Upconverting DVD players -- do they really make a difference?

[big angry]

I've got a couple of Pioneer DVD players - an upconverting one that I bought about a year ago, and another one that I purchased quite a few years ago when DVDs were first starting to really hit the market.

Anyway, I had the newer one hooked up to my Samsung HD set a few days ago watching Star Wars. Everything looked pretty good, but I got to wondering about my old player which had been doing bedroom duty.

So, I pulled everything out and put the old DVD player in the living room. And what do you know, it actually looks better than the new one. Now mind you, this player was made in like 1999. It doesn't even have progressive scan....this is from back when component video and a DTS decoder were cutting edge tech.
Nothing but a 480i signal and it looks fantastic.

Kinda makes me wonder if all the hype about 1080p upconverting is nothing but a bunch of bunk.

[all_blu_man]

Upconverting does a better job than regular dvds. Did you make sure that the resolution output from your upconverting dvd player is set to 1080p?

[Marcusarilius]

Originally Posted by big angry

I've got a couple of Pioneer DVD players - an upconverting one that I bought about a year ago, and another one that I purchased quite a few years ago when DVDs were first starting to really hit the market.

Anyway, I had the newer one hooked up to my Samsung HD set a few days ago watching Star Wars. Everything looked pretty good, but I got to wondering about my old player which had been doing bedroom duty.

So, I pulled everything out and put the old DVD player in the living room. And what do you know, it actually looks better than the new one. Now mind you, this player was made in like 1999. It doesn't even have progressive scan....this is from back when component video and a DTS decoder were cutting edge tech.
Nothing but a 480i signal and it looks fantastic.
Kinda makes me wonder if all the hype about 1080p upconverting is nothing but a bunch of bunk.

Have you tried it with a BD player and watched an upconvert DVD on 1080p?

[big angry]

Originally Posted by all_blu_man

Upconverting does a better job than regular dvds. Did you make sure that the resolution output from your upconverting dvd player is set to 1080p?

My TV doesn't do 1080p. I did try it at both 720p and 1080i (using both HDMI and component cables) and I still can't see any real difference between that and the older player.

[cawgijoe]

Upconversion does make an improvement to the picture, but it's not the panacea or replacement for HD (Blu-Ray) that some folks claims it is. It all comes down to lines of resolution.

[sardaukar1977]

I have heard that upconverting does work, but I can't tell the difference between upconverted and regular. Someone told me it was because my tv automatically upscales, so I really don't know.

[tiger roach]

There are so many variables that it really is difficult to to a true A-B comparison.

One thing I am sure of, blu-rays look better than DVDs on my rig, upconverted or not.

[TruBlu2]

I used to use my PS3 for upconverting. I wasn't sure how good it actually was since the upconverting is software based and not hardware based. I went out a bought a Sony 1080P unconverting dvd player. I must say the hardware upscaling beats my PS3 upscaling. There is a noticeable diffrence between the 2. Its also funny, I have a dvd player which outputs at 525 and 625P using component cables and at times it beats both the PS3 and my 1080P upscaling player in picture quality.

Point being, I believe the hardware based upconverting are better then software based (PS3) convertors. any thoughts


Yes, I believe the upconverting does make a difference, BUT it doesn't replace BD by any means

[JimPullan]

I have a Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Disc Player, a Oppo DV-981 HD Upscaling DVD Player, and I've found the Oppo does an outstanding job upsampling my regular DVD's to 1080. In fact it does a better job than my Panasonic. An upscaling DVD Player is No replacement for a Blu-ray Player, a Blu-ray Movie, its 1080p mastered video quality, and the advanced audio codec's offered. My Receiver, which I use only as a Pre-Amp/Processor has all the advanced high bit audio decoders in it. I power my speakers, all towers, through Sherbourn 250W ch mono-block amps, out to Paradigm Studio Reference 100's (4 of them), a Paradigm Studio Reference CC-690 Center, and a Paradigm Studio Reference Servo-15 Subwoofer. My HDTV is a Sony 60" XBR SXRD. Cool huh? [Jim]

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by big angry

My TV doesn't do 1080p. I did try it at both 720p and 1080i (using both HDMI and component cables) and I still can't see any real difference between that and the older player.

