Can you watch high def films with a normal dvd player?

[nero_fan]

I wonder if someone can help sort out the following as I'm a bit confused.

Imagine you have a mpeg4 or xvid avi file on your computer and you convert it so it can work on a standard dvd player. If you connect the dvd player up to a high definition television, would the images on the screen be high definition?

I've read some articles about HD DVD players. Do you need one or can you keep with your current standard DVD player and play the HD video and watch it on a HD tv?

Thanks for any help on this matter.