Confused over upscaling DVDs

Hamslay

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If a progressive scan DVD outputs at 576p, then surely a 1366x768 TV has to "upscale" anyway. So what's an upscaling DVD outputing at 720p doing that the TV wouldn't do anyway? Why is is better upscaled by the DVD player? :confused:

Sorry in advance if this is the dumbest question of the week! :D
 
sometimes the dvd player will have a better scaler than the panel...and therefore the image may be better

afaik
 
I've just ordered a 506XDE. Up till now I've been using a Sony NS905 DVD player, and was assuming I'd have to replace this with an upscaling DVD player to make best use of the screen. It seems that this is not the case... Anyone know how good the upscaler in the xde is, and whether it would be worth my while going for a Denon 1920, for example?

Thanks!
 
This is a much overlooked point and is valid as to whether the recent upscaling buzz is worthwhile at the budget level.

Generally todays better plasma and LCD panels tend to have very good scalers on board to handle the scaling. Certainly the better brands make a good job of it and the Pioneer is good.

Buying a budget upscaling DVD player in that instance would be a waste as the scaler in the panel would be better. In fact cheap upscaling is pretty pointless in that case.

I would tend to go for the very best interlaced output dvd player and let the panel do the scaling. Panels are progressive by nature anyway so interlaced would do.
 
The other thing to note is that most (all?) upscaling DVD players will only upscale to set resolutions, ie 720 & 1080 but most HD screens currently have a resolution of 768. Therefore both the DVD player and the display will be scaling and this will almost certainly cause a loss of PQ compared to the scaling only being done the once by one or other of the devices.
I think my Sammy 745 does have a resolution output of 768 but IIRC this is a PC resolution and therefore 4:3 format rather than 16:9 so would still require the display to rescale the image.

Mark.
 
using 576p out from my JVC th-s66 , my 37pf9830 upscales this and it looks fantastic , almost like compressed HD trailers.
i tried the LG dvd upscaler and it looked VERY poor in comparison @ 720p & 1080i
 
So are you saying that, in theory, with my HD850 connected to my LE32R41B (1366x768) that I should set the HD850 to 576p not 720p to get the best quality (i.e. turn off scaling on the DVD player and just convert to progressive)????

I know one should trust their eyes most of all, but I'm interested in theory! :)
 
In theory then yes I would say a 576p output should look better than an upscaled output. However, as you state, you should try it all ways and go with what looks best to you.

Mark.
 
I have a Panasonic S97 DVD player and a Hitachi 32LD7200 LCD. I've found that the best picture quality that I can get from my setup is when I set the DVD player to output 576p. This way, the DVD player only does the deinterlacing and TV does the scaling. With 720p I see lots of macro blocking (esp. in red) while with 576p I have a perfect image. S97 is very good with deinterlacing and probably is better than the LCD anyway. This way, 576p (over HDMI) is the optimum for my system.
 
Hamslay said:
So are you saying that, in theory, with my HD850 connected to my LE32R41B (1366x768) that I should set the HD850 to 576p not 720p to get the best quality (i.e. turn off scaling on the DVD player and just convert to progressive)????

I know one should trust their eyes most of all, but I'm interested in theory! :)

no , what im saying is , in my case , the best 576p dvd player , can and does look considerably better than a low end dvd upscaler @ 720p & 1080i , on a high end display that will upscale
 
Any comments on the scaler in the Samsung SP50L7? It's a native 1280x720 screen and I'm guessing that it's going to do a better job of scaling than a £100 HDMI player?
 
Hello all

Hamslay - not a dumb question and it would be interesting to get the various 'copy' writers that produce the advertising blurb for DVD player brochures to explain all.

If you look elsewhere within these Threads you'll find a huge number of people who have purchased an 'up-scaling' DVD player in the belief that they now own a 'High Definition' DVD player; the marketing department spotted this early on and no doubt insisted every future DVD player had up-scaling as a feature.

As others have said up-sampling the source within the DVD player is only going to work if:

01. The Display device has the same number of pixels as your up-sampling player can address plus the DVD player does a better job of up-sampling than the Display.

or

02. Your Display device which has more or less pixels than the DVD player can address does a better job at re-sampling the up-sampled signal than it does with a native signal.

For folk with 768 line Displays its definitely worth setting your Player to output a Native signal and see what happens and equally its true that a fair few of the 480 line Displays actually look better when fed an over-sampled signal (assuming the up-sampling is done correctly in the first place!!!).

Best regards

Joe
 
well, Ive had a strange experience with upscaling...

on my previous player ( samsung 835 ) with Faroudja DCi upscaling, you could go to 1080i, and display it on a projector, and the image was clearly, MUCH higher res, than standard 576p.

and I mean, much higher res. so much more details and quality to the image.

however, on my new Sony NS92, it makes no difference, whatever res Im in, as the image is always no more than 10% different.....

its a good image, but no where near as good, as the upscaling of the Samsung.....

on the sony, also, component, is as good, if not even preferable, to hdmi.
 
Just a quick question here, is it worthwhile me getting an upscaling dvd player to go with my sharp LC-32P50E? I ask this 'cos its a low res jobbie, 940 x 480 I think. I'm toying with the idea of going for the samsung 950 as that does upscaling via HDMI. I'm currently using component from a C/A DVD57 and the picture is really good, so do ppl here reckon I woul see any improvement in picture quality?
Thanks.
 
rainstel said:
Just a quick question here, is it worthwhile me getting an upscaling dvd player to go with my sharp LC-32P50E? I ask this 'cos its a low res jobbie, 940 x 480 I think. I'm toying with the idea of going for the samsung 950 as that does upscaling via HDMI. I'm currently using component from a C/A DVD57 and the picture is really good, so do ppl here reckon I woul see any improvement in picture quality?
Thanks.
No, not really. The Sharp's resolution is 960x540 which is designed to closely match standard PAL resolution TV and DVD. You could get an upscaling DVD player just to make use of the HDMI connection and output DVDs at 576p but you won't see much difference in feeding it 720p or 1080i.
 
neilmcl said:
No, not really. The Sharp's resolution is 960x540 which is designed to closely match standard PAL resolution TV and DVD. You could get an upscaling DVD player just to make use of the HDMI connection and output DVDs at 576p but you won't see much difference in feeding it 720p or 1080i.


