Quote:
Originally Posted by HeavyHitter
Despite the video decoders outputting the same video quality can some players give a slightly better image due to internal circuitry, better power supply, etc. or is all of that pretty much irrelevant with digital?
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Once the power supply is of sufficient threshold in quality to reliably handle the player, and a good PC board design is used, it is largely irrelevant with digital.
However, they could affect the drive electronics as that contains analog circuitry. Once some of this analog front-end stuff is integrated onto the main SoC decoder (like the new NEC chip that was just announced), these things become more important.
These things can also affect the analog audio and video outputs, however, as the audio and video DACs should have nice, clean power as any power supply noise is pretty much coupled directly onto the analog outputs.
The quality of the HDMI output is important, as that could be considered analog due to the frequencies and levels involved. We have seen differences in HDMI outputs in their ability to drive various cables and cable lengths, and some HDMI switchers, without introducing some sparkling in the video.