Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Scaling Question

I'm officially obsessing about something, and so thought I'd get the opinions of folks here. As the subject shows, my question has to do with scaling. I've tried to read up on this, but haven't found a satisfactory answer (and I have a hunch there may not really be one).

Here is what I have: PS3 used for gaming and DVD, Denon AVR-2310, Pioneer Elite 101FD monitor, Motorola digital cable box, and a Wii. Everything but the Wii is connected to the receiver via HDMI (and from receiver to TV using HDMI). The Wii is connected to the receiver via component.

I keep fiddling around with what to do about the scaling. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, I have three different pieces of hardware that will upscale to 1080p: the PS3, the AVR, and the TV itself. The question I have, assuming it can be answered generally at all, is which am I best off using? I understood from prior help folks have provided that the Denon may be the best choice to do the scaling, but I didn't really ask the question directly so it wasn't really answered directly in a prior thread. So, I've played around with different options, but my opinion changes each time (and I'm not even sure, in the end, whether there really is a discernible difference to my eye).

So, again, assuming it can be answered generally, please let me know if you have an opinion on how to scale in the following scenarios:

(1) When I'm gaming or watching a DVD on the PS3, should I scale using the PS3, using the Denon, or just leave it to the TV.

(2) When watching the cable box, should I have the Denon scale or just leave it to the TV?

(3) When playing the Wii, use the Denon or the TV?

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts.

It depends…..

The only real way to determine which device does a better job is to simply try each. Depending on your TV’s chipset, that might be the best choice. Your display will end up scalling whatever you send it anyway, so if you can send it a clean, unmolested video stream, that data gets messed with less than having the Denon or the player do the work.

Thanks. I tried to figure out what the scalers are, but couldn't find the information. The only thing I was able to determine was as follows:

The Screen uses "New ASIC Video Processing and Scaling"
The Denon has, I believe, the Anchor Bay 2010 chip
PS3 seems to be a mystery on this front.

The best way is to test it out for yourself. I'd guess the PS3 will be the best at scaling for DVD's. I imagine the Denon does a better job than your TV too (TV's usually don't have the best video scalers)

Ray, unfortunately, as the previous replies indicated, your question can't be answered generally and your "hunch" is correct. The three units you have which can do up-scaling have to be tried in the scenarios you mention to see if you can actually see a superiority in one of them. If not, relax and enjoy.

Scalers are used to adjust the resolution of the program material to the resolution of the display.

So, a standard dvd is recorded to display 480 horizontal lines of resolution. Most of the new displays will output 1080 horizontal lines.

What a scaler does is convert the 480 lines in the program material into 1080 lines for the display.

If you are watching a bluray on the same display, no scaler is involved because the bluray is recorded at 1080 lines of resolution.

In practical terms, I don't think there is a lot of difference between scalers any more. The ps3 is supposed to have a good scaler and I don't see any real difference between it and the on board video on my computer.

The PS3 does its upscaling in software, and I'm pretty sure it improved with firmware updates. For a while my HD DVD player looked quite a bit better upscaling DVDs, but it was pretty much a wash as the software scaling in the PS3 advanced.

Thanks everyone. Since I've done some testing and didn't see much difference, I'll do what JohnK suggests--pick an option, sit back, relax, and enjoy it. It's so easy to start obsessing about this stuff, especially when I have enough time to hang around boards like these and read what audio and videophiles are talking about!

The PS3's scaling is very good, it's de-interlacing before scaling film material is passable. The full-featured ABT 2010 chip has a featured called: PReP - Progressive ReProcessing, which can take less than ideal 480p video and break it down into the original interlaced lines to give it another shot. This is for players (like the PS3) which don't support 480i output.

I don't know if the Denon receivers have this feature enabled on the chip.

My Pioneer display does an amazing job de-interlacing 1080i film-based material (just got CSI Season 1 on BD), but it takes a couple seconds to lock on to the film cadence. It's scaling of 480 video to 1080 isn't as good as the PS3.

