Will my Panasonic HDTV upconvert my DVD's ?

Question

I received a Panasonic 50 inch Plasma for the holidays that has a beautiful picture especially in over the air broadcasts .
How do i make the HDTV upconvert my standard DVD's ?
Is a upconverter built in or do i have to buy one ?

Answer 1

If the TV accepts 480i or 480p it will deinterlace and/or upconvert the DVD to match the screen resolution.

However, many HDTVs don't do as good a job as a good upconverting DVD player. See the link for further info.

Try your existing DVD player, but if you decide to buy an upconverting player you might consider an HD DVD player (e.g. HD-A3) as an upconverting DVD player ... as a bonus it will also play HD DVD disks (which, considering the $7-$10 premium over DVD, you might or might not want to use on a regular basis). In fact Amazon are selling the HD-A3 with 10 free HD DVD disks for $180. In other words they are essentially giving the player away.

Blu-ray players will do the same thing but are more expensive. Note that the two formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) are incompatible and different studios produce films in one or the other (and sometimes both) formats. It isn't clear who will "win", and in fact it's most likely both will coexist and dual format players will eventually drop to a reasonable price (currently they are ~$800).

Given the above, whichever format you select will only allow some movies to be played in HD ... so you still need a DVD player for the rest.

If you want to know more do a search on Y!A for "Blu-ray HD DVD"

Hope this helps rather than confuses!

Answer 2

Yes
Your TV will upconvert your standard DVDs. No need to buy an upconverting player. Wait to see how the format wars go and later buy either an HD DVD or Blu Ray player.

Answer 3

You need an upconvert DVD player.
I'd say you're better off buying a Blu-ray dvd player or a playstation 3 then starting your collection over. Upconverting isn't as good quality.