How to upconvert standard def DVD to "near HD"

[doanster]

I have a 720p video projector w/ HDMI input. Which video processing option below gives the best quality with just regular DVDs? (ignoring cost, and also assume that I won't watch a Blu-ray disc for a few more years)

1. An upconverting DVD player
2. My Macbook's DVD drive and VGA output (i.e. software-based upconversion)
3. Blu-ray player
4. HD-DVD player (they're so cheap to find used!)

Right now I'm just using the 480p output from my Panasonic DVD player, hoping that I get a small improvement with a simple upgrade

 

[JackBurton]

Get an Oppo BDP-83. Great Blu-ray player with a great DVD upscaler. You can also check out a Pioneer 320. Cheaper than the Oppo, and upscales DVDs nicely too. It's a slower machine though.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

I don't know if getting a player will make the quality any better than Computer + VGA/HDMI output...although it's more work to get the laptop and hook it up every time you want to watch a movie

 

[Muadib]

Since you said to ignore price, Jack solution of the Oppo BDP-83 is best. At $500 it is quite a bargain. Heck, people were paying $3000 for it.

Since 3 out of 4 of your choices suggest that you really want a cheap route, A PS3 is a great choice. For $300, it upscales DVDs, plays Blu-rays, and will stream Netflix.

The Pioneer 320 is $190. If you want cheaper still, you can get a refurb Samsung BD-P1500 for $95. It does Netflix too.

 

[simonizor]

All that upscaling does is stretch the image to the resolution that you desire. If you buy a DVD player that upscales DVDs to 1080p, the DVD will be stretched from it's native resolution to 1080p. If your TV's native resolution is 1080p, the DVD will look better when it is being displayed at the upscaled 1080p resolution because a TV will always look its best at its native resolution. Depending on how well your TV handles upscaling, you may or may not see an improvement by getting an upscaling player. Odds are you will because most TVs are meant to be displayed at their native resolutions and don't do upscaling all that well.

So, basically, when you use an upscaling DVD player, it's just stretching the DVD to your TV's native resolution so it will look the best that it can on your TV. If you were to set the DVD player to play at 480p, it would look like crap (depending on how well your TV does upscaling) because it's not being displayed at your TV's native resolution. Upscaling does not improve the actual quality of the DVD in any way.

That being said, pretty much all upscaling DVD players work the same way. Find one with an HDMI output that will upconvert DVDs to 720p at the best price point you can. Make sure that you look for one that allows you to upconvert to 720p also and not just 1080p since the native resolution of your projector is 720p and throwing 1080p at it would either not work or force it to downscale the image, making it look worse than it would if it was just being given its native resolution of 720p.

Honesty, if all you want to do is play DVDs at 720p, spending more than $75-100 would be a total waste.

:EDIT: Just found a good article on cnet explaining the whole thing.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6859904-1.html

 

[sdifox]

just use your computer

 

[sswingle]

Upconverting is a joke. You can't make data out of nothing.

 

[MStele]

I have a 720p video projector w/ HDMI input. Which video processing option below gives the best quality with just regular DVDs? (ignoring cost, and also assume that I won't watch a Blu-ray disc for a few more years)

1. An upconverting DVD player
2. My Macbook's DVD drive and VGA output (i.e. software-based upconversion)
3. Blu-ray player
4. HD-DVD player (they're so cheap to find used!)

Right now I'm just using the 480p output from my Panasonic DVD player, hoping that I get a small improvement with a simple upgrade

Upscaling is primarily to make up for the weakness in ability of a flat panel to display any resolution below native, since the number of pixels is fixed. If your using a projector, wouldn't it just display the movie at its source resolution, assuming it was less than your projectors max? I think your better of not scaling, but thats me.

That being said, I wish I had a projector

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Upscaling is primarily to make up for the weakness in ability of a flat panel to display any resolution below native, since the number of pixels is fixed. If your using a projector, wouldn't it just display the movie at its source resolution, assuming it was less than your projectors max? I think your better of not scaling, but thats me.

That being said, I wish I had a projector

No, a projector functions just like a direct view display. Depending on the model, there may be an option to display at source resolution with no scaling, but that is not generally how they work.

What model of projector do you have now, doanster?

 

[JackBurton]

All that upscaling does is stretch the image to the resolution that you desire. If you buy a DVD player that upscales DVDs to 1080p, the DVD will be stretched from it's native resolution to 1080p. If your TV's native resolution is 1080p, the DVD will look better when it is being displayed at the upscaled 1080p resolution because a TV will always look its best at its native resolution. Depending on how well your TV handles upscaling, you may or may not see an improvement by getting an upscaling player. Odds are you will because most TVs are meant to be displayed at their native resolutions and don't do upscaling all that well.

