Question about upscaling DVDs as related to TV screen size

[Ken90630]

Scenario: Watching DVDs on an HDTV -- let's say a high quality (e.g., Panasonic or Samsung) plasma in the 42"-56" size range.

Two questions:

1. Obviously, DVDs will have to be upscaled to the HDTV's native resolution. Will the upscaled picture quality be better on a smaller HDTV -- a 42", for example -- than on one with a larger screen size like 56"? In other words, does the upscaled image suffer (i.e, become more 'fuzzy') as screen size increases?

2. Regardless of screen size, do upscaled DVDs tend to look better on a 720p HDTV than on a 1080p one? I realize this is a stupid way to put it, but I'm wondering if they'd look better on the 720p set because the original 480i image 'doesn't have as far to go' to be scaled up to 720p as it would in order to 'get to' 1080p. (De-interlacing aside.)

And before anyone says it, yes, I'm aware that no HDTV will make the image better than the 480 resolution the DVD is capable of. I'm not asking that. Thanks.

 

[Matt1970]

Scenario: Watching DVDs on an HDTV -- let's say a high quality (e.g., Panasonic or Samsung) plasma in the 42"-56" size range.

Two questions:

1. Obviously, DVDs will have to be upscaled to the HDTV's native resolution. Will the upscaled picture quality be better on a smaller HDTV -- a 42", for example -- than on one with a larger screen size like 56"? In other words, does the upscaled image suffer (i.e, become more 'fuzzy') as screen size increases?

2. Regardless of screen size, do upscaled DVDs tend to look better on a 720p HDTV than on a 1080p one? I realize this is a stupid way to put it, but I'm wondering if they'd look better on the 720p set because the original 480i image 'doesn't have as far to go' to be scaled up to 720p as it would in order to 'get to' 1080p. (De-interlacing aside.)

And before anyone says it, yes, I'm aware that no HDTV will make the image better than the 480 resolution the DVD is capable of. I'm not asking that. Thanks.

I have a 56" 1080p DLP TV and still watch plenty of standard definition programing both through my DVD player and through cable. Standard def through my high def looks just as good as my old 50" projection set. We got a 50" 720p DLP for my girlfriend and we watch DVD's and stardard def programing and I think they both look about the same. If you are debating on getting a 720p vs. a 1080 by all means get the 1080.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'd get the 1080p instead of 720p for anything larger than a 42". I have a 1080p Samsung DLP and am very happy with the picture quality from 480i DVDs, even though 1080p blu-rays do look better of course.

In case it matters, 480p over component cables from my PS2 Slim also looks good, almost as nice as the 1080p upscaling that my PS3 (launch model with backwards compatibility) does for PS2 games.

 

[0roo0roo]

Erm, when you display a dvd on your pc it "upscales" it to your desktop resolution, whether that be 1650x or 1080p or whatever, does it look horrific? does it look better on a crt running at 1024x768?
Nope.

42/60" tv has the same native resolution. Upscaled dvd on each looks the same, the quality is more a matter of the scaler in the dvd player, or more importantly how good the screen is at displaying contrast and color...none of the screens is going to be sharp, dvd is a third of a megapixel of image after all.

If you aren't using a progressive scan dvd player with hdmi, then you might be in for trouble since relying on the tv to upscale an analog input is ugh..bad.

 

[sdifox]

Just get a bluray player and stick your dvds in there. It will upscale it. It won't be as good as BRD, but it will look decent.

 

[Pia]

Scenario: Watching DVDs on an HDTV -- let's say a high quality (e.g., Panasonic or Samsung) plasma in the 42"-56" size range.

Two questions:

1. Obviously, DVDs will have to be upscaled to the HDTV's native resolution. Will the upscaled picture quality be better on a smaller HDTV -- a 42", for example -- than on one with a larger screen size like 56"? In other words, does the upscaled image suffer (i.e, become more 'fuzzy') as screen size increases?

No. They are the same quality. In practice larger picture only helps because it's more immersive.

2. Regardless of screen size, do upscaled DVDs tend to look better on a 720p HDTV than on a 1080p one? I realize this is a stupid way to put it, but I'm wondering if they'd look better on the 720p set because the original 480i image 'doesn't have as far to go' to be scaled up to 720p as it would in order to 'get to' 1080p. (De-interlacing aside.)

What cause the fuzziness is that many or all of the pixels of the target image fall on several pixels of the source image, and therefore have to assume intermediate tones.

Now consider what would happen if you were upscaling to a ridiculously high resolution target like 10000p. Most pixels in the target image would fall on only one pixel in the source image. Only a very small proportion of pixels, and in turn a very small area of the image, would be even slightly smudged. Therefore the picture would be nearly indistinguishable from the original, which is the gold standard for good scaling. The moral of the story is that when you are doing (non-integer, non-perfect) scaling, it's better to scale to a higher resolution.

 

[spikespiegal]

Upscaled dvd on each looks the same, the quality is more a matter of the scaler in the dvd player

+100. The quality of the scaler is the determining factor, and these vary quite a bit between units. Standard TV's are terrible at it. I've noted that Oppo Blue Ray players do an excellent job upconverting and deinterlacing source material.

I deal with the same problem with digital images from my older dSLRs and hitting minimum DPI specs with big enlargement. When upscaling digital images you are in fact adding data to the image, and having to guess what that data is. If it's done by a simple adjacent pixel (or line) average interpolation, it looks look crap and is fuzzy. Smart scalers do a lot of perceptual tricks to make those added pixels or lines represent what the native image would look like if it were indeed higher resolution.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea worrying about the wrong thing, size is the matter, 40" at 6-8 feet of most homes is too small.

in any case you should be watching bluray...
this vs

this

worrying about upscaling is welll, pointless

 

[simonizor]

If you try it and aren't satisfied with the picture, you could try setting the DVD player to play at 480p and let your TV do the upscaling. If you have a cheap DVD player and a nice TV, it would probably look better if you let the TV do the upscaling. All TVs will automatically upscale video that is below their native resolution to their native resolution. Some just do it better than others.

 

[Ken90630]

As usual, great info, everyone. Got my answers, along with a much better understanding of how this all works. Thanks a mil.

 

[Matt1970]

If you try it and aren't satisfied with the picture, you could try setting the DVD player to play at 480p and let your TV do the upscaling. If you have a cheap DVD player and a nice TV, it would probably look better if you let the TV do the upscaling. All TVs will automatically upscale video that is below their native resolution to their native resolution. Some just do it better than others.

Exactly. Also, if you have the DVD player doing the upscaling, don't set it higher than the native resolution on your TV. If you have a DVD player upscale to 1080 and then plug into a 720 native TV, you are now upscaling and then downscaling and could lose picture quality.

 

[Ken90630]

Exactly. Also, if you have the DVD player doing the upscaling, don't set it higher than the native resolution on your TV. If you have a DVD player upscale to 1080 and then plug into a 720 native TV, you are now upscaling and then downscaling and could lose picture quality.

Got it. Thanks. I might not have thought of that. :thumbsup: