Dvd Upscalers

[Caleb]

Basically came across these and they sound quite logical when ive got a decent tv to pair one too and the fact im watching a lot of dvds these days.

was looking at stuff like so

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Philips-DVP5960-HDMI...%3A1|240%3A1318

any tips or advice etc would be much appreciated.

[manuel]

No - not worth it. Save up for a ps3 and go bluray...

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

Or don't be a pussy and buy a bluray player.

[Krisboats]

I'd say that buying a dedicated blu-ray player will be far more beneficial. There is the cost factor to take into account though. The cheapest blu-ray players I've seen are still around the £100 mark, but they'll up scale normal dvd's with the benefit of doing it slightly better than a cheap £30 player and they have the blu-ray functionality for when BR's become more mainstream.

The ps3 is the best choice as its up scaling capabilities are brilliant, but again that costs even more.

If your after a cheap player to make your existing dvd's look a bit better on your HDtv then go for the cheap player. Make sure to read reviews for one that doesn't introduce a lot of noise and sparklies during the up scaling process though.

If you've got a bit more to spend go for one of the other two respectively.

[manuel]

but they'll up scale normal dvd's with the benefit of doing it slightly better than a cheap £30 player and they have the blu-ray functionality for when BR's become more mainstream.

Isnt the whole upscaling a bit BS ? you cant magic resolution out of thin air ? you get the same through the analogue as digital.

[Krisboats]

Isnt the whole upscaling a bit BS ? you cant magic resolution out of thin air ? you get the same through the analogue as digital.

Well actually, yes you can. Though to a limited degree.

There are several places in which the upscaling may take place, the player itself, the tv and through the A/V receiver if you have one.

The standard basic upscaling is Nearest neighbour scaling in which the pixels just get bigger. As far as i'm aware this is just a standard type image that the tv's will show when you plug in a standard definition source and the tv has a go at upscaling or even not bothering at all. It looks very jagged round the edges and isn't too nice to look at.

The next type is bilinear scaling with extra sharpening. This does a better job and can create a sharper image hats nicer to look at, this is the kind of thing most upscaling dvd players will do. The downside is a slight halo'ing around certain parts of the image and in rare cases some detail is actually lost (it is an improvement overall though).

Then obviously there's blu ray and hd dvd which looks a lot better because the format has a much higher bitrate which means they can have a f**king tonne more detail in them.

I forgot to mention that it makes a big difference depending on what you have equipment wise and what its busy doing. Sometimes the image can be scaled twice which is a bad thing... it only needs to be done once and should be done by the best piece of equipment. If you have a crappy tv then a specific upscaling player is probably better. If you have a nice high end tv that's got some pretty good upscaling stuff inside then you won't need the player.

Here's the situations where the picture will be scaled twice:

DVD (576i) > upscale to 720p > TV is 768 lines, so it's scaled up again.

DVD (576i) > upscale to 1080i > TV is 768 lines, so it's scaled down.

DVD (576i) > upscale to 1080p > TV is 768 lines, so it's scaled down.

Here's the situations where the picture will be scaled once (ie. what you want!):

DVD (576i) > NO UPSCALING > TV is 768 lines, so it's scaled once.

DVD (576i) > NO UPSCALING > TV is 1080 lines, so it's scaled once.

DVD (576i) > upscale to 1080i > TV is 1080 lines, so it's scaled once.

DVD (576i) > upscale to 1080p > TV is 1080 lines, so it's scaled once.

As you can see, the only time the image won't be scaled twice is when you have a 1080 line TV and you have the correct settings on your DVD player. Also, you'll need to check that the "1:1" or "Exact pixel" setting is on (or whatever it's called on your TV, if the setting exists).