While watching a DVD (Lord of the Rings for example) I have noticed that I can see the individual pixels during some scenes. It is hard to describe but for example, fog and smoke is a big problem. The fog will have have its greyish pixels intermixed with the black background. It looks like a cheap computer game video quality on the big screen. I own the Panasonic PT-52DL10 television and a Sony DVP-NS700P DVD player. I feel that for the price of my system, the picture quality should be much better. Any ideas??? Thanx.

Sorry to say, that's a pretty cheap DVD player. It's true that you can get a cheap DVD player these days, but it's not true the it will give you a great picture.

With a TV of that price range, don't skimp on the the DVD player quality. Spend some bucks and you'll be happy!

I've got the same DVD player and a Tosh 50". Never noticed any of those problems. In fact I have been very impressed with the picture, I think it rivals many high dollar players, it just lacks all the extras. Having said that, DVDs are not high def and occasionally you will see pixels on any player.

Rob
My HT: [Link: geocities.com]

I have never seen a pixel on my player...

Marantz DV7010 displayed component throught the Marantz AV9000 to a Sony Wega display.

I've NEVER seen any type of digital artifact...NEVER.

I have to agree... I have three DVD players: old Sony (one of the first generation players), Apex (that one plays multiple regions) and a JVC player (progressive scann, DVD-A). None of them shows any pixelization. I do get it from time to time on rental DVDs, but cleaning helps usually. Given the fact that Apex is a rather cheap player and Sony is old... I would say I should see soe problems, but I do not.
Just my 2 cents...
Peter

Nobody has asked how he has it hooked up? I noticed at a clients house yesterday who had their DVD player connected to their Wega via the composite connections that Lord of the Rings looked like crap. When I set it up right using the component outputs it looked great.

Composite connections should still give you a good picture. If the picture looked bad, I'd check for a loose or bad cable. (Maybe a bad input or output?) I'd love to use component, but my TV doesn't support it. I'm currently using SVHS connections going through a switch since the TV only has one SVHS input.

SamG

Not always true Sam...If you have a TV capable of a Hi Def image, or something close to that quality, it will show more flaws in the image when connected by composite than a TV of lower quality

IMHO a higher level video connection will give you a higher level picture quality 99 percent of the time. That speaks from 10 years of experience.

My Sony S360 (about 2 gen before the 700, same level) has all sorts of problems with LOTR EE, also. My Malata cruises through it no problem.

Sam, Matt, McNasty,
If the problem is actually pixellization the connection would have no bearing on the issue. It would be the MPEG decoder. Some cheap players are having problems with LOTR and other recent DVDs. More horsepower is needed in the decoding process for these loaded DVDs.

Hmmm...I don't know what the video bitrate of LOTR EE is, I should check that out. My guess is it is quite high like Superbit DVDs and many players just can't keep up. Although my Sony only does this late in a disc, perhaps its laser transport is failing. I've had CD players that failed mechanically with similar symptoms at first.

Agreed,

Either you have a connection or you don't digitally. But the pixilization is due to 'substandard' decoding.

Gentlemen, keep in mind that, whether composite, S-video, component, or RGB, the video output of a DVD player is analog video, not digital. The digital outputs of which we're so fond is the audio.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Does this always happen in the same spot/scene ?

Bob