Will HD screens improve current DVD PQ

[Petey]

Hi all,

I'm on the verge of buying a philips 37pf 9830 lcd tv.

Just a few questions:

1. My current DVD player is a denon 2200, it has prog scan and components. Will the philips 9830 upscale the pic to 720p or higher, or will it just remain at 576p/480p output by the player ?

2. Will the new pixel plus HD only come into effect when receiving a HD source (which seems to still be a long way off) or will this improve current DVD PQ ?

I guess my overall question is with the current source of DVDs and regular SKY and Beeb transmissions will the HD ready screens improve the PQ over a screen that isn't HD ready ?

[Jonny1973]

1. All LCD screens will scale the picture to fill the screen.

2. High Definition screens can make the image of standard definition look worse. It will show up any flaws in the picture quality.

[Tony B]

I disagree totally with the previous poster.

Yes, if you feed the 9830 a crap signal it will display it in all its crapness


However, the Philips 9830, in combination with a decent DVD player will, I am sure, produce excellent pictures.

Up-Scaling is NOT about making the picture fit the screen...

[Scoob]

My Samsung SP50 upscales normal DVD superbly over the component feed (progresssive scan from my Marantz). It does improve DVD quality as long as the original DVD is well encoded. Dodgy Australian horror films can look pretty poor (still gotta love them though). Make sure you get some good quality component cables though to maximise the chances of getting a good picture.
Of course, given HD material then it looks jaw-dropping gorgeous

[ParmMann]

I'm not sure about up-scaling or any of the above, however...

I have a Pioneer PDP505XDE HD Plasma Screen, and a Pioneer 868 DVD player connected via HDMI cable.
DVD's are very noticably stunning compared to the previous DVD player.

[crank]

Originally Posted by Petey

Hi all,

I'm on the verge of buying a philips 37pf 9830 lcd tv.

i guess my overall question is with the current source of DVDs and regular SKY and Beeb transmissions will the HD ready screens improve the PQ over a screen that isn't HD ready ?

Maybe it will maybe it won't a lot depends on the quality of your feeds and connections.Please don't let this be a deciding factor on wether you buy your new display.When buying hd you're buying for the future its future proof and when that arrives you won't give any of this a thought you'll be too busy picking your jaw up off the floor

[bayards]

My Sammy 850HD DVD upscaling player does a great job of my current DVD collection too.

H

[mike7]

The old computer philosophy of GIGO applies, Garbage in,Garbage out. There is a lot of criticism on the Forum about the performance of various new LCD's. It seems to me that the better they are the more they show up the inherent defects of Sky, Freeview and DVD's. Until high quality (HD) sources of signal are available we will have to put up with a compromise as far as the picture we watch is concerned. I think you can upscale and downscale til' the cows come home and shove whatever signal you obtain in the sockets of your choice the end result is always going to fall short of the pristine 'studio' picture level. Have patience ....

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by Jonny1973

1. All LCD screens will scale the picture to fill the screen.

2. High Definition screens can make the image of standard definition look worse. It will show up any flaws in the picture quality.

Actually Jonny1973 makes a fair point. A screen that can display a picture in it's near native resolution as possible without any major scaling should,in theory, give a better picture than on which has to do a lot more scaling. Take the new Sharp Pal Series LCDs for example. I was initially sceptical about the concept of Sharp deliberately producing a lower res LCD screen to optimise standard PAL broadcasts and DVDs but having seen it in action compared to some of the top HD Ready offerings I was convinced that it made a much better job of it. So much so I went out and bought the LC37P50E.

I know that theres much more to producing quality results than simply screen resolution but if all you intend to do is watch standard definition TV, analogue or digital, and DVDs buying some of the latest HD Ready LCD screens may not be the best idea.

[neil c]

Originally Posted by Tony B

I disagree totally with the previous poster.

Yes, if you feed the 9830 a crap signal it will display it in all its crapness


However, the Philips 9830, in combination with a decent DVD player will, I am sure, produce excellent pictures.

Up-Scaling is NOT about making the picture fit the screen...

