Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Video scalers and video upconversions? Worth it?

yep. DVDs can't be DVDs unless they adhere to the standard.

In reply to:

---

are you absolutely sure that ALL DVDs are in 480

---

I'm sure too!

BTW. Is your sony an upconverting TV.? It might be making your dvds seem better if it is.

John: I bought a "special" Superbit DVD of "The Fifth Element" which says "Superbit DVDs utilize a special high bit rate digital transfer process that optimizes video quality..........." I was thinking that a higher bit rate implied a higher resolution.

Bug: The Sony will upconvert the various formats to 1080P. I also bought a new OPPO DVD player which will upconvert. I have read the pros and cons of where to do the upconverting and have tried it a couple of ways. Haven't noticed much difference. One thing that I am convince of is that you DON'T want to do your upconverting/ scaling in your audio receiver!!!!!! Let the TV do it or the DVD player, but NOT your audio receiver. I am wondering why anyone would do it that way??

So lets say my tv will do 720p and 1080i which is the hdtv ready rear projection and that I use progressive on my denon 1600 player which is 420p. So if I want better picture quality keeping my dvd player then I should buy an upconverter? Does it actually convert it to 720p?

Eric, again the DVD is 480i(not 420), and your player can deinterlace the i to p. If the TV has a native resolution of 720p, then it deinterlaces 480i to p(if the player hasn't already done it)and scales the 480 up so that it can be shown on the 720 screen. As I said before, no, an "upconverter"(scaler)can't actually convert to full 720 resolution. If a separate one would do a better job of scaling to 720 than the TV does(no way to know beforehand)then the picture would look slightly better.

Oh I see! So its best to leave it as it is as 480p from my dvd player since it does better job than the tv. And if the dvd itself was 720p or higher than 480i then that would make the biggest difference and get dvd player that supports that dvd format, ie hd-dvd. Am I on the right track?

ereed: I am not familar with the specifications of the Denon 1600. However, I would suggest that you try the following experiments BEFORE buying an external upconvertor.

A. If possible, try the Denon with an output of 720P and then 1080I. Determine if you can see any picture difference.

B. If possible, set the Denon to 480 and let the TV do the upconverting. Determine if you can see any picture difference with A.

If your HDTV is only a year or so old, I strongly suspect that you would NOT see any picture difference compared to the best of A or B with an external upconvertor.

If all things are equal, I strongly believe that you should upconvert with equipment closest to your source material. If all things are NOT equal, upconvert with the equipment that does it best!!!

Superbit DVDs are still 480i, but they leave all the extras off the movie disc so that the full DVD can be used to maximize the picture quality. Essentially, the movie is less compressed, so more of the detail is retained. So, yes they do look (substantially) better than a regular DVD, but they are still 480i.

I am dredging up an older thread here as I have been researching for future purchases. Ratpack made a comment that no one should consider doing upscale or upconversion through their receiver. Intuitively, that sounds reasonable to me. However, I have also done some research on another forum, AVS, and there are several threads there with throngs of followers dedicated to receivers like the Denon 3806 and the Yamaha 2600. The hook seems to be the upscale to 1080i. That brings me to the question - with these new receivers, has there been a change in the "best" or "preferred" method of upscaling? I have cable now but not digital cable. I don't have a new tv but that would be a future purchase. I like the new SXRD Sonys - would they better handle the upscaling or upconversion. I have a lot of uncertainties - hoping to clear them up here - and I never like to walk into a large purchase (particularly audio/video) unless I know at least as much or more than the salesman.

Arg, welcome. There really shouldn't be a fixed "best" or "preferred" method of scaling. As was said before, it depends on whether the scaling would be best in a particular player(if it scales), or a particular receiver(if it scales), or in the TV itself, which has to deinterlace and scale any incoming signal to fit its "native resolution" if the player or receiver hasn't already done it. All reports on the SXRD, for example, indicate that it has excellent deinterlacing and scaling, so it would be unlikely that the player or receiver would do a visibly better job of it. So, there's always uncertainty, but the best modern TVs are superb at this.