Upscaling DVD v. Blu

[Grant Matrix]

I just got my second HDTV, Sony 46v3000 and now I am need of an upcaling player or a second PS3. My question to anyone with experience is ....

Is there a difference in upscaling quality between the cheaper 30-50 DVD players that upscale and the upscaling capabilities of a BLU player / PS3? I am kind of limited on funds after my TV purchase which is why I am thinking about upscale DVD player.

[rogman]

Originally Posted by Grant Matrix

I just got my second HDTV, Sony 46v3000 and now I am need of an upcaling player or a second PS3. My question to anyone with experience is ....

Is there a difference in upscaling quality between the cheaper 30-50 DVD players that upscale and the upscaling capabilities of a BLU player / PS3? I am kind of limited on funds after my TV purchase which is why I am thinking about upscale DVD player.

I haven't tested a bunch of different upsampling DVD players, but my experience is you get what you pay for. A cheap upsampling DVD player won't do justice to your new HDTV. If you buy a cheapie, it most certainly wouldn't have the quality of the components in a PS3. If you're going to spend $100-$150 to get a decent one, then why not just wait until you have the extra cash for a 2nd PS3? Since you have one now, chances are you're not going to want to rent/buy DVDs anymore, so a better long-term solution IMHO is to go for the PS3.

[sinister184]

honestly i would go on ebay or check the forums for a Toshiba HD-A3. it has a really good scaler and they can be had for cheap ($50-70) this is come comparison pictures i took to tes the PS3 sclaer vs the A3. the PS3 is still good but not as good as the A3

PS3


A3

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by sinister184

honestly i would go on ebay or check the forums for a Toshiba HD-A3. it has a really good scaler and they can be had for cheap ($50-70) this is come comparison pictures i took to tes the PS3 sclaer vs the A3. the PS3 is still good but not as good as the A3

PS3


A3

nice comparison pics, the A3 does look better, however doesn't the A3 take forever to load up.

[Ranger-R]

The A3 does take a little bit to load up and power up. I have one and use it as my main dvd player. I don't like to put more wear and tear on my 60gb PS3.

[sinister184]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

nice comparison pics, the A3 does look better, however doesn't the A3 take forever to load up.

thanks, yeah it does take 20-30 seconds to load up, but its not that bad to me.

[syncguy]

Thanks for the comparison pictures.

My initial feeling was that the PS3 gives a smoother and a pleasant picture than A3. A3 gives an edge enhanced harsher picture. To check this further, I saved these two pictures to the pc hard disk and enlarged. Then I could easily see that A3 picture is very messy due to edge enhancement and consequent noise introduction and it is not good as the PS3 picture.

However, A3 gives a feeling of improved quality in a smaller screen due to the edge enhancement. (May be there is a setting in the player to adjust this.). However, on a larger screen, in my opinion, PS3 would give a better and pleasing picture.

OP: So, I think if you are using a small screen most upscaling DVD players would give a satisfactory result. The upscaling problems will be hidden due to the smaller screen size. If you are using a larger screen you could really gain from a better scaler like PS3.

Also I should note that the PS3 is not the best DVD upscaler to my opinion although it is the best blu-ray player that I have seen. PS3 is producing an incredible picture for blu-ray movies.

[Lucy Diamond]

Hmmm...can't you find a stand alone Blu Ray player that's maybe profile 1 just for that???

At least it would be able to play back Blu.

The S-300 is a great upscaler.

[bootman]

Originally Posted by Grant Matrix

I just got my second HDTV, Sony 46v3000 and now I am need of an upcaling player or a second PS3. My question to anyone with experience is ....

Is there a difference in upscaling quality between the cheaper 30-50 DVD players that upscale and the upscaling capabilities of a BLU player / PS3? I am kind of limited on funds after my TV purchase which is why I am thinking about upscale DVD player.

Do you mean $30-$50 upscaling DVD players and a PS3?
I would take a PS3.
If you are talking about a high quality upscaling dvd player like a OPPO, then we can start comparing pictures.

The upscaling chip in the oppo cost $30-50 alone.

[Grant Matrix]

I was thinking of going the route of picking up a Toshiba, but haven't been able to find one and I don't trust ebay enough for a purchase like that. I've been making some calls to stores, but haven't been able to find anyone who sells them anymore. Right now I'm really just interested in having good quality upscaling, but if it will cost $100+ to do that I probably will break down down and get the PS3.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by Grant Matrix

I just got my second HDTV, Sony 46v3000 and now I am need of an upcaling player or a second PS3. My question to anyone with experience is ....

Is there a difference in upscaling quality between the cheaper 30-50 DVD players that upscale and the upscaling capabilities of a BLU player / PS3? I am kind of limited on funds after my TV purchase which is why I am thinking about upscale DVD player.

This sin't too easy to answer. I don't have a PS3, but I borrowed a friend's last week. BD playback was fine, but it was disappointing with DVDs. It was OK with static images, but as soon as there is motion, the clean sharp image is lost. This seems to be a limitation of the de-interlacing process, and there are many cheap stand-alone DVD players that do much better.

Having said that, the PS3 is a software player, and this sort of capability is likely to get better with future upgrades. DVD playback won't be a priority for Sony, but I'd expect DVD perfromance to improve in due course. Maybe there is someone here who knows a bit about the PS3 roadmap??????

In fairness to HDDVD, there aren't too many BD players that are any good with DVDs. I have a Sammy 1200 at the moment, which is excellent, though it has other limitations of course. A second PS3 might be a bit extravagant for a second player, and you could be taking a risk if you want to use it for DVD in the long term. One thing I will say, though, is that it has some very good noise reduction capability.

