Can they upscale/de-interlace TV?

[BYF]

Hi

Im a total noob in this area, so apologise if this is a stupid question...

I understand that many DVD/HDD recorders can upscale dvds to HD resolutions of 720p/1080i/1080p etc and de-interlace them.

But can a suitable DVD/HDD recorder upscale and de-interlace TV that is running through them, e.g from integrated freeview tuner, or external sky box?

Many HD sets I've seen are poor at de-interlacing, upscaling and displaying an SD signal, mainly due to cheap processing.

Cheers

 

[PhilipL]

Hi

Any HD Ready TV already includes an upscaler and de-interlacer, having a DVD Recorder do it will not make any real difference to the picture quality.

Many HD sets I've seen are poor at de-interlacing, upscaling and displaying an SD signal, mainly due to cheap processing.

Any SD interlaced footage will look pretty poor on a HD progressive display because SD footage was designed to look okay on an interlaced 20" CRT and not a progressive scan 32" or greater widescreen display, this is why we have true high definition on the horizon.

A DVD Recorder is unlikely to include anything any better in terms of an upscaler and de-interlacer than the TV. Also the TV's scaler can not be switched off and some scaling will always happen in the TV. Scaling is a lossy process, so having the source upscale plus the TV's scaler processing the picture is likely to mean a reduction in detail not more.

Also the TV knows the precise resolution of it's panel, it's refresh rate and other display characteristics which means it also knows the best way of deinterlacing and upscaling with the least artefacts being introduced.

Upscaling via HDMI for standard definition equipment is just a marketing trick to get us to replace perfectly good equipment so they can cash in, once HD takes off they will be all to keen then to point out upscaling isn't giving anything better and so me must upgrade, again!

The majority if not all DVD Recorders with upscalers will upscale anything fed to it, whether recorded or just being fed through. Note that the recorder must be on for this to happen.

Regards

Phil

 

[BYF]

OK thanks for that reply.

What I've found is that many TV's, despite having internal scalers are lame at de-interlacing, although some do a half decent job.

What I'm really interested in is using a dvd recorder to de-interlace 576i SDTV that is fed through it, thus feeding a progessive signal to the TV so that the TV doesn't have to de-interlace the signal as many TV's are hopeless at it.