Standard-compliant player

[Ghitulescu]

There are zillions of threads here and elsewhere, but probably 80% are discussing AVI/DivX/xVid/MP4 etc. and the rest if not dealing with advantageous buying (whatever actions, reductions, sellers etc.) then they are concerned about anything else than the correct reproduction of the image and/or sound (audio video quality). I call these discussions - featuritis.

Very rare, and in particular in the related German forum, some dilligent powerusers may comment somthing like "the inputs of XYZ-device is not 100% compliant, better use ZYX-Device instead". Of course, these comments were related to capturing VHS, only.

If one turns to whats-its-name audio forum, the same percentage was dedicated to endless discussions which cassette deck is better than another one, which turntable, which cartridge etc. Those threads are filled with specs, dB and % and other units of measure.

Video forums are strangely silent on the true quality of the players. Who cares what player accpets eg Q-pel, if it outputs eggheads instead of circles, when the red is actually magenta, or the displays if non-uniform or jitters? It's your encode, right?, then do it without Q-pel...

By "standard-compliant" player I mean a player, could be a DVD-, a BD-, a MMP-device, that outputs audio/video signals analogically and, while fed with a test DVD/BD/USB/SDcard, measures the "right" values for output (or deviations in % of dB).

Although some dedicated magazines touch this subject a bit, it's rare that one article really indicates these values, usually they use "standard clauses" that essentially say nothing ("this is easily the best player in its class", or "it has a linearity amongst the best in its class").

I know that essentially analogue professionally gear came with charted measurements and reliable data, and that essentially all digital gear is "by definition" 100% best .

For instance, is player X able to display 0-15 and 236-255 ranges? If not, it clips? What is the deviance from linearity say in dB over the 0-max resolution? Which is the max resolution (MHz or line-pairs)?

I would like to see this topic discussed, and, why not?, filled with examples of standard-compliant players.

eg: all pre-2006 Panasonics sample (and output) 704 pixels per line (blanking the remaining 16) as they comply with ITU (52us), from 2006-onwards they use 720 pixels.

Thank you