An Upconverting DVD Player Explained - In Simple Terms with Examples!

No more waste of space when watching DVD's on that HDTV!

An upconverting DVD player is one that takes normal DVDs (not Blu Ray or HD-DVD) and plays them as if they were in HD format on an HDTV. Whereas a standard DVD with your standard DVD player would NOT fill up the screen on your HDTV, an upconverting DVD player will make your standard DVDs now fill up the whole HDTV screen, as if you were watching an HDTV cable channel.

Understand that this is an EXTREMELY OVERSIMPLIFIED explanation and that there are many sites out there that will explain the technical details if you are interested.

I always find it best to explain by example so here it is.

First, I will go over the expected NORMAL behavior with an HDTV and a standard DVD player. I will give an example with a letterbox dvd (not widescreen) and a widescreen dvd.

So....(remember that these examples are the norm)......

With my HDTV and my normal DVD player, my Bablyon 5 DVDs, which are standard (not widescreen) fill up the middle of the screen with black bars on the left and right sides.

With my HDTV and my normal DVD player, my Alexander DVD, which is widescreen, appears as a rectangle in the middle of the screen, with black bars on the top, bottom, left and right.

Now we will change the parameters. Here I still have an HDTV but instead of using a standard DVD, I am using an upconverting DVD player and the same Babylon 5 (letterbox) and Gladiator (widescreen).

With my HDTV and my upconverting DVD player, my Babylon 5 DVDs (letterbox) fill up the entire screen. There are no black bars anywhere to be seen.

With my HDTV and my upconverting DVD player, my Alexander DVD (widescreen) fills up the entire WIDTH of the screen, with a little black on the top and a little black on the bottom.

I've had an upconverting DVD player for a very short time and I am so far very pleased. No more waste of space when watching DVD's on that HDTV!

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