So I'd need a high res sscreen then? On another note, when high def players become available, ie: blu-tak....(oops sorry, couldn't resist) I mean blu-ray, will me screen, LC-32P50E, be able to show the improved picture quality, or will I need a high res screen for that also. Sorry for the noobish questions here btw.
 
neilmcl said:
You could get an upscaling DVD player just to make use of the HDMI connection and output DVDs at 576p but you won't see much difference in feeding it 720p or 1080i.


not exactly so..............

if you have a GOOD upscaler ( think Faroudja )


then you can UPSCALE an image, adding dithering, to improve quality.

then DOWNSCALE it ( via display ) and you will end up with a BETTER image.


because you are downscaling from an image, with originally more resolution, and details from the extra DITHERING....

BUT, u need a player that actually has proper upscaling.

My Samsung 835 did.

my new Sony ns92 does not.

the new Samsungs dont use Faroudja ( money issues )

so I cant recommend those.
 
Never thought of the Faroudja as agreat scaler. This is meerly a cheap added funtion they have put onto their deinterlacing chips.
 
Nic Rhodes said:
Never thought of the Faroudja as agreat scaler. This is meerly a cheap added funtion they have put onto their deinterlacing chips.

That's an interesting comment you make. Everyone on this and other forums say different. Artificial scaling I agree is never an ideal solution, but could you recomment a better scaler manufacturer?

I'm interested to know, because I'm currently looking to buy an HDMI player. So far the Oppo is on my short list after dropping the Denon, and the Oppo uses Faroudja.
 
No, many here recommend the Faroudja as a very good deinterlacer, which it is. As a scaler it is no better and worse than many many other solutions.

The Oppos is a very decent player, especially on video but I still prefer it on non upscaled output. It would be the pick of my players at this price.
 
Hello tgl

As Nic says you have to be careful which part of the Video replay chain your referring too.

Genesis-microchip manufacturer a range of Video technologies including chip based processors under various brands - Faroudja is its Consumer 'Brand' and DCDi is its single chip deinterlacing solution that lots of hardware manufacturers buy in and incorporate in all manner of Video devices.

Generally where you see the 'DCDi' Logo on a piece of kit you have the Faroudja Deinterlacer and everything else (up-conversion for example) is handled by some other chip set in the video device.

The Genesis and Faroudja web sites are in a state of 'flux' so its not easy to give you links for reference but have a read of this one - http://www.genesis-microchip.com/tch_overview.phtml

Best regards

Joe
 
MarkE19 said:
The other thing to note is that most (all?) upscaling DVD players will only upscale to set resolutions, ie 720 & 1080 but most HD screens currently have a resolution of 768. Therefore both the DVD player and the display will be scaling and this will almost certainly cause a loss of PQ compared to the scaling only being done the once by one or other of the devices.
Mark.
Just to mention also from my side that this is absolutely true. I have tested it again and again with my Pio 434 plasma and 868 dvd (HDMI) player.

The plasma screen upscales and downscales depending on the input signal. It is better for the quality of the final displayed image to have as few as possible scale operations. One scale operation should be better than two. Currently based on the DVDs we all have, a player outputting 720x480p/576p (PAL/NTSC) should provide the best picture quality and maximum amount of DVD data.

On the contrary if you set the player to output 720p (1280x720) the player will upscale the image from the DVD once and then the screen will downscale horizontally and upscale vertically to match its native resolution of 1024 x 768(in my case with the 43" plasma). So some picture information will be cropped from 1280x720 before it is scaled to 1024x768.

You can see more of that if you set the player to 1080i (1920x1080). The screen then downscales both horizontally and vertically and it is displaying interpolated data instead of DVD data and the picture looks softer.
 
Faroudja, is well known, for its quality processing....

Meridian, who are a UK high end specialist, boast about Faroudja processing, on their £ 1k dvd players....

so certainly, they have chosen on the basis of performance.....as Meridian have a high end reputation, and costs come second............

All I know, is my ex Samsung 835 had excellent upscaling

my new Sony 92, has upscaling that looks no different than standard component.............

Im still baffled by the Sony.
 
picked again for the quality of their deinterlacing and not scaling. Faroudja and Meridian actually have financial connections now so no surprize there!!Meridian old players (pre HDMI) used Faroudja chips but just did deinterlacing and not scaling. Philips 963 is the classic examle where Faroudja was used but Philips decided against implementing scaling desite it's inclusion on the chip used. Enthusiast then hacked the firmware to give a scaled output. It wasn't much good but we all had fun playing. Scaling and deinterlacing are two very different things and shoud not be mixed up. Deinterlacing is much more difficult to do, scaling many people make a much better job at it than the freebie add on to the 2310 chip and this is seen in the better players, often coupled with a Faroudja deinterlacing (that has scaling on as well). The scaling chip used in Samsung LCD panels I seen to remember was very good, Pixelmagic, Tag used it as well for their scaler. They coupled it with another deinterlacer.

I'm with Costas on this one but I think I have said this before. ;) Once or twice. :) Use one scaler and use your best.
 
just to follow on from the last question, ive got a p50e and was wondering if it will be worth changing my denon 2800mk with pal prog for a £100 dvd with hdmi such as the sammy or tosh?
 

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