Tony B your post didn't explain any disagreement, and you obviously didn't read what Jonny1973 said.

There was no mention of 'crapness', and he did not say that excellent results were not possible with a DVD player. He made a correct and informative post.

Spend some time reading round the forums; the general consensus is that HDTVs will not produce as pleasing a picture as CRT TVs will when it comes to SD sources. CRTs can come in HDTV flavours, but many manufacturers have decided to stick with the plasma/LCD flat panel technologies for their HDTV product lines in the UK.

Therefore, in answer to the OPs final question, most people prefer SD sources on (non HD) CRT TV's, which tend to mask the inherent flaws in low resolution and low bitrate video such as Sky. HDTVs work better with high quality HD sources.

Upscaling is all about making the picture fit the screen. An LCD screen such as the Philips 37" has a resolution - 1920 x 1080 is it not? Upscaling aims to increase the resolution of a picture so that we can get as close to a 1:1 pixel match as possible - we are aiming to make the picture fill the TVs pixels.

[Tony B]

Originally Posted by neil c

Tony B your post didn't explain any disagreement, and you obviously didn't read what Jonny1973 said.

There was no mention of 'crapness', and he did not say that excellent results were not possible with a DVD player. He made a correct and informative post.

Spend some time reading round the forums; the general consensus is that HDTVs will not produce as pleasing a picture as CRT TVs will when it comes to SD sources. CRTs can come in HDTV flavours, but many manufacturers have decided to stick with the plasma/LCD flat panel technologies for their HDTV product lines in the UK.

Therefore, in answer to the OPs final question, most people prefer SD sources on (non HD) CRT TV's, which tend to mask the inherent flaws in low resolution and low bitrate video such as Sky. HDTVs work better with high quality HD sources.

Upscaling is all about making the picture fit the screen. An LCD screen such as the Philips 37" has a resolution - 1920 x 1080 is it not? Upscaling aims to increase the resolution of a picture so that we can get as close to a 1:1 pixel match as possible - we are aiming to make the picture fill the TVs pixels.

Hmmm....

Do I detect a lecture here? Don't make assumptions on my reading ability.

I have spent more than enough time (way too much time perhaps) exploring the posts here.

"All LCD screens scale the image to fit the screen". This is NOT upscaling. I can zoom a 4:3 image to fill the screen on my Philips. It is certainly not upscaling, in fact you get a degraded picture. My Denon DVD can upscale to 720p, but it does not fit the screen. The original post was about UPscaling (i.e. enhancing the image quality), not zooming to fill the screen....

I am fully aware (in fact I have posted many times on the subject) ofthe ability of high-def capable LCD screens to display poor quality signals in all their poor quality glory. That is the point, non high def screens hide (or fail to display) the inadeqacy of the poor quality broadcast image, so people draw the wrong conclusion (you should be familiar with that) regarding the capability of hi-def LCD screens....

Now, I think that my original post covered all of that, without resorting to verbosity (should I mention familiarity again?)....

[ijd]

hmmm do i detect a bun fight

[DEANO-B]

Originally Posted by Tony B

Hmmm....
I can zoom a 4:3 image to fill the screen on my Philips. It is certainly not upscaling, in fact you get a degraded picture. .

This is true as it is scaling and must not be confused with pixel mapping 1:1 which is when the source input is the same resolution as your display device.

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Jonny1973

1. All LCD screens will scale the picture to fill the screen.

2. High Definition screens can make the image of standard definition look worse. It will show up any flaws in the picture quality.

1. Isn't always the case.

At least one Philips 768 line LCD model displays 720p signals with 1:1 line mapping, and doesn't scale a 720p signal to 768p for display, instead it leaves 24 black lines top and bottom instead.

[Petey]

Sounds like there's mixed opinions regarding HD screens.

If I was to buy a denon 2910 dvd player and run dvds through the HDMI lead to the Philips 9830 screen. According the to the spec of the dvd player it can upscale to 720p and 1080i. Would this improve the PQ.

Would this be 1:1 pixel mapping as the output from the player would match the screen resolution ?