HELP PLEASE! SO CONFUSED--NEW hdtv FOR XMAS--OLD DVD PLAYER NO HDMI HOOKUP??

[princess crazy]

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Hi

OK--so I got alot of really good help and advice here on the new HDTV we are getting for xmas---we have the tv-----then I posted about the HDMI cable and got lots of great advice for that

This morning I found a great price for an HDMI cable on buy.com and was ready to get it and realized that our dvd/vcr combo player is pretty old and I began to wonder if there was even a connection on that player for the HDMI since the cord is noticeably square and not round like a regular cable cord. Well, of course I go and check it and it does not have a place for a HDMI cable to plug in---we don't want to use the regular cable --I know we can but we want to be able to enable the Hi Def through the DVD player.

Then, I got to reading that you have to get a blu ray player but that you can't play all your old dvd's on it. So..........I am so confused and I have already purchased alot of new movies on regular dvd for DD for xmas and we are not ready to switch everything over right now and buy all blu-rays. So, I did some research and found some dvd players that upconvert old dvd's and enable you to play them and of course use the HDMI cable.

My ????'s are---I found a Toshiba XD-E500(Upconverting 1080p Extended Detail DVD Player on Amazon for a good price of $68. ---Is this what I would need if we don't want to go to blu-ray and would it work with a "40 LCD HDTV 1080p???? OR.....is there a way to use our current DVD player that I'm not aware of????--I do know that you can use it with the regular cable but that the resolution wouldn't be Hi Def because you aren't using the HDMI cable.

If anyone could please help----I would really like to get the cable ordered today and order this DVD player if we need it before the price goes back up on Amazon. Or.......can anyone direct me to a good price on a similiar quality DVD player like this where we can watch the dvd's we currently have----Could I get a better price than this one?????

Thanks so much --you all have been a great help!!


princess crazy
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[OK!]

Yes, the upconverting DVD player is what you need. Unfortunately, there's no way (that I know of, anyway) to make something that doesn't have an HDMI output HDMI-capable, so it looks like your old DVD player may be out. Thankfully, though, the prices on the upconverting ones are SO much cheaper than they used to be-- I got an upconverting DVD player/recorder + VCR combo and a spindle of like 100 recordable DVDs from Best Buy more than a year ago for less than $100. If you still have VHS tapes that you watch, you might keep an eye out for one like that. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I thought I could detect a noticeable difference in how some very old, very worn videotapes played on the new player...they looked like non-upconverted DVDs to me. MUCH better quality. I was impressed.

FWIW, the one I got is a Toshiba also.

 

[shrubber]

your new tv should have more than the hdmi input....
Almost all have A/V inputs yellow,white,red.
Almost certainly your dvd player has A/V output.
Just hook the dvd to the tv with the A/V cables..........
And for the record, most any movie/dvd filmed will look just fine on a regular dvd player.

 

[schmitty]

Lots of blu ray players play dvds.
Get a blu ray player so you can buy blu rays if you wish.

 

[bicker]

Every Blu-ray Disc player I've seen will play DVDs.

Don't pay more than $4.00 for an HDMI cable.

 

[eduk8r26]

I got a Magnavox blu-ray at Wal-mart on Black Friday for $78. Haven't hooked it up yet. Where can I get an HDMI cable for under $4??

 

[princess crazy]

Thanks everyone!

So, you are saying I can get a blu-ray player---thought I just read somewhere that you can't play older non blu-ray dvd's on a blu-ray player?? Where did I get that from---was it like that when they first came out with the blu-ray players maybe?

Anyway, I was able to pick up a Maganavox upconverting dvd player tonight at Walmart for $38--a good deal I thought with surround sound. Now I am thinking should I take it back and get a Blu-ray player instead??---only thing is we hadn't even planned on spending any more money then what we did on the TV so if I go Blu-ray what is the cheapest I could get a good one for now and where??

Somebody said I can just hook up the old DVD player but I had read that the dvd's will look grainy if we use the old dvd player without an HDMI cable--isn't that the purpose of getting the 1080p??

Thanks again!!

 

[bicker]

Somebody said I can just hook up the old DVD player but I had read that the dvd's will look grainy if we use the old dvd player without an HDMI cable--isn't that the purpose of getting the 1080p??

First: HDMI cables aren't magic -- except for the folks who extract $30 from customers for a $4 cable. Component video cable (red, greed, blue) along with digital audio cables (either orange, or optical), provides video and audio quality practically indistinguishable from HDMI.

Component Video Cables

Optical Digital Audio Cable​

Second: DVDs have digital data stored on them that have about 172,800 pixels of data per cycle. Your 1080p HDTV has over two million pixels. No matter what you do, trying to put a couple of hundred thousand pixels of data into two million slots on the screen is going to be somewhat grainy.

Better DVD players, and most if not all Blu-ray Disc players, when playing DVDs, will use sophisticated protocols to try to figure out the missing data, to try to make the video look less grainy. HDTVs, themselves, do some manner of upconverting, too. However, there is no way a DVD will ever look as good on an HDTV as a Blu-ray Disc of the same title looks. Also, generally folks feel that a DVD will never look as good on an HDTV as it looks on a standard definition television.

 

[golfgal]

I got a Magnavox blu-ray at Wal-mart on Black Friday for $78. Haven't hooked it up yet. Where can I get an HDMI cable for under $4??

monoprice.com You can also get wall mount brackets there if you are going to mount your HDTV, among other things. We have ordered from there and they have great service and fast shipping. I think bicker told us about the site.

 

[schmitty]

Where can I get an HDMI cable for under $4??

Amazon. $3 including shipping. $0.01 for the cord and $2.99 for shipping.