HDMI, Upconvert, 1080i, What is all this stuff?

May 8, 2008 9:27 AM

I want to buy my mother a new DVD player for her birthday/mother's day. She wants one that can record VHS to DVD. When I went on Amazon to look for such a thing, there were an overwhelming number of possibilities. Can you help explain to me what some of the features are?

I read through all of the descriptions and picked out this one. (There is also a newer model, but the reviews aren't as good). However, the reviews say that the player is missing HDMI. I Googled that and it says it's a connector for HDTVs. My parents don't currently have one of those, but they might in the near future. If they don't want to record from the TV to DVD or VHS, does this matter? Can they still watch DVDs and tapes without it? Also, (bonus question, answer not required) can someone recommend a player that will work with (or record from) HDTV and record VHS to DVD?

posted by bluefly to shopping (4 comments total)

HDMI is an interface standard. It's a good one, and it allows two devices with HDMI connectors to exchange information (image, sound, data) digitally. HDMI was specifically designed to carry the added bandwidth needed by HDTV. You don't have to use HDMI to display a HDTV image, but there is some loss in image quality with the other alternatives (Component video, S-Video). Some devices also support DVI as a standard, but DVI is image only, so a DVI connection for image also necessitates another set of cables for the audio connection. In a nutshell: HDMI is the current preferred interface standard for TVs, cable boxes, and DVD players. If this is a new device, you should probably look for one with HDMI to assure the best forward compatibility.

Upconvert refers to improving the quality/resolution of the signal being presented to the monitor or TV. In the US, standard over-the-air television has a 480i signal. That's 480 lines, interlaced. HDTV has a resolution of 720p or greater; the "p" referes to the scan occurring progressively. technically, 720p is Enhanced Definition TV (EDTV) and HDTV is 1080i or 1080p. More lines = greater resolution, and progressively scanned images are sharper than interlaced images. so, when a 480i signal is upconverted to 1080i, it means that there's a digital processor on board that takes the image and improves its resolution by creating the extra lines. Not all upconverters are equal, and a crummy upconverter can add artifacts and other unpleasantness to a signal.

This link has a nice explanation of these terms.

Good luck.
posted by mosk at 10:36 AM on May 8

Are your parents tech savvy?

Because VHS/DVD decks can be very cumbersome. There's lots of switching back and forth between modes, and buttons can mean different things in VHS and DVD modes, and buttons that work in DVD mode won't necessarily do anything in VHS mode, and so on. The VHS and DVD parts of the machine can use different outputs. Take a look at the owner's manual. I watched my beloved's parents try to deal with a VHS/DVD combo, and they could never be anything but baffled by it. Granted, these are 70+ year old English people who refer to recording a program as "photographing the television," but still.

If they have old VHS tapes they want on DVD, they would be better off just hooking their old VHS player to a plain DVD recorder, recording them, and then throwing away the VHS player. Or having that done for them, or just throwing the tapes away and buying dvds.

To answer your specific question:

HDMI is irrelevant. Odds are, the only way to use that output, if it had it, would be to use two separate hookups for the vhs and dvd parts of the machine. So if you were watching a tape and wanted to switch to a dvd, you'd have to stop the tape, switch the player from vhs mode to dvd mode, switch the tv from the input that vhs uses to the hdmi input, and then start watching your movie. If they're not the sort of people who like doing that, they'd never bother with the high-quality hookup.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:39 AM on May 8

I think you're fine without an HDMI connection. Even if your parents got a new TV, it's likely that TV would also have connections that are compatible with the VCR/DVD player.

From the description of the product you link it, it appears that the device does record ATSC (which is the U.S. HDTV system) signals. (But note that, as neither VHS nor DVD is a high-definition format, the recording will not be in high-definition.)
posted by EatenByAGrue at 10:40 AM on May 8

I didn't even think about ease of use. My father can barely send an email, but my mother has a CS degree. Anyway, I'll Google around for an easy to use one, or one for which recording VHS to DVD is easy; any other features (besides basic playback) will be extra cake. Thanks for defining those terms for and for that link.

All of this is so new to me; my TV is really old. I don't even have cable; I just use it to watch movies (usually old VHS tapes I buy at garage sales). But my mother does like the newest things.
posted by bluefly at 1:34 PM on May 8