So, basically, when you use an upscaling DVD player, it's just stretching the DVD to your TV's native resolution so it will look the best that it can on your TV. If you were to set the DVD player to play at 480p, it would look like crap (depending on how well your TV does upscaling) because it's not being displayed at your TV's native resolution. Upscaling does not improve the actual quality of the DVD in any way.

That being said, pretty much all upscaling DVD players work the same way. Find one with an HDMI output that will upconvert DVDs to 720p at the best price point you can. Make sure that you look for one that allows you to upconvert to 720p also and not just 1080p since the native resolution of your projector is 720p and throwing 1080p at it would either not work or force it to downscale the image, making it look worse than it would if it was just being given its native resolution of 720p.

Honesty, if all you want to do is play DVDs at 720p, spending more than $75-100 would be a total waste.

:EDIT: Just found a good article on cnet explaining the whole thing.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6859904-1.html

The facts are, not all players scale 480p to 1080p the same. Some do it better than others, and that is what you pay for. Thus the question, which player can upscale DVDs better? Can it make a DVD look as good as a Blu-ray disc? No. Can it make a DVD look damn good? YES.

 

[kalrith]

Since you said to ignore price, Jack solution of the Oppo BDP-83 is best. At $500 it is quite a bargain. Heck, people were paying $3000 for it.

Since 3 out of 4 of your choices suggest that you really want a cheap route, A PS3 is a great choice. For $300, it upscales DVDs, plays Blu-rays, and will stream Netflix.

The Pioneer 320 is $190. If you want cheaper still, you can get a refurb Samsung BD-P1500 for $95. It does Netflix too.

AFAIK the PS3 only upconverts DVDs to 1080p. With his 720p projector, it's likely to make the DVDs look worse than just sending a 480p signal. I know it does on my Pioneer 5080, so I turned the PS3's upconverting off. If he had a 1080p projector, then it might be a good choice.

I guess another question is if his projector is 1280x720 or 1366x768 (like most 720p displays). If it's the latter, then the DVD signal would get processed twice, once by the DVD player to upscale it to 1280x720 and then again by the projector to scale the 720p signal to 1366x768. That might create some problems and image degredation as well.

If it's the former, then just make sure to get a DVD player that will upscale it to 720p and not just 1080p.

 

[0roo0roo]

no such thing as upconverting to near hd. 720p is 3x dvd, 1080p is 6x.
upconverting despite all the flashy marketing is simply rescaling the image.

 

[Muadib]

AFAIK the PS3 only upconverts DVDs to 1080p. With his 720p projector, it's likely to make the DVDs look worse than just sending a 480p signal. I know it does on my Pioneer 5080, so I turned the PS3's upconverting off. If he had a 1080p projector, then it might be a good choice.

I guess another question is if his projector is 1280x720 or 1366x768 (like most 720p displays). If it's the latter, then the DVD signal would get processed twice, once by the DVD player to upscale it to 1280x720 and then again by the projector to scale the 720p signal to 1366x768. That might create some problems and image degredation as well.

If it's the former, then just make sure to get a DVD player that will upscale it to 720p and not just 1080p.

The PS3 will upconvert to 720p, 1080i & 1080p. When you tried it, did you remember to set the output of the PS3 to 720p? If you didn't, then that could be why you didn't like the result.

 

[doanster]

No, a projector functions just like a direct view display. Depending on the model, there may be an option to display at source resolution with no scaling, but that is not generally how they work.

What model of projector do you have now, doanster?

I have an older Panasonic AE700. AFAIK, there doesn't seem to be an internal upscaling circuit (I bought the Japanese model and am still grappling with the non-English menus...)

As for kalrith's response, the projector contains three native 1280x720 LCD chips

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I have an older Panasonic AE700. AFAIK, there doesn't seem to be an internal upscaling circuit (I bought the Japanese model and am still grappling with the non-English menus...)

As for kalrith's response, the projector contains three native 1280x720 LCD chips

With my old AE900U, I experimented with sending a 480p signal compared to a 720p signal from both a Panasonic S77 upconverting DVD player and a PS3.

I found that sending a 480p signal to the AE900U was actually the option I liked best. It was mainly a consistency factor. There were a couple cases where particular DVDs just didn't seem to produce good results when upconverted from my S77 DVD player. I got more consistent results sending 480p and letting the AE900U do the scaling.

I didn't bother tracking down if there was a specific issue or fix for what I was experiencing since I had a very hard time telling the difference between the S77's converting vs. the AE900U's converting.

