http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/ Engadget Comments for Why upconverting DVD players can be a gimmick http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/
"So now that we understand that all the signals are already being scaled, using a DVD player that scales actually makes the image get scaled twice, and as we all know, anytime you mess with a digital image, you risk mucking it up."

ALL dvd players "muck the image" unless sending the signal either through 480i hdmi (unlikely, and sometimes still is messed with) or through digital sdi (even more unlikely.)]]>May 14th 2007 11:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/
If you want a useful extra feature, look for DivX (plays AVI files directly) and a good deinterlacer (like Faroudja's DCDi).]]>May 14th 2007 11:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/May 14th 2007 11:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/
I'd really like to just do all digital to the TV and let the TV do the scaling.]]>May 14th 2007 1:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/
I have mid-range Mits DLP and a Tosh VHS-DVD burner with upscaling (the wife got to pick) and I am constantly amazed how much better the PQ is compared with the three other DVD players I had running at 480p over component and letting the Mits do the scaling. Its crazy. I was expecting it to be total crap. I watch a ton of SD on my HDTV so I amused to poor PQ.

So here is one anecdotal piece of evidence that upscaling may not be a gimmick.


]]>May 14th 2007 4:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/May 14th 2007 2:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/May 17th 2007 12:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/why-upconverting-dvd-players-can-be-a-gimmick/
That said, using a OPPO DVD player to upconvert to 720p on a 2nd gen 37 inch Vizio (or Westinghouse) is a good idea because the chip in the OPPO is superior to the chip in the Vizio and it will play out at native 1:1 720p.

All to the good!

What makes no sense (and I've seen this done) is upconverting a DVD to 1080i and then letting the TV do a downsqueeze back down to fit the display. This ends up being the worst of both worlds. Artifacts introduced in the upconvert are then used as picture elements in the downconvert. Whoops.

For those with a better chip in the TV, the lossless digital signal traveling at 480i or 480p over HDMI will give the TV's chip a better (and lossless) signal to work with.

]]>Jun 30th 2007 3:43AM