[rixrex]

Lots of sets on the market with less than desirable built-in enhancers and/or de-interlacers, etc, and the same is true of players that do such. Any good enhancer can't just 'blow-up' a video image to fit a resolution. There's got to be super-quick algorithmic based comparisons of frame-to-frame and line-to-line imagery, and then an instantaneous creation of the 'missing' information necessary to make the enhancement look good.

For example, an enhancer taking original SD-DVD image of 480 lines could simply repeat a set number of lines to enhance to 720 or 1080, and so it could play on 720 or 1080, but look like it was "zoomed" or "blown up". A quality enhancer actually compares the frame by frame images for motion, and also the line by line images, and then creates the additional inserted image lines based upon how they would actually appear.

This is exactly what DVD players with p-scan output do currently because DVD video image is encoded in 480 interlaced scan, not progressive. A high quality enhancer/scaler will do such a good job at this that it is very difficult to tell original HD material from HD enhanced DVD material.

I've only found two TV sets that do a decent job of this, yet not as good a job as the outboard enhancers you can buy like the DVDO, and those are Pioneer and Mitsubishi. Everybody else is very distant in that area, which is not hard to figure when a top-quality enhancer/scaler is not a cheap item.

I'm not surprised to hear about artifacting effects with 1080i that are gone in 720p. You have 1080 lines total, but that's 540 odd and even alternating, each 30x per second, whereas 720p is 720 lines at 60x per second. The math shows 720p to be preferable for smooth imagery. I'd bet those effects have more to do with the alternating fields than any actual DVD artifacting.