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Old 12-06-2011, 12:45
TigerBlood
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I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I guess its the place which those in the know might be most likely to come.

Basically I'm looking at the purchase of Lost on DVD or Blu ray, for watching on a PS3 (which I believe has upscaling technology) for watching on a 720p TV (although eventually this will be upgraded to 1080p I'm sure, so this is the future proof sense).

Prices for the Blu Ray are £120+, DVD £45ish, just to explain why I'm bothering asking the question!

Okay, so the question, what definition is DVD unscaled to on a PS3 (or any other bluray player), and will the difference be noticeable on a 720p TV set? As I understand it Sky broadcast in 720p, so if it reaches this threshold then I am more than happy. Secondly is there any excess, is it scaled above 720, so I'd see an improvement on a 1080 set up, or for that would I need Blu Ray?

Hope I've made myself clear, and apologies if I've used wrong technology, I've tried my best (honest) to convey what I mean!
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:05
Nigel Goodwin
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You seem rather confused by it all?.

First off, Sky transmit in 1080i, as all UK HD transmissions are - 720P has never been used, apart from pre-service testing.

As far as upscaling goes it doesn't make SD in to HD, all it does is make the picture fit the screen, and your TV already upscales to do the exact same thing. The only real point in having an upscaling DVD player is for it's HDMI connection, it won't give a better picture than RGB SCART, but it will allow connection to a modern TV (which now have only one SCART but multiple HDMI's).

If you want HD you need BluRay, DVD can't give HD regardless of any scaling claims.
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:22
TigerBlood
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You seem rather confused by it all?.

First off, Sky transmit in 1080i, as all UK HD transmissions are - 720P has never been used, apart from pre-service testing.

As far as upscaling goes it doesn't make SD in to HD, all it does is make the picture fit the screen, and your TV already upscales to do the exact same thing. The only real point in having an upscaling DVD player is for it's HDMI connection, it won't give a better picture than RGB SCART, but it will allow connection to a modern TV (which now have only one SCART but multiple HDMI's).

If you want HD you need BluRay, DVD can't give HD regardless of any scaling claims.
Thanks for your reply.

So a upscaling DVD player does absolutely nothing at all to the picture? I guess I was really quite wrong then!!

I'm not sure where I got the information on sky (and all HD broadcasts) from then
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:29
diablo
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A good upscaler won't get you blu-ray quality but it will make a DVD appear much better than standard definition.

I don't know how good the PS3 is for that but my Sony blu-ray player makes DVDs appear pretty good on my 90 inch projector screen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_scaler
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:34
gomezz
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In theory you should get better results if the upscaling is done at the source (ie the DVD player) rather than adding mutliple digital / analogue / digital conversions into the mix. But you need to suck it and see that works best with your own set up.
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:41
bobcar
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A good upscaler won't get you blu-ray quality but it will make a DVD appear much better than standard definition.
It depends on how good the upscaler is in the TV. If the TV is good then upscaling on the DVD may well make it worse than feeding SD. On my DVD player I used 576p for the best picture (the DVD player can read the progressive flag and thus do simple weave de-interlacing - the TV can work out whether the source is progressive or not but it is more difficult).

I don't know how good the PS3 is for that but my Sony blu-ray player makes DVDs appear pretty good on my 90 inch projector screen.
Blu-ray players often have much better upscalers than upscaling DVD players. I also upscale from my Sony Blu-ray player whereas I never did from my upscaling DVD player.
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:42
Nigel Goodwin
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Thanks for your reply.

So a upscaling DVD player does absolutely nothing at all to the picture? I guess I was really quite wrong then!!
No, unless your TV has an appalling quality upscaler, in which case an external scaler may improve the picture a little.

Unfortunately you've fallen prey to the deliberately misleading advertising, that gives the impression that upscaling produces HD.

As for the others posts, upscaling DOESN'T give you HD (or anything like it), it merely makes the picture fit the screen. BluRay players (and the PS3) have particularly good scalers, so give a better quality SD image from a DVD - essentially they produce less objectionable artifacts on the picture.


