Buying a new non-upscaling DVD player (DVD89) - not an issue

[Tarquinius]

Following todays earlier threads on buying an upscaling DVD player and the one on the Cambridge DVD89, I thought it worth pulling some points together from these. I hope I've got this right - someone please let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong

At the heart the previous 'upscaling DVD' thread is a question that I been wondering about lately...whether upscaling is best done by the TV or by the DVD. The answer to that (I beleive) is whether the TV or the DVD player in question have a better upscaler.

I've been thinking about a CA DVD89. It has HDMI out, but AFAIK, no upscaling.

Now I'm also buying a new plasma (either a Pioneer 428(0)XD or Panasonic TH37PX70. Both are good TVs and not cheap. Is it fair therefore to expect these plasmas to have decent upscaling capabilities? In which case it really doesn't matter that the DVD89 does not upscale? Am I missing anything?

In any case, as I understand it, even if the DVD upscales, then often the TV will have to re-scale again in order to get an exact match to its own display, so the DVD's upscaling may be a bit pointless. (Best to scale once only not twice). I'm not entirely certain on this final point, so correct me if I'm wrong.

[Andy98765]

Just checked the manual and via HDMI you can get.
480p
720p
1080i
See page 10.
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets...sersManual.pdf

[LV426]

Your final point is bang on. Scaling is an inherently degrading process (although it can and does subjectively improve), so it's best done once.

In order to do it once only in the source, the following two things must be true:

1: The source must be able to produce a match for the TV's panel. For High Resolution LCDs (and some Plasmas) with 1080 lines of pixels, this is quite plausible. For lower resolution panels with 720 rows, ditto. But for many mid-resolution panels with 768 rows, it would need 768p to be a match. This is a non-standard resolution (in video terms) and isn't commonly found as an output option.

2: The TV must be able and willing to take a matching input (already the right number of pixels) and NOT attempt to rescale it. This is known as 1:1 pixel mapping and it's by no means a promise.

Whereas, to do it once in the TV is simply a matter of feeding the TV whatever you have from your source software, ideally de-interlaced (but that's all).

Now, if you REALLY want to upgrade your image, consider a standalone scaler. A half-decent one will cost more than the TV in all probability, but can use clever techniques beyond simple interpolation - like "looking" at moving objects across several successive frames to determine their shape and using this to recalculate the extra pixels.