Nick

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

This sin't too easy to answer. I don't have a PS3, but I borrowed a friend's last week. BD playback was fine, but it was disappointing with DVDs. It was OK with static images, but as soon as there is motion, the clean sharp image is lost. This seems to be a limitation of the de-interlacing process, and there are many cheap stand-alone DVD players that do much better.

Having said that, the PS3 is a software player, and this sort of capability is likely to get better with future upgrades. DVD playback won't be a priority for Sony, but I'd expect DVD perfromance to improve in due course. Maybe there is someone here who knows a bit about the PS3 roadmap??????

In fairness to HDDVD, there aren't too many BD players that are any good with DVDs. I have a Sammy 1200 at the moment, which is excellent, though it has other limitations of course. A second PS3 might be a bit extravagant for a second player, and you could be taking a risk if you want to use it for DVD in the long term. One thing I will say, though, is that it has some very good noise reduction capability.

Nick

I agree that the PS3 upscaling is not good when motion is involved. I am not sure about the cheap dvd players but my PC with HDMI could do a better upscaling than PS3. As you are saying PS3 upscaling is not the most important aspect in case of PS3 evolution. Since it is the best blu-player, as I could see, I am pleased with it.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by syncguy

I agree that the PS3 upscaling is not good when motion is involved. I am not sure about the cheap dvd players but my PC with HDMI could do a better upscaling than PS3. As you are saying PS3 upscaling is not the most important aspect in case of PS3 evolution. Since it is the best blu-player, as I could see, I am pleased with it.

It was Kris Deerings most recent review of the PS3 in Secrets / HomeTheaterHiFi that made wonder about the PS3 performance with DVDs. I borrowed a 60GB model with up-to-date SW and put it up against my Pioneer DV79AVi, both connected by HDMI to my JVC HD1.

Since DVD playback is now pretty mature and well-established, I wasn't expecting to see any big differences. However, the two players were both disappointing in various areas. The PS3 was sharp with static images, but that vanished once there was motion. The DV79 handled motion much better, but it appeared to have too much spatial filtering, so the picture was smooth, but it lost too much detail. I spent a long time experimenting with settings, but never got either to be satisfactory.

I then played the same disc (LOTR FOTR) on my relatively modest HTPC, and I saw all the sharpness of the PS3, combined with the smooth motion of the Pioneer. My impression was that the scaling itself was better as well. The colour wasn't as good without adjustments, but it was vastly prefereable on a big HD display, and I expect the differences would be clear on a small TV as well.

I'm sure that effective SD de-interlacing won't be beyond the capability of the PS3, so I'd be reasonably confident that the PS3 will become a great DVD player once Sony get round to it, but I can understand if it's not their highest priority.

Nick

[ganthc]

I would say you made a good choice with getting a second ps3. I wouldn't ever recommend going backwards in technology. Frankly, after seeing blu-ray for so long, and watching HD only content on TV, it is hard to watch dvd anymore. I have the ps3 and hd-a35 as my potential dvd upconverters, and neither is necessarily better with the upconversion. However, I would say that the ps3 is much better with navigation...I just use the a35 to save my ps3 some wear and tear.

I will say that I think blu-ray intentionally hasn't put out a good upscaler, because they want the picture quality between dvd and blu-ray to be stark. No point in getting old dvds to look almost HD when you are trying to forward a new format. Personally, I think that is the way to go. For my favorite dvds, I have ended up buying them in blu or intend to when they come out. For those that I won't replace, the encodes on the dvd are so poor, they probably won't see much of an improvement from upconversion anyways.

[syncguy]

DVDs will never look like blu-rays. 1920x1080 versus 720x576. This is no comparison. An upscaler cannot create new data (correctly) that is not in the original picture.

[rogman]

When I saw the two pics posted, I immediately thought the PS3 image was much better. Looks more realistic, and the upsampled image from the A3 looks 'fake'. The edge enhancement of the A3 is obvious, and the PS3 version looks more natural.

I thought maybe I was just partial to the PS3 because that's what I have, but it seems others feel the same. You made a good choice by going with a PS3.

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

It was Kris Deerings most recent review of the PS3 in Secrets / HomeTheaterHiFi that made wonder about the PS3 performance with DVDs. I borrowed a 60GB model with up-to-date SW and put it up against my Pioneer DV79AVi, both connected by HDMI to my JVC HD1.

Since DVD playback is now pretty mature and well-established, I wasn't expecting to see any big differences. However, the two players were both disappointing in various areas. The PS3 was sharp with static images, but that vanished once there was motion. The DV79 handled motion much better, but it appeared to have too much spatial filtering, so the picture was smooth, but it lost too much detail. I spent a long time experimenting with settings, but never got either to be satisfactory.

I then played the same disc (LOTR FOTR) on my relatively modest HTPC, and I saw all the sharpness of the PS3, combined with the smooth motion of the Pioneer. My impression was that the scaling itself was better as well. The colour wasn't as good without adjustments, but it was vastly prefereable on a big HD display, and I expect the differences would be clear on a small TV as well.

I'm sure that effective SD de-interlacing won't be beyond the capability of the PS3, so I'd be reasonably confident that the PS3 will become a great DVD player once Sony get round to it, but I can understand if it's not their highest priority.

Nick

This is my experience as well. My feeling is PS3 upscaling is not a priority for the development team and I agree with this. I wish improvements in other areas including subtitle repositioning with PS3 firmware which is very important to myself and many other people.

[dieheart]

We need more threads with actual comparison pictures.