FWIW I don't notice much difference either between letting my Denon 2310 deinterlace or letting my projector do it. I let the Denon do it anyway because that Anchor Bay chip is supposed to be the bees knees.

From what I've read, most of the fancier features of the Anchor Bay chip are turned OFF in the Denon receiver; they're reserved for the Oppo players and DVDO Edge scaler.

I would be interested to know where you heard this. I see the ABT2010 as a major selling point for the denon 890/2310.

Thanks again, folks. I read the same thing Craig_P read about certain features being turned off in the 2310. I believe I read it on the AVS Forum's "official" 890/2310 thread, though I couldn't swear to that. My read was that even with certain of the features turned off, though, the chip is still a nice feature of the 2310.

It is a common practice for the chip manufactures to reserve functionality of their devices. ABT is probably the best at this practice. They have an unusual philosophy where they keep their chip’s abilities secrete. They then equip differing lines of their own products under the DVDO badge with the same chip, but give each devise different functionality at differing price points in a manner that no one can determine just exactly what the chip’s limitations are. The same goes for receiver manufactures that buy their chips. Each one, depending on price, will have different limitations. ABT is not alone with this practice either. The Reon was the hot chip two years ago. Everyone wanted it and would pay extra to get that name on their receiver’s face plate. It wasn’t until it was too late (money already spent) that the realization hit that their new toy with the shinny new ‘state of the art’ Reon only had half the functionality as their buddies’ AVR with a Reon.

I own a DVDO VP50pro. The Pro is DVDO’s $3500 flagship machine. It has been on a beta firmware version for almost 18 months now while DVDO has rolled out two new, lower end products and several firmware upgrades for both of those products. Both have more, and also less, functionality as the Pro. DVDO has offered me downgrade path to the $1200 Duo for no charge (the audacity of the bastards). They will not make an official statement whether the Pro will get additional firmware or not, or if it will be discontinued or not.

Rant aside, it is for these reasons that I suggested to test each device to see which one, or which combination provides the best or most desirable results. Asuming one machine does a better job than another just because it has a particular chip in it is the wrong approach.

I believe that you read it at AVS - to Dean's (Grunt) point in a separate thread - was the poster credible?

Argon: I don't know that I can answer the question about credibility of the poster. Frankly, it didn't really matter to me because by the time I read the information I already owned the machine. That being said, I went back and found the specific discussion I was thinking of, and the person who posted the information seems quite knowledgeable based on discussions throughout the thread. For folks' information, this is the post I was thinking about: "the ABT 2010 chip in the BDP-83 is fully implemented whereas in the Denon 2310 it's only 1/2 implemented, to include not having PReP implemented (which is why a 480i input signal to the 2310 vice upscaled 480p provides the best picture quality improvement). The full implementation in the BDP-83 allows it to provide additional picture adjustment features the ABT 2010 is capable of providing, although the basic deinterlacing and upscaling in both the BDP-83 and Denon 2310 are likely to be the same. If you're not interested in the additional fine tuning picture adjustment features offered by the BDP-83, then you should be good to go with just setting the BDP-80 to "source direct" mode and letting the Denon 2310 do the deinterlacing and upscaling." Again, I can't vouch for the accuracy, I am just cutting and pasting.

Thanks, that is very interesting. I have a friend who either has, had or will have a denon 2310. (she's sending it back since it wasn't right) All she has said is that the picture quality out of it, when it's working, is nothing short of amazing.

Agreed, There is no way to know for sure the credibility of the various posters - I know exactly what Dean is saying. You have to really read the thread and develop your own sense for which posters know what they are talking about and which ones are "shootin' from the hip". Sounds as if you did that.

Yeah I definitely read that on the AVS forum 2310/890 "official" thread. Can't vouch for the source, but it certainly makes sense.
I've been seriously looking at picking up an 890 from Futureshop, though I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger. Seems like a great unit, especially at their clearance price. Probably should soon, as I'm sure they'll run out of stock soon.