HD upconvert looks worse than SD in TotalMedia Theatre - Blu-ray Forum

RisingSun · 02-21-2011, 03:24 PM

Playing Empire of the Sun in standard definition looks better than upconverting it using SimHD in TotalMedia Theatre. Is this typical?

househead · 02-21-2011, 04:28 PM

I would say it depends on the dvd, your display and the settings in tmt3. 90% of the time I think the simhd looks pretty good.

The other 10%: If a dvd has a lot of edge enhancement and compression issues SimHD will make it look even worse.

rob.sparrow · 02-24-2011, 12:08 PM

I have had a similar issue with TMT3 and TMT5 with simhd. Most dvd's I play, the colour upscale looks good but the pixel upscale is pants. I have used this on a 32" and a 46" LCDTV and a 24" monitor and tried both the same movie on all 3 displays on a desktop an HTPC and a laptop in TMT 3 and 5 and also tried 25 different movies in TMT5 upscaling and had the same result throughout. HDTV episodes, HD vids from the web and full HD content from discs all look amazing but upscaling dvd looks rubbish.

Not sure why though.

nekromantik · 02-25-2011, 08:28 AM

Best software DVD upscaler is PowerDVD.
However PowerDVD is bloatware and kinda rubbish so you gotta decide if you can put up with it or have better player sacrificing DVD upscaling.

MaxBD · 03-11-2011, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekromantik

Best software DVD upscaler is PowerDVD.
However PowerDVD is bloatware and kinda rubbish so you gotta decide if you can put up with it or have better player sacrificing DVD upscaling.

I used TMT 3 and had major quality issues with upscaling and even some BD would not play (Grumpy old men was one of them).

Switched over to PowerDVD 10 Ultra and never looked back. DVD upscaling is top notch as everything else.

Donat96 · 03-19-2011, 12:58 AM

I don't have TotalMedia Theatre, I have PowerDVD, but I still recommend you check the upscale settings and see if you have any "sharpening" options. The same happened to me in PowerDVD. I wondered why DVDs looked like crap with TrueTheatre on, and it turns out it was adding a ton of edge enhancement. If that doesn't work, check your video card settings. The GPU can sometimes cause edge enhancement to be turned up.

DarknessBDJM · 03-23-2011, 01:05 AM

Depends on your card and settings and version of TMT. I didn't like the look of TMT 3.5 or 5 on my Radeon 5770 card, but with my new 6950 TMT 5 looks great, but that's likely because the 6000 series' UVD 3 driver has full MPEG-2 support whereas the previous versions didn't have entropy/bitstream encode support and I believe Arcsoft worked with ATI to provide better support with the 6000 series cards.

02-21-2011, 03:24 PM	#1
RisingSun Junior Member Member since:Jan 2010	HD upconvert looks worse than SD in TotalMedia Theatre Playing Empire of the Sun in standard definition looks better than upconverting it using SimHD in TotalMedia Theatre. Is this typical?

02-21-2011, 04:28 PM	#2
househead Banned Top ranked HT gallery Member since:Sep 2007 Home Theater Gallery:9 Trading Score:4	I would say it depends on the dvd, your display and the settings in tmt3. 90% of the time I think the simhd looks pretty good. The other 10%: If a dvd has a lot of edge enhancement and compression issues SimHD will make it look even worse.

02-24-2011, 12:08 PM	#3
rob.sparrow Member Member since:Dec 2008	I have had a similar issue with TMT3 and TMT5 with simhd. Most dvd's I play, the colour upscale looks good but the pixel upscale is pants. I have used this on a 32" and a 46" LCDTV and a 24" monitor and tried both the same movie on all 3 displays on a desktop an HTPC and a laptop in TMT 3 and 5 and also tried 25 different movies in TMT5 upscaling and had the same result throughout. HDTV episodes, HD vids from the web and full HD content from discs all look amazing but upscaling dvd looks rubbish. Not sure why though.

02-25-2011, 08:28 AM	#4
nekromantik Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Dec 2008 Location:Bristol, UK Home Theater Gallery:4 4K collection:4 Blu-ray collection:549	Best software DVD upscaler is PowerDVD. However PowerDVD is bloatware and kinda rubbish so you gotta decide if you can put up with it or have better player sacrificing DVD upscaling.

03-19-2011, 12:58 AM	#6
Donat96 Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Oct 2010 Location:The Aphelion Blu-ray reviews: 4 Trading Score:83	I don't have TotalMedia Theatre, I have PowerDVD, but I still recommend you check the upscale settings and see if you have any "sharpening" options. The same happened to me in PowerDVD. I wondered why DVDs looked like crap with TrueTheatre on, and it turns out it was adding a ton of edge enhancement. If that doesn't work, check your video card settings. The GPU can sometimes cause edge enhancement to be turned up.

03-23-2011, 01:05 AM	#7
DarknessBDJM Power Member Member since:Sep 2010 Trading Score:6	Depends on your card and settings and version of TMT. I didn't like the look of TMT 3.5 or 5 on my Radeon 5770 card, but with my new 6950 TMT 5 looks great, but that's likely because the 6000 series' UVD 3 driver has full MPEG-2 support whereas the previous versions didn't have entropy/bitstream encode support and I believe Arcsoft worked with ATI to provide better support with the 6000 series cards.

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