DVD upscaling

[ASH1982]

I have been trying to find a decent DVD player because I currently do not own one. So I thought to myself why not get a DVD player that can upscale to my HD TV while Blu ray and HD-DVD battle it out

I asked on another forum I am on but people seemed to disagree with me, some thinking upscaling was a waste of money, others saying an HD TV upscales all by its self from an SD TV signal or standard DVD players etc... So I thought id ask on a more appropriate board which is how I found this AV forum.

http://www.ffoc.co.uk/modules.php?na...er=asc&start=0

I admit I dont know everything about HD TV's and upscaling and my posts in that link could be wrong but I think I was correct and others wrong

Anyway any help would be appreciated

[LV426]

All pixel-based displays (so that's LCD, Plasma, LCDRP, DLPRP, DLP, LCOS etc etc) have onboard scalers and they do, indeed re-scale anything incoming that isn't an exact match for their native resolution.

Whether an offboard scaler (either standalone, or inside a DVD player) is the right thing to choose and/or use, depends on how good the scaler in the TV is, compared to the offboard one.

One other thing: it's always better to rescale once, rather than twice. So, if, for example, your chosen display is 1366x768, then UNLESS your offboard scaler can output exactly this (and many scaling DVD players don't - they can only do 720 or 1080 lines, not 768) then it's better to let your TV do the scaling on its own.

All other things being equal..........................

[ASH1982]

How do you work out how good the onboard scaler is?
I have the samsung LE32R51 at the moment

[LV426]

There isn't any good answer to that except by looking for yourself and/or seeking views.

According to a quick Google result (pinch of salt, therefore) your TV has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels (good guess, huh?).

Unless your chosen offboard scaler can produce 1366 x 768 pixels, my second point comes in to play. And, as I say, many upscaling DVD players limit themselves to the "normal" HD resolutions of 720 and 1080 lines.

To be quite honest, onboard scalers are capable of very watchable results. For the most part, dissatisfied users of LCD TVs are victims of factory settings and lack of adjustment and/or use of less than optimal signal transfer between source and screen (CVBS rather than RGB, for example).

[Boxinghris]

Originally Posted by ASH1982

I asked on another forum I am on but people seemed to disagree with me, some thinking upscaling was a waste of money, others saying an HD TV upscales all by its self from an SD TV signal or standard DVD players etc... So I thought id ask on a more appropriate board which is how I found this AV forum.

I'm no expert on upscaling but here's my own observations.


Yesterday I had a walk around the sales in the Trafford Centre and wandered into the Sony shop where SKY HD was being output to a number of screens.
Nice enough picture but I get a similar quality image on my Panasonic PX60 with a decent SD SKY broadcast, and much better via an upsampling Denon A1XV playing DVDs.

Today I was down Bury and wandered into Currys where a Blu-Ray player was feeding a Samsung 32" HD ready monitor, and the image was still nowhere near as good as I get with the Denon/Panasonic upsampling DVDs to 720p.

In theory the Panasonic and all screens must upsample to their native resolution and the Panasonic's scaling must be better than most which is why it is noted for it's SD performance, but the image when the Denon is set to output DVDs in their native 576p is a league below the image when upsampling to 720p or 1080i is used.

Obviously the Denon is a fantastic machine that costs £2,500 if bought new, but when you've got a few hundred DVDs with thousands more out there it actually makes great sense to buy this or the more affordable denons which use the same chips.

With SKY HD I gather much of the programming is upsampled with the same chip used in the denons, and when I read about people not being able to find out which is upsampled and which is genuine HD content from SKY I have to wonder how good genuine HD content is when it can't be easily distinguished from upsampled content.

On the other hand, whilst in Currys I saw a 50" LG plasma being fed by a source which had no obvious manufacturer's logo to identify it, just 'HD streamer' printed on the fascia, and the images from this were fantastic and in a different league to the Blu-Ray and SKY HD fed displays seen earlier.

In HD's defence the Sony screens were being being fed by the usual multi output splitter and so images were bound to suffer, but when you're proudly displaying posters all over the store boasting how the HD revolution is here with images four times better than 'normal', it doesn't help to have what I considered very unimpressive pictures on every screen.

In Currys defence I'd say that....er......well there is no defence, there promotion of HD was pathetic.
They had a SKK HD box set up with a plasma, and a remote alongside an invitation to "SEE HD NOW! PICK UP THE REMOTE, SELECT 999 AND WATCH HD!"

I picked up the remote (attached to the board with a wire so it couldn't go missing), pointed it at the SKY HD box and........nothing.

A quick look in the back revealed no batteries.

