4K Upscaling - explanation needed

Mike V

Mike V

Junior Audioholic
I am about to purchase a 75" 4K TV and a DVD player and AV receiver. I have many blu ray DVDs that I would love to watch on this new system, so I am trying to understand 4K upscaling. If your DVD player has 4K upscaling, does a 4K TV also need 4K upscaling capability? If yes, why, if the DVD player has already upscaled the video signal, and the TV can already receive 4K signals? I understand that a blu ray DVD signal upscaled will not be as great as picture as a real 4K signal...

Does the AV receiver need to have 4K upscaling? I am assuming I will hook the DVD player output HDMI to the receiver, and the receiver will have one HDMI out to the TV. I think I will be getting a Marantz SR 6011 or 6012. I want to make the right purchases of TV and DVD player to get the best picture out of my old blu rays DVDs. I am also excited to use 4K sources whenever possible, of course!

Thanks!
 
P

pewternhrata

Audioholic Chief
I have an LG tv, it automatically upscales to 4k, or basically the optimum resolution. My only complaint, wish I could turn it off to see if there is any difference. Not sure what happens if I send an already upscaled image to it.
 
Mitchibo

Mitchibo

Audioholic
I am about to purchase a 75" 4K TV and a DVD player and AV receiver. I have many blu ray DVDs that I would love to watch on this new system, so I am trying to understand 4K upscaling. If your DVD player has 4K upscaling, does a 4K TV also need 4K upscaling capability? If yes, why, if the DVD player has already upscaled the video signal, and the TV can already receive 4K signals? I understand that a blu ray DVD signal upscaled will not be as great as picture as a real 4K signal...

Does the AV receiver need to have 4K upscaling? I am assuming I will hook the DVD player output HDMI to the receiver, and the receiver will have one HDMI out to the TV. I think I will be getting a Marantz SR 6011 or 6012. I want to make the right purchases of TV and DVD player to get the best picture out of my old blu rays DVDs. I am also excited to use 4K sources whenever possible, of course!

Thanks!
All you need is a 4K player like an Xbox. The data will pass through the receiver to the 4K tv. Most people turn off all that upscaling stuff for a cleaner signal. Remember upscaling is simulation. I got an Xbox S1 for $300. They are cheaper now.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I am about to purchase a 75" 4K TV and a DVD player and AV receiver. I have many blu ray DVDs that I would love to watch on this new system, so I am trying to understand 4K upscaling. If your DVD player has 4K upscaling, does a 4K TV also need 4K upscaling capability? If yes, why, if the DVD player has already upscaled the video signal, and the TV can already receive 4K signals? I understand that a blu ray DVD signal upscaled will not be as great as picture as a real 4K signal...

Does the AV receiver need to have 4K upscaling? I am assuming I will hook the DVD player output HDMI to the receiver, and the receiver will have one HDMI out to the TV. I think I will be getting a Marantz SR 6011 or 6012. I want to make the right purchases of TV and DVD player to get the best picture out of my old blu rays DVDs. I am also excited to use 4K sources whenever possible, of course!

Thanks!
All TVs upscale. Sometimes a bluray player can upscale better than a tv, and sometimes the tv does a better job, just depends on the tv/bdp. I have a vizio tv and a Samsung upscaling BDP, the Samsung does a MUCH better job. The vizio looks soft and a bit fuzzy, while the Samsung looks very sharp and clear, almost as good as native 4K (minus the extra detail). IIRC, samsung and Sony tend to have the best scalers.


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William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
To the second part of your post, no your avr does not need to upscale. In fact most of them don’t do it as well as a bdp or tv. 4K pass through is all you need.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
To the second part of your post, no your avr does not need to upscale. In fact most of them don’t do it as well as a bdp or tv. 4K pass through is all you need.
The onkyo NR-656 seemed to do better than my vizio, but not as good as my Samsung bdp. I would experiment by enabling and disabling scalers in any devices you have and seeing which one does a better job. I came to the conclusion that the onkyo is better than the vizio, but the Samsung bdp was better than both. The worst scaler by far is my Roku ultra. When set to
4K our output, it simply stretches 1080p content to 4K by pixel doubling. Aliasing can be noticed easily on text or sharp lines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
The onkyo NR-656 seemed to do better than my vizio, but not as good as my Samsung bdp. I would experiment by enabling and disabling scalers in any devices you have and seeing which one does a better job. I came to the conclusion that the onkyo is better than the vizio, but the Samsung bdp was better than both. The worst scaler by far is my Roku ultra. When set to
4K our output, it simply stretches 1080p content to 4K by pixel doubling. Aliasing can be noticed easily on text or sharp lines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That’s a good point to experiment. My point was made off of avr reviews where they tested the upscale feature and found them not to pass the test.
 
Mike V

Mike V

Junior Audioholic
Excellent advic - thanks to all of you that offered to dispense your knowledge.. Sounds like you pick ONE 4K upscaler only, then switch to another (if you have options) until you find the upscaler that works best. Seems to me that I should focus on the DVD player 4K upscaler, not worry about the AV upscaler at all. Just occurred to me that if I use DirecTV, Netflix, etc., the TV should definitely have an upscaler for those signals, right?
 
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