Question on "upscaling" to 1080P....`

H

HDTVFREAK

Junior Audioholic
I am looking at finding a DVD player that will make my standard DVD's play with 1080P quality on my 1080P projectors.

I am looking at a DVD player that "upscales" to 1080P. I assume this means it will play standard DVD's to 1080P quality right?

Or do I need a dvd player that "upconverts" or does this mean the same thing?

Thanks
 
F

FNG212

Audioholic
They mean the same thing. To get a better idea, which DVD player are you looking at?
 
Seth=L

Seth=L

Audioholic Overlord
What's your budget? Depending on that you may just want to purchase a Blu-ray player or PS3 which will upscale your DVDs to 1080p as well. Different players have different scaling abilities, the PS3 is very good for the money as is any Blu-ray player with the HQV Reon scaler for under $400.
 
supervij

supervij

Audioholic General
I am looking at a DVD player that "upscales" to 1080P. I assume this means it will play standard DVD's to 1080P quality right?
"1080p quality" is not something you can reasonably expect from DVDs. Any upscaler or upconverting (same thing) player will approximate what a 1080p picture would look like, but that's not the same thing as a true 1080p picture.

Just sayin'.

cheers,
supervij
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
I am looking at finding a DVD player that will make my standard DVD's play with 1080P quality on my 1080P projectors.

I am looking at a DVD player that "upscales" to 1080P. I assume this means it will play standard DVD's to 1080P quality right?

Or do I need a dvd player that "upconverts" or does this mean the same thing?

Thanks
Some will say upscaling just upscale resolutions from 480, 576, 720 etc. to a higher resolution, such as from 480 to 1080 whereas upconverting could mean pretty much everything from transcoding, de-interlacing and upscaling. I think most people will use them interchangeably so you can consider they mean the same, at least most of the time anyway.

As Seth said any players that use the Reon processor to do the job will do it well. I have also found that the cheap $79.99 Toshiba XDE-500 is top notch but it does not has the highly regarded Reon, or ABT processor in it. I think I am the lone voice here but I highly recommend this player to anyone who is shopping for a cheap upconverting/upscaling DVD player.
 
dobyblue

dobyblue

Senior Audioholic
I am looking at finding a DVD player that will make my standard DVD's play with 1080P quality on my 1080P projectors.
That is impossible, DVD's are 480i/576i (NTSC/PAL) quality so no amount of processing, upscaling, etc., will give you "1080p quality".

You need a 1080p source to get 1080p quality.

Once you accept that you can start to look for a good upconverting DVD player with the knowledge that your DVD's are not going to look anywhere near as good as good Blu-ray discs do.
 
M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
Upscaling is converting from a lower resolution (480, 720) to a higher one, 1080. It won't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, bit it may improve the picture somewhat. It will NOT be the equal of a Blu-ray disc.

Upconversion is taking a composite, possibly s-video, and component, to a format that has the possibility of a better picture, like HDMI. In and of itself, it doesn't affect the quality of the signal. It is simply a convenience to make connections easier.

FWIW, all HD televisions will take whatever signal is fed to them and internally "upscale" it into it's native format. IOW, you can feed it a component or composite signal and it will take it upon itself to do what it has to to provide you with the best possible picture.

Perhaps whatever DVD player you buy will have a better upscaler, but that's not a given. You may be better off simply letting the TV do it.
 
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no. 5

no. 5

Audioholic Field Marshall
I am looking at finding a DVD player that will make my standard DVD's play with 1080P quality on my 1080P projectors.
You know how in TV crime dramas, the CSI guys can read a license plate reflected in the sun-glasses of some guy standing nine hundred yards away from a 7-11's security camera? That can't actually happen. Likewise, processing 480 will not add resolution that was never there; it can make the DVD look very good, but it cannot make it as good as a 1080p source.

And for what it's worth, your projector should already be scaling all incoming video to it's native resolution. Of coarse, that doesn't necessarily mean that the projector's processing is better than a good disc player's.
 
dobyblue

dobyblue

Senior Audioholic
Perhaps whatever DVD player you buy will have a better upscaler, but that's not a given. You may be better off simply letting the TV do it.
Absolutely agree with this. Some of the progressive scan DVD players will do a better job outputting 480p to your TV to upscale than the $50 1080i upscaling DVD players do.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Most of the upscaling players I've seen do a good job, not a great job. For me the exceptions would be the Oppos, as the less expensive models do a very good job and the two top ones are excellent upscalers. As others have said, if your TV does decent upscaling, then let it and get a decent non-upscaling player.

The BDP-83 I have does an amazing job of upscaling, but it still isn't Blu-ray level. As good as one could hope for with a good quality SD DVD though.
 
D

DaleAV

Full Audioholic
Most of the upscaling players I've seen do a good job, not a great job. For me the exceptions would be the Oppos, as the less expensive models do a very good job and the two top ones are excellent upscalers. As others have said, if your TV does decent upscaling, then let it and get a decent non-upscaling player.

The BDP-83 I have does an amazing job of upscaling, but it still isn't Blu-ray level. As good as one could hope for with a good quality SD DVD though.
The irony of it all, the Oppo does about the best job of upconversion..but then when you use the same player to view BD, the difference is obvious!
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
The irony of it all, the Oppo does about the best job of upconversion..but then when you use the same player to view BD, the difference is obvious!
I watched something the other day that was clearly a poor transfer, possibly a poor master and it looked pretty bad. But most upscaled DVDs look very good with this player.
 
D

DaleAV

Full Audioholic
I agree, not much helps bad transfers expect replacing them. ;)
 
manofsteel2397

manofsteel2397

Audioholic
well i have a lg upconveriting dvd player and it does a very goodjob. i can totaly see the difference from 480P vs 720P upconversion, i cant tell the differance from that or my HD from cable and it is way better than the HD picture i get currently from U-Verse which i currently have now they use so much compression you can hardly call it HD:mad:
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
well i have a lg upconveriting dvd player and it does a very goodjob. i can totaly see the difference from 480P vs 720P upconversion, i cant tell the differance from that or my HD from cable and it is way better than the HD picture i get currently from U-Verse which i currently have now they use so much compression you can hardly call it HD:mad:
Just get an Antenna and a netflix subscription. then you can watch whatever the hell you want. ESPN has espn360 for sports not on standard tv.
 
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