If VPs are so great...

[Pecker]

SKY have VPs which cost more than my house.

'The Simpsons' on Sky HD is actually SD upscaled by one of these uberVPs.

I think the upscaled version looks worse than the SD version.

Why should I consider the purchase of a relatively cheap, low-tech, £2,000 VP anything other than a complete waste of money?

Steve W

[welwynnick]

There's a lot of logic in that, but it only holds if Sky were to broadcast 1080p video. But since they don't, a good VP is still justified for decent upscaling of SD and de-interlacing of SD & HD.

Nick

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

I think it's wrong to assume that things which are expensive are better....I also think that broadcast upscalers are designed for different application than domestic ones.

Gordon

[Chris5]

I must admit sky scaling (programs on HD channels with no HD logo) do look inferior to the SD channel upscaled by my £2k scaler

[StooMonster]

Completely agree with that, only ever record/watch 1080i native material on any of the HD channels (Artsworld HD is another whose SD upscaling is terrible); if content is SD sourced then I always get the SD channel version instead and upscale it myself.

StooMonster

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Seconded. I compared a few BBC daytime movies over christmas between their SD broadcast and their HD broadcast. There were one or two detail improvements, which I put down to perhaps being based on an original high bit-rate SD master, but also much softening over this in the upscaling process.

[Pecker]

Thanks for ther constructive replies.

You'd think that, if a £2,000 domestic VP can do a better than what SKY use, that SKY would be better off investing in a domestic VP.

After all, I bet that only amounts to 2 days worth of a SKY director's expenses.

Steve W

[NicolasB]

I must admit sky scaling (programs on HD channels with no HD logo) do look inferior to the SD channel upscaled by my £2k scaler

Your domestic device has to take a 576i signal, deinterlace, and upscale to the resolution of your screen. Sky's device has to deinterlace, upscale to 1080p and reinterlace; your device then takes that signal, deinterlaces it for a second time (and it's deinterlacing 1080i this time, not 576i, so that's tougher, and because the scaler doesn't know it's already been upscaled it'll probably screw up all the sharpness and diagonal processing) and then scale it (again, a second time) to the resolution of your screen.

I don't think Sky's device is doing a bad job, it's just that there's so much more processing being done - by your scaler as well as by Sky's.

[VirusKiller]

I thought that most of the SD material shown on BBC HD last night in the build-up to the footy looked awful. It was the blockyness that surprised me most. Not sure why it should be like that... My processing was Gennum VXD in my new JVC HD1.

[Liam @ Prog AV]

That might possibly be Gennum related... I reported the same with the BBC HD loop being shown on the Crystalio II powered projectionDesign 1080p single chip at the What Hifi Show and the Heathrow HiFi Show. Lumagen powered Sim2 D80 doesn't show it... It's a blockiness that looks exactly like MPEG compression, only it isn't. I've still not got to the bottom of this one as at the show I concluded in the end that perhaps the Uvem was doing it. However I have heard reports since of HDTV connected directly at 1080i doing it.

[David Mackenzie]

Originally Posted by Pecker

SKY have VPs which cost more than my house.

'The Simpsons' on Sky HD is actually SD upscaled by one of these uberVPs.

Out of curiosity - and I apologise if this is going slightly off topic - but are SKY using the very best source material available to them to feed to their processors, or are they just upscaling the same old masters they've been using for years?

For example, "Family Guy" is coloured digitally and the American DVD shows an almost pristine digital replication of the original computer master files. Yet the versions airing on Sky (when they last showed the programme anyway) and BBC are poor quality Composite-derived versions with huge halos around the outlines and an overall blurry look.

Originally Posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV

I think it's wrong to assume that things which are expensive are better....I also think that broadcast upscalers are designed for different application than domestic ones.

Gordon

Although I've never owned a video processor myself (don't have the cash yet), I've always noted that even the Comb Filtering built into a lot of Sony consumer TVs is better than what broadcasters seem to be using to convert their old Composite material. (Or maybe the people in charge at the TV stations are misusing their equipment?)

[VirusKiller]

Originally Posted by Liam @ Prog AV

That might possibly be Gennum related... I reported the same with the BBC HD loop being shown on the Crystalio II powered projectionDesign 1080p single chip at the What Hifi Show and the Heathrow HiFi Show. Lumagen powered Sim2 D80 doesn't show it... It's a blockiness that looks exactly like MPEG compression, only it isn't. I've still not got to the bottom of this one as at the show I concluded in the end that perhaps the Uvem was doing it. However I have heard reports since of HDTV connected directly at 1080i doing it.

Strange. And I also have a MAJOR compatibility issue between my Oppo HD970 and the JVC HD1. Will try and get a photo of it this evening.

[tryingtimes]

Originally Posted by VirusKiller

Strange. And I also have a MAJOR compatibility issue between my Oppo HD970 and the JVC HD1. Will try and get a photo of it this evening.

Hi there - just so you know, I'm using the oppo 970 and Crystalio II with no problems - great picture in fact. So this one isn't a gennum issue.

Re the blockiness - the only time I see blockiness is when I'm watching really low bitrate DivX and there's a fade to black. HTPC being the source.

[Liam @ Prog AV]

I've not run a Crystalio II standalone into a 1080p projector yet, but every C-II I have done (50" and 65" plasma) has NOT shown this blockiness. It was just the projectionDesign 1080p setup I saw it on, and on two different occasions (although presumably the same setup as it was at a show). Perhaps they're doing something different.