I'm not sure where I got the information on sky (and all HD broadcasts) from then
It's been posted on here numerous times by misinformed posters, so you've probably read it here?.
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:43
TigerBlood
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A good upscaler won't get you blu-ray quality but it will make a DVD appear much better than standard definition.

I don't know how good the PS3 is for that but my Sony blu-ray player makes DVDs appear pretty good on my 90 inch projector screen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_scaler
In theory you should get better results if the upscaling is done at the source (ie the DVD player) rather than adding mutliple digital / analogue / digital conversions into the mix. But you need to suck it and see that works best with your own set up.
Thanks both!

Slightly contradictory to the OP, although I must admit I do think that DVDs look better when played through an upscaling device. I was just hoping to quantify if there was a way to say how much better it might be.

Such as is the best upscaling possible to put an extra line between the existing feed, thus doubling the capabilities, or is it not that good?

Or as I'm starting to get a feeling, there is no real answer, and its just 'it'll be as good as it'll be' ?
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Old 12-06-2011, 13:51
Nigel Goodwin
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Or as I'm starting to get a feeling, there is no real answer, and its just 'it'll be as good as it'll be' ?
That's about it - but a decent upscaling DVD player (and particularly a BD player) can appreciably improve the picture on a really poor quality TV.

One of the major differences between cheap TV's and expensive ones seems to be the quality of the scaler inside.

If you've got a really good TV you probably won't see any improvement, but on a cheap one it may well be very worth while.
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Old 12-06-2011, 16:45
David (2)
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i get better results using the upscaler in the box rather than the one in the tv. Our panasonic box is a combi DVD/harddrive/freeview. The tv also had built in freeview. When i switch from the tv to the box (hdmi link) the picture is very slightly better - not HD - not by a mile (i am comparing to FreesatHD by the way) - but a slight improvement over what the tv can do on its own. There is a similar result using this machine to playback regular dvd's over the hdmi link compared with the rgb scart option......
Overriding point - this slight upgrade in picture wont even be noticed by most people - some people cant even tell the difference between normal and true HD pictures!
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Old 12-06-2011, 16:48
Nigel Goodwin
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i get better results using the upscaler in the box rather than the one in the tv. Our panasonic box is a combi DVD/harddrive/freeview. The tv also had built in freeview. When i switch from the tv to the box (hdmi link) the picture is very slightly better - not HD - not by a mile (i am comparing to FreesatHD by the way) - but a slight improvement over what the tv can do on its own. There is a similar result using this machine to playback regular dvd's over the hdmi link compared with the rgb scart option......
Overriding point - this slight upgrade in picture wont even be noticed by most people - some people cant even tell the difference between normal and true HD pictures!
What make is your TV?.
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Old 12-06-2011, 23:00
pocatello
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I think the term upscaling has confused you, it is a marketing term. All upscaling does is map a low amount of pixels to a high amount of pixels in the least ugly way possible. When you full screen some horrible low resolution streaming video on a website, you are "upscaling" it to your screen resolution. It still looks like crap but at least it isn't blatantly blocky. Same with dvds on your computer, unless your pc or laptop has a 720x576 resolution it will be scaled by default. Dvd players do not upscale to 720p, they produce no extra resolution. The ONLY advantage of an upscaling dvd player is that it upscales a digital source, aka a clean source whereas your tv being fed an analog dvd signal from an old player would have to work with much less, and thus produce a less clean image. The hdtv has to upscale the image regardless, its pixels are fixed. Every time your hdtv shows an image that is SD it upscales it, there is no way around it.
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Old 12-06-2011, 23:12
pocatello
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Thanks both!

Slightly contradictory to the OP, although I must admit I do think that DVDs look better when played through an upscaling device. I was just hoping to quantify if there was a way to say how much better it might be.

Such as is the best upscaling possible to put an extra line between the existing feed, thus doubling the capabilities, or is it not that good?

Or as I'm starting to get a feeling, there is no real answer, and its just 'it'll be as good as it'll be' ?

As said they don't look better, just not worse. The tv upscales regardless, but it is better to upscale a clean image straight off the disc than a blurry one from an analog cable.

It will not be 720p, not even close.
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