Upscaling Non HD sources - Help Please

[mortal]

i've just bought a 46 inch samsung 1080p lcd and am looking to get the best out of Non HD sources (Standard DVD's and Sky + - currently connected via scart)
i am looking at the Panasonic DMR-EX77EB (which upscales to 1080p) which i would connect to the tv via HDMI and would be grateful if anyone could help with the

following

if i plug my Sky+ box via Scart into the Panny would the picture be improved ?
does the upscaling make a great deal of difference to standard dvd's ?

Any advice would be apreciated

cheers
mortal

[gblades]

Upscaling will only help the picture if the upscaler in the DVD player is better than the one which is built into the TV.

I seriously doubt the panasonic or any other DVD player will upscale a source connected to it over the SCART socket. In order to do that it would have to digitise the picture which is a lot of additional work.

[imjay]

My question is similar - hope it's okay to tag onto this.

Our HD tv does an nice job of up scaling standard def dvd via component connection but the up scaling capability of our Sony dvd player is visually superior.

Will a stand alone up scaler do as good a job with my composite or S-Video or SCART output from my LaserDisc or other analog standard devices as the dvd player does?

[gblades]

A standalone upscaler is going to be as good or better than the one built into the DVD player more than likely as its a dedicated product.
However it does have to convert the analogue to digital first and yo will loose a bit of quality there compared to converting straight from the DVD source.

So yes a separate upscaler should be practically as good if not better as long as it is fed with a very good quality SD source. RGB over SCART would be best. S-Video would probably be acceptible but composite is really not that good. Yes it could improve on the composite source but since composite is so poor I doubt it would be worth the expense.

I found that the upscaler in my DVD player was better than my TV and this was especially true on poor dvds such as the latest Harry Potter near the beginning.

[LV426]

A good standalone scaler will do a far better job than anything inside a piece of equipment; much more processing power and much more configuration. And a good seller will install and configure it for you.

[chrishull3]

why do dvds commercial or my own home made movies look the same when played by my ps3 onto my plasma pioneer as when played via scart from my pioneer dvd recorder,ie resolution everything.the ps3 is set to upscale.i had a look at upscalers in currys store and could see no difference there as well.will only certain teles upscale.

[LV426]

Your TV upscales everything* coming in; it has to, otherwise it wouldn't fit the screen. So there is nothing to be gained by upscaling elsewhere (eg in a PS3) unless the "elsewhere" does a better job.

A standalone scaler (we're talking a ballpark cost of about the same as a big panel TV) is likely to a better job. An internal scaler inside a player (etc) isn't.


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* except (possibly) something that's already a match for the screen

[elicash73]

I'm glad to see the upscaling myth being busted more often.

[mortal]

Thanks for you advice guys

[Switch625]

I'm also confused about upscaling DVD players so if I may ask the following:

I've just bought a cheap and cheerful Acoustic Solutions 32" LCD, and currently it's connected via Scart to a pretty old DVD player. If I bought an upscaling DVD player such as the Philips 5980, and connected it via HDMI - would I notice a difference in quality with my standard DVDs?

[imjay]

Probably the larger the display size the more helpful visibly improving up scaling/up converting will be.

Also, with a component rgb input your new tv may upconvert almost as well as having the feature built in to the dvd player.

We saw a TON of improvement between our not so old regular dvd player with component rgb connection and our new dvd player with up conversion via HDMI - A TON! Specially on the wall screen using the projector.
EDITED TO ADD that, okay to other posters, I now understand that I could buy a stand alone up scaler that would improve res playing my LaserDisc 10 or so movies I still want to watch but it probably would cost a lot more than it would be worth. THANKS
goodluck

[LV426]

Originally Posted by Switch625

I've just bought a cheap and cheerful Acoustic Solutions 32" LCD, and currently it's connected via Scart to a pretty old DVD player. If I bought an upscaling DVD player such as the Philips 5980, and connected it via HDMI - would I notice a difference in quality with my standard DVDs?

You might; you might not. It's more likely that any improvement will
a) be marginal rather than fundamental
b) be the result of the HDMI connection offering a tiny improvement over RGB
c) be the result of the newer machine being simply a better player
d) (most likely) be the result of de-interlacing (only) in the source player and feeding a progressive (but not upscaled) signal to the screen.
....and not because of any scaling done in the player.