Progressive Scan Enabled = Too dark?

[Miggy]

So I'd been using my new Sony HDTV hooked up to a Panasonic DVD player using component cable (can give exact model #s later if it's necessary) for about a month. One day I noticed a button on the DVD remote labeled Progressive. I'm curious, so I push it and lo and behold, a Progressive indicator lights up on the player and the TV switches over to 480p instead of 480i. I had thought it was already doing this automatically because I checked the settings in the player and Progressive Scan was set to auto. Turns out this only meant automatically switches from Film to Video progressive scanning WHEN it's on.

Anyway, I figure, great! I now have progressive scanning turned on when watching DVDs. I watch a few movies, but then I notice one scene that's so dark that I can't make out any detail that I just suspect should be there. I turn progressive scan off, and the image lightens up and reveals all these hidden details.

What I ended up doing was running Video Essentials again with PS turned on and set the brightness and contrast again. I had to up both of them a good bit to get the image detail the same as what it was when PS was turned off. However, it still looks too dark. With PS turned off (and with my original picture and contrast settings), the picture looks much more natural.

My questions is: is this normal for there to be such a difference with PS turned on or off. This is my first experience with being able to use PS, so I'm not sure. On the other hand, could there be something wrong with the player? When the TV is getting HD over the air and getting 720P signals, it looks fine, and I put it the same picture settings in the TV input that I got from the Component input with VE the first time.

I hope this is clear.. I'm having to type it out real quick before I leave here in a second.

Miggy, the Thief

[Ruined]

All you are doing when you hit "progressive" is using the deinterlacing built into the DVD player instead of your TV's deinterlacing; odds are the latter is better, hence progressive looking worse when its enabled in the DVD player.

[Miggy]

Ruined,

Oh! Okay, thanks for that explanation. As I said, this is my first experience with an HDTV after dreaming about it for all these years.

Just one question, though. The TV displays 480i when it's turned off on the player and 480p when it's turned on. Does the TV de-interlace the signal, even though it's displaying 480i? In other words, 480i is just telling what the signal is, but it's really displaying 480p?

I was thinking about turning it off (on the player) anyway and resetting my TV settings, since it looked better before.

Miggy, the Thief

[PunkMunkey]

Originally Posted by Miggy

Just one question, though. The TV displays 480i when it's turned off on the player and 480p when it's turned on. Does the TV de-interlace the signal, even though it's displaying 480i? In other words, 480i is just telling what the signal is, but it's really displaying 480p?

This is correct...the TV is being fed a 480i signal but is deinterlacing it to display 480p.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Miggy

Ruined,

Oh! Okay, thanks for that explanation. As I said, this is my first experience with an HDTV after dreaming about it for all these years.

Just one question, though. The TV displays 480i when it's turned off on the player and 480p when it's turned on. Does the TV de-interlace the signal, even though it's displaying 480i? In other words, 480i is just telling what the signal is, but it's really displaying 480p?

I was thinking about turning it off (on the player) anyway and resetting my TV settings, since it looked better before.

Miggy, the Thief

Yes, if it is an LCD, Plasma, or DLP it is not possible for it to display 480i. These digital sets have a fixed resolution and deinterlace/scale everything to that resolution. So if it is a 1080p LCD and sent 480i, the "info" panel will display 480i but in actuality it deinterlaces the signal and upscales it to 1080p. If it is sent 480p, it will upscale the 480p to 1080p and the "info" panel will display 480p. Since deinterlacing DVD is not easy, it makes a big difference whether it is done right or not, and more expensive HDTVs usually have better circuits to do this than cheaper DVD players.

[Miggy]

I'm much relieved. I thought I was going to have to chose between crappy-looking 480p and somehow-better-looking 480i. I've reset it to the way I had originally configured it.

Thanks again for the information!

Miggy, the Thief