Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
Upconversion will work with analog component video as well (at least with those players that output the upconverted signal through the analog video section). Component video has much more bandwidth and signal separation than composite (which I presume your parents were using) or S-video. It can carry a HD and/or progressive video signal, while those other connections cannot.
The protection on upconverters is such that they will not show upconverted video from a pre-recorded DVD to the analog output.