Upconversion

[MichaelJHuman]

If someone has a fixed pixel (i.e. flat panel) display, what good is an upconverting source or preprocessor (RX) ?

The display MUST upconvert the imcoming signal to its native resolution.

Is it that the displays own process may be inferior to the player's or processors own hardware?

 

[Jedi2016]

I think that's what it boils down to, whether one will do it better than the other. Personally, I think it's more of a gimmick than anything else.. folks at Best Buy trying to convince the everyday consumers that upconverting a DVD makes it look better.

 

[MDS]

One of the devices in the chain MUST convert to the tv's native resolution. If the DVD player or receiver can do a better job than the TV itself then there would be some value to having an upscaling dvd/receiver...but in general I think it is pure marketing.

The catch of course is that many tvs do not have a native resolution that exactly matches a HD resolution - 1366 x 768 is very popular. What is the point of having the dvd player/receiver scale 480i/p to 720p only to have the TV further scale it to 1366 x 768 (768p)? Might as well just let the TV do the whole thing.

 

[MichaelJHuman]

That was my thought MDS. I have a 42" plasma with a 1024x780 resolution. While the TV, in theory, had the minimum number of lines for 720p, it resolution differs from 720p's predicted resolution (1280x720?)

Also, component signals are not digital so they still need to undergo some conversion to map the analog signal to an addressable display.

I believe, for best results, you want to translate the compressed video stored on the compressed media to a digital stream that matches the display's resolution and to send that over HDMI. I would guess that people with 1080p displays and a 1080p player using HDMI are going to come as close to that ideal as possible.

 

[Sleestack]

I think it really depends on the quality of the scaler in the TV and DVD player. When using my cheap Yamaha DVD player, material looks better when I let the TV do the scaling. When I use my 5910ci, it looks better when I let the Denon upsacle and feed the TH-65PF9UK with a 1080p signal. I don't it is marketing hype, however, it does depend on the associated gear.