTV.  Depending on the player and the way the DVD itself was encoded, you can get widely varying 480p quality.  This player appears to do an adequate job of 3-2 pulldown for an inexpensive player.  The really good players use the Faroujda chip, but they are generally more expensive.  Taking 480i and making it 480p doesn't involve scaling (line doubling or line interpolating), it is merely the combining of two interlaced frames into one (or two, or three) non-interlaced frames.  (Actually some of the REALLY good DVD players do SOME interpolating to avoid \\"jaggies\\", but the image is still not scaled yet). <br /> <br />Anything beyond 480p coming out of a DVD player is at best unnecessary, and at worst causes picture degradation due to the extra scaling (line doubling, line interpolating, etc.) required by the HDTV. <br /> <br />Let me give an example:  My HDTV has LCD panels that have 788 lines of resolution.  No matter what I send to the TV (it accepts 480i, 480p, 540p, 720p, & 1080i) that signal will get scaled to 788 lines, either by repeating lines, removing lines, or averaging (interpolating) lines.  And it's a $7000 TV - it does a very good job of scaling.  Sony put a lot of work into the imaging engine to make it work well.  If I send 480p to this TV, it gets scaled one time by the imaging engine in the TV to 788 lines. <br /> <br />Why would I want my DVD player to take that 480p signal and scale it up (upconvert) to 720p or 1080i or 1080p so that my HDTV can then re-scale it to 788 lines?  This extra scaling activity will probably LOSE resolution rather than improve quality.  And why would I think that a $150 DVD player would do a better job of scaling than my $7000 TV? <br /> <br />Your mileage will vary, depending on the NATIVE resolution of the device inside your HDTV.  If the NATIVE resolution of your HDTV is 720 lines, and if you send it a 720p signal from this DVD player, it is likely (though not assured) that the image is not being re-scaled by the TV, so you might avoid double-scaling in that case.  But I still challenge you to explain why you think a $150 DVD player would do a better job of up-converting than your HDTV would do on it's own. <br /> <br />Buy this player because it is a good progressive-scan player, or because it has the connections, or the look, or the compatability for different disc formats that appeal to you (VCD, SVCD, DIVX(?), DVD-+R, etc.), but don't buy this player for its up-converting capabilities, it's just a waste. <br /> <br />I recommend reading the information on this player at VCDHELP.COM.