I was all set to buy one, but then I visited Pioneer's website and it was talking about the next step being Digital Progressive Scan DVD. It sounds pretty impressive.

Don't hold off on buying a player because of this feature. Progressive scan is:

a) No big deal. Definitely not as big a deal as the anamorphic/letterbox thing.
b) Here now, but only on the most expensive players (ones over $700.00).
c) Only useful for high-end TV sets which can accept this kind of input.

You may not realize it, but if you have a DVD-ROM drive in your PC, you're already enjoying progressive-scan DVD playback.

All that progressive scan means is that the DVD player is capable of displaying the image in progressive frames rather than interlaced frames. They're the same frames, they're just not split up into two fields of alternating lines like interlaced NTSC television. And unless you're using an antiquated computer monitor, it's probably working in progressive (non-interlaced) mode rather than interlaced mode.

But even without a progressive scan DVD player, I can get an image out of my TV set that's very close to a progressive scan image. My Mitsubishi TV set has what's called a "Line Doubler", the digital circuit that converts all the possible image formats into one its high-rez CRTs can understand. One of the features of the line doubler is that it converts interlaced input into progressive output since its CRTs can do progressive output.

I'm told by those with progressive-scan DVD players that yes, if your DVD player does this and you have a progressive-capable television, the movies look better than their interlaced counterparts. But not by much. And a good line doubler can accomplish nearly the same task with an interlaced source.

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Tony Fabris