By far the best images available to see in Currys were the LG screens right at the back of the store - you'd have thought they were trying to hide them; really, really poor.

Sorry for wandering off topic slightly but in closing I'll simply say that yes, get the best upsampling DVD player you can as the best are a clear improvement over the scaling abilities of good screens and well worth the money.

[ASH1982]

Thanks for all the advice and info guys much appreciated

[nowonder]

Originally Posted by LV426

There isn't any good answer to that except by looking for yourself and/or seeking views.

According to a quick Google result (pinch of salt, therefore) your TV has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels (good guess, huh?).

Unless your chosen offboard scaler can produce 1366 x 768 pixels, my second point comes in to play. And, as I say, many upscaling DVD players limit themselves to the "normal" HD resolutions of 720 and 1080 lines.

To be quite honest, onboard scalers are capable of very watchable results. For the most part, dissatisfied users of LCD TVs are victims of factory settings and lack of adjustment and/or use of less than optimal signal transfer between source and screen (CVBS rather than RGB, for example).

What does this mean?

[mannyo]

CVBS is composite video, more commonly the yellow phono connector you get with cheap video players.

[LV426]

SCARTs carry CVBS (composite video). It's too often the case that users think they are using RGB via SCART, when in fact they are using composite (CVBS). The "trouble" is, that CVBS is always present on SCART cables, even when they are "RGB cables" and even when the player (say) is set to RGB. So, something else* may be stopping the RGB signal, yet there is still a (less than optimal) colour image on screen, via CVBS.


* such as, using a non-compatible input on the TV, not making corect settings in the player, etc

[waynster]

I went to Media Markt (Large European Elecronics shop) yesterday evening in Amsterdam, as prior to purchasing my setup, I thought I had better go check out the televisions. For your info, the system I had in mind was:

40/42" 1080p LCD screen - Sharp, Sony, LG
Sony STR-DA1200ES Receiver
Self built full multimedia HTPC

I took a look at the LCD TV's on display, and this is my first real venture into this, and I must admit to be honest, I was not that impressed - undoubtedly they are a huge improvement on regular CRT TV's, but a lot of the screens were suffering from "ghosting" of pixels, it was extremely obvious that no calibration had been done (2 Sonys next to eachother - 42W2000 and a 37S2000, the lesser machine having the better adjustment), but best of all, below these was a 20" LCD, being pumped a raw standard cable signal which looked absolutely appalling on it - if the TV had any upscaling in it, I think it must have been switched off or non existant).

Also amongst the plethora of Cinema TV units, I found the STR-DA1200ES, but was immediately lead up the garden path as there was no mention of upscaling on the unit, so was resigned to maybe have to pay through the nose for a higher price unit to do the job, only to discover today that the unit does indeed do 1080p upscaling.

I honestly felt a bit let down - all excited about this new project, and then to see these very expensive units not performing as I thought they would, well it was a bit of an anticlimax. Still Tomorrow I hope to go to a proper dealership and see everything they can be.

It does make me laugh how these chains manage to sell anything when they display them operating well below their strength (and well above the prices on the net). Yes they are undoubtedly convenient, but only for the choice on display. I doubt I would buy a component from them of this size - after all, a bit of pre and after sales service is important - last night I spent an hour inspecting the LCD TV's and not once was asked if I needed any help. Just like back at home and in Currys, circa 1987 trying to buy a video recorder

Still hopefully after tomorrow I am going to plump for the Bravia 42W2000, which although not perfect, did look fantastic.

Anyway, my question - on these TVs/receivers, can the upscaling be bypassed on either of the units? Also if the TV does its own upscaling, why would Sony et al manufacture devices to do this also?

[hamster]

OK, all TVs scale the video to fit the screen.

The cheapest scaling is line-based, this just interpolates the lines in between. You can get away with this up to around 23", after which it just looks horrible. Some consumers will find it objectionable at 20", but you pays your money and takes your pick.
Next is Memory-based scaling. Several frames are stored in memeory, and the scaler then looks at them and works out where the edges, diagonals etc are and does its best to interpolate the detail better - storing 2 fields is better then a simple line-based solution. Storing 4 fields is better as you can produce motion vectors and use more complex algorithms to get it right.
This doesn't come cheap, uses extra memory (cost) and a big processor (more cost.) However it does things like correct jaggy edges, repair sampling errors, detect MPEG artefacts etc etc.

In the end though it's all down to you, and what you see and find objectionable. The cheapest LCD sets use a line-based solution and hang a big panel off it. I know of some no-brand sets that use a 20" LCD solution on 32" and larger sets. Predictably they look ghastly.