That's either a result of decent scaling done in the AE900U or just that I wasn't careful enough about what to look for. I've found enough things over the years to worry about in terms of video that I haven't researched exactly what I should be looking for when comparing the upconverting / scaling of video.

If the AE700U is similar in scaling ability to the AE900U, I would be hesitant to recommend getting anything other than a player that can also play blu-ray. A new DVD player for the sake up upconverting probably doesn't make sense.

 

[Modelworks]

Upscaling varies greatly between players and chipsets. There are many many ways to upscale a picture. Everything from just making 1 pixel into 2 pixels to looking at the overall picture and the frames before and after and scaling the frame to match that data.

Video cards tend to use the bilinear sampling method where they make 1 pixel into 2 pixels then apply a blurring filter to smooth out the edges. It is quick and requires little resources.

Hardware upscaling chips designed for that purpose tend to use the sampling frames + dividing pixels + unsharp mask method. I have a western digital live box and compared its output to that from my pc there is a noticeable difference. The pc output looks good but lacks sharpness. The live box is very sharp and much clearer on playback of lower resolution items. It makes things like 640x352 video look better than dvd quality.

 

[JackBurton]

Just an FYI, 6ave has the Pioneer BDP320 on sale for $176 with free shipping.

 

[kalrith]

The PS3 will upconvert to 720p, 1080i & 1080p. When you tried it, did you remember to set the output of the PS3 to 720p? If you didn't, then that could be why you didn't like the result.

I think that might have changed since I got my PS3. Originally the PS3 didn't upconvert at all. Then I think it only upconverted to 1080p. Now, I guess there are more upconverting options.

I still see two problems with upconverting to 720p. One is that the source would still get scaled twice (480p to 720p to 768p) instead of once (480p to 768p). The other, which I might be wrong on, is that if I set the PS3 output to 720p, then it will still output 720p for BDs. I know I can change it, but I would hate to change settings every time I switched from a DVD to a BD and vice versa, and I'm sure I'd forget sometimes and wind up with a less-than-optimal picture.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The AE700U is a 720p display (not 768p)
(I believe your original reference to the 768p issue was in regard to the OP, not your own situation)

As for switching the PS3 between Blu-ray and DVD... this would again be a case of whether the PS3 does a better job at converting 1080p down to 720p or if the display does.

 

[kalrith]

The AE700U is a 720p display (not 768p)
(I believe your original reference to the 768p issue was in regard to the OP, not your own situation)

As for switching the PS3 between Blu-ray and DVD... this would again be a case of whether the PS3 does a better job at converting 1080p down to 720p or if the display does.

My response to Muadib was regarding my experience with my Pioneer 5080 even though my original reference to 768p was to the OP. In my situation I definitely want to receive 1080p from a BD rather than 720p since there would be loss of resolution and two instances of scaling instead of one.

 

[Smoove910]

Yamaha S1800 player does well, plus it plays DVD-A and SACD discs. Check out Amazon.com where I got mine (brand new) for $75.00

 

[craftech]

Using a computer to send to a plasma can lead to Microsoft hardware rejection via HDCP. Software players that suddenly reject the Plasma after a firmware "upgrade", etc. It might work with a projector.

I have the following:

1. Panasonic TCP-42X1 720p Plasma
2. Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player (with firmware 2.0 and no higher)
3. Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player
4. Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-Ray player
5. My son has a Panasonic 1080p Plasma he uses with a PS3 and Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player (with firmware 2.0).

In terms of upscaling comparisons the players rank (based upon multiple opinions of people who have compared them) in the following order of quality:

1. Toshiba 1st Generation HD DVD players....HD-A1 and HD-XA1 (with firmware 2.0)
2. Toshiba HD-A2
3. Sony PS3
4. Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-Ray player

We both tried my other son's HD-A3 (third Generation HD DVD player) for upscaling on my Plasma and my son's Plasma (the son with the 1080p plasma and the HD-XA1). Both of us would rank the HD-A3 slightly ahead of the Panasonic DMP-60 Blu-Ray player, but not as good as the PS3.

Both of us watch far more SD DVD movies than HD movies of either type by the way.

Hope that helps.

John

 

[videopho]

I a & b both Denon 2900 and Toshiba HD-A2 on my Mits 73 DLP TV using the same exact material or movie (DVD).
The PQ on the A2 just simply blows me away or even no comparison.
I just ordered a new Oppo smaller sibling or BDP-80 (just released) for BR play back.
I will a/b the Oppo with the A2 and see who wins the up-conversion battle.
if the Oppo wins out or I see no delta, then the Toshiba will hit eBay.
http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-80/

 

[DaveSimmons]

> also assume that I won't watch a Blu-ray disc for a few more years

Why not? Get Netflix and you can rent them instead of buying them.