If your TV is 1366x768, as many are, then you may well get a better picture if your player doesn't upconvert. If your player upconverts to 720p, then the TV will resize again to 768p. On the other hand, if you just output 480i to the TV, the TV will do a single conversion from 480i to 768p which may well look better than having two levels of conversion.

[olitas]

Upconverter processors are like CPU processor, some are stonger and others not. A DVD movie is actualy recorded in 480i so anything over 480i depend on the quality of the converter. You can also buy seperate converters up to 5000$ for home consumers that will upconverte any source, not just DVD, a 5000$ converter while even clean-up a 1080P signal.
If your looking for a blu-ray that has the best DVD-upconverter, panasonic right now does the best one, if you can still find the bdps10 it's the best one ever (but it's just HDMI 1.1, so no HD sound streaming), if you can't find it bdps30-50 still have a better processor than any other compahy in the same range of price, but all these 1080p upconverter must be hooked in HDMI to by-pass the upconverter that is already in the TV.

Any other technical question right me

[dieheart]

I have a question,

I have a HTPC, and I use it when ever I want to watch DVD because the picture quality shows up better than even my upscaling ps3. Why is that? What makes it more confusing, is that my HTPC is hooked up to the tv via VGA cable, not HDMI. Does the ps3 upscaler just suck?

[mogumbo]

Big angry, do you have a CRT or LCD television? If you have a CRT you will see little or no difference from an upconverting player because they scale images really well on their own. LCDs usually have terrible upscaling; they just look blotchy and gross when playing SD signals. (Some high-end LCDs do a decent job, but not at good as CRTs.)

[Squozen]

Originally Posted by mogumbo

Big angry, do you have a CRT or LCD television? If you have a CRT you will see little or no difference from an upconverting player because they scale images really well on their own. LCDs usually have terrible upscaling; they just look blotchy and gross when playing SD signals. (Some high-end LCDs do a decent job, but not at good as CRTs.)

By 'scale' you mean 'blur', right?

[mogumbo]

Originally Posted by Squozen

By 'scale' you mean 'blur', right?

Depends on your CRT But, yes, I've seen some that are horribly out of focus.

[big angry]

Originally Posted by mogumbo

Big angry, do you have a CRT or LCD television? If you have a CRT you will see little or no difference from an upconverting player because they scale images really well on their own. LCDs usually have terrible upscaling; they just look blotchy and gross when playing SD signals. (Some high-end LCDs do a decent job, but not at good as CRTs.)

The TV is a Samsung plasma.

I have not tried them yet on my bedroom TV (34 inch Panasonic CRT) but I'm willing to bet there's no difference there either, based on what you have said.

[WickyWoo]

If nothing else it prevents the digital/analog/digital conversion which can introduce a lot of issues

[big angry]

Wow, just got a Toshiba HD-DVD player and now I can definitely see the difference. Looks remarkably better.

I guess the upconverting Pioneer was not very good at upconverting. Which is disappointing since I paid nearly $200 for it.

My standard DVDs look great on this thing. Not quite HD quality but still pretty freaking awesome. Just got done watching Deathproof, and WOW it looked fantastic.

[welwynnick]

Part of the secret of effective up-converting (which the TV does anyway, even if the player doesn't) is the first process - de-interlacing 480i video to 480p video. Only then can you can scale it up to 720p or 1080p or whatever. Players vary greatly in their ability to do this, and there are many Panasonic and Oppo players that can do this better than current BD players.

Nick

[DeeChizzle]

I think the quality of an upconverted dvd depends on the picture mode you're watching it in. For example on my LCD I watch blu-rays in Standard Mode while I watch my DVD's in movie mode. I think the higher contrast on my standard mode tends to make my DVD's look like crap. However I still think upconverting is overrated.