PS3 upconversion is astounding--a bad thing

[Cambrian]

I just popped The Kingdom on SD in my PS3 and the upconversion quality is incredible. Albeit it's a new movie with an inherently good transfer for SD DVD.
Compared it to the XA2 and there is virtually no difference in quality--especially edge enhancement.

That's very impressive.

But it can be a bad thing. If people pop in their SD DVD's and see the astounding quality of the PS3's upconversion, they'll be less inclined to buy BD

[TheRealBob]

How big is your TV?

I have a 40" TV, and there is a huge difference between upscaled DVD and Blu-ray Discs. If you have a smaller TV, or, and I'm not saying this in a derogatory manner as I've seen this, if your eyesight isn't that great, then you might not see too much of a difference.

[BR7]

I have a 32" HDTV and I can see I big difference between an upscaled DVD and a Blu-ray movie.But I do agree the PS3s upconversion powers are very good

[greyrocket]

i dont see all the hoopla about up conversion.yeah the ps3 does make them look a little better but its no where near hd quality. its hard to watch dvd anymore.

[SandSkorpion]

I agree. Upscaled dvd's look great, but don't hold a candle to blu-ray. I did a comparison test with POTC and the results weren't even close!

[TheRealBob]

Also, how good is your TV?

A lot of TVs don't have a native 1080p resolution (1920x1080), but they're "1080 compatible" so they'll take that 1080p as an input and downscale it. For example, a lot of the (relatively) inexpensive rear-projection LCD Sony HDTVs had a native resolution of 1366×768, which is about half as many pixels, and which doesn't match any standard HDTV resolution (720p is 1280x720). If you have one of those and your TV doesn't do a fantastic job downscaling, it may be adding enough distortion that a downscaled 1080p doesn't end up looking much better than an upscaled 480p (720x480, usually).

If you have a CRT-based HDTV, then you usually get a fraction of the resolution stated. If it's 1080i, it will do 1080 scan lines, but each scan line will typically only have the equivalent of 500-800 pixels because it can't change the colors within that line that quickly. That drops you from 1920x1080 to 800x1080, which is over half the resolution gone.

Or, as I said, maybe your vision just isn't that good. My wife's vision isn't that great, and it steadily deteriorates so she has to get her glasses prescription changed every year. We bought our HDTV and BD player right before her annual eye exam, and she thought that upscaled DVDs looked almost as good as BDs. Then she got her new glasses and contacts, and she was blown away the detail in the BD picture.

[TheRealBob]

One more thing: If you moved from a non-widescreen SDTV to an HDTV, then the image quality of DVDs can be rather astounding. We popped in Star Wars 4 when we got our HDTV just to see how it looked and ended up watching the whole thing just because it was so much fun to see it in all its DVD glory.

Why? Because "16:9 enhanced" anamorphic DVDs have an image on them that is meant to be played on a 16:9 screen. If you watched it on a 4:3 screen, it showed the whole image from side to side, but from top to bottom it had to squeeze the image into a smaller space. So it would throw out 1/4 of the scan lines, projecting 480 lines onto 360 lines of your TV, or downscale the content to fit in those 360 lines.

When you put that same image on a nice widescreen TV, it doesn't throw anything out, so a lot of detail is now back in the picture. If you combine that with a decent upscaler, it can look quite good, much better than it ever looked on your old TV.

But I have to agree with the others that a BD just blows it away. The detail really just pops out at you in a way that DVD never does.

[blindcat87]

I think one of the next big advertising points for BD is going to need to be that there really is a difference between upconverted SD and BD. Also, I think some serious pushing of HD audio needs to be done.

I am someone who gets very little benefit from HD picture. I see a little more detail of a hazy blurry image than I do withSD. Faulty retinas will do that to a guy. But HD sound more than makes it worthwhile to upgrade.

In addition to helping adoption of Blu-Ray serious attempts at educating the consumer about BD's audio advantages has another benefit as well. One of the big killers of SACD and DVD-A was lack of consumer understanding. Showing them what lossless 96/24 audio can sound like will help them realize what surround music like this can be like. With the decline in CD sales and the rise of MP3 players, audio BDs with low res MP3 or the new HD-AAC format version included for use on portable players could actually succeed where previous formats failed. I think a tour the likes of Disney's BD tour, but focused on awareness of upconvert vs BD and the advantages of HD audio could be a real success.

every time I listen to my DSOTM SACD I think about what could have been and with Blu-Rays capabilities, I see something even better as a possibility. Hyping the audio would not only help with mass adoption, but could give HD music a chance.

Chris

[Neo65]

Spend 3 months watching only good BDs. At least 3 movies a week. Try your upscaling experiment again at the end of the 3 months. If your TV is reasonably good, and is calibrated properly, you might be surprised at the result of the upscaling.

What to look for : I would look closely at people's faces and strands of hair.

[JasonR]

Sorry, I have a hard time watching any DVDs after seeing Blu...

[fronn]

The PS3, the Toshiba players (A1/2/3, XA1/2/3 and A20/30/35, etc.), the newer BD players (Panasonic, Samsungs, etc.) are all very good at upconversion.

The A2 is about equal to PS3 (from talk around the web it seems most give the edge to the Toshibas)... but the PS3 is definitely no slouch and sometimes I find myself using it just because it doesn't take a minute or so to boot up. The differences between all of them (outside of the Reon filled players) are all so minute that it's pretty much a draw (and even the Reon players aren't that much better, really).

Upconversion being good isn't something that's unique to PS3... pretty much every valid option for BD and HD DVD (not that HD DVD matters at this point) has to compete with rather outstanding upconversion.

My $99 A2 doesn't seem like a huge waste at this point because I can use it as an upconverter and can reduce the wear on my PS3.

[sardaukar1977]

am I the only one who doesn't think that upscaling is real. I mean I have looked at DVDs with the upscaling on and off, and I really can't tell the difference, they look equally crappy to me.

[Kayne314]

Originally Posted by sardaukar1977

am I the only one who doesn't think that upscaling is real. I mean I have looked at DVDs with the upscaling on and off, and I really can't tell the difference, they look equally crappy to me.

Often times the TV does an upscaling job that is equal to the player. Therefore, even if you don't own an upscaler DVD player, you may be seeing an upscaled image anyway. Therefore you see no difference.

Truly, however ( onto the topic at hand.) an upscaled DVD is completely inferior to a Blu-Ray disc. After watching solely High Def Movies for less than 1/2 a year, I must force myself to watch Standard def DVDs. I almost find it an insult on the eyes, and ears.

Even my parents, who came to visit over Christmas, after watching just one movie in Blu-Ray could see the difference clearly.

All we need to do is educate people, and show them the difference. I have no doubt this very idea will be pushed in a huge marketing package from the BDA. People need to know they are missing out. Once they do, there will be no stopping Blu-Ray.

[fronn]

Originally Posted by sardaukar1977

am I the only one who doesn't think that upscaling is real. I mean I have looked at DVDs with the upscaling on and off, and I really can't tell the difference, they look equally crappy to me.

If you turn upscaling off on your player it doesn't mean that it isn't upscaled... it just means your TV is doing it.

If there was no upscaling on a fixed pixel display (Plasma, LCD, etc.) then you'd end up with a little box in the middle of the screen where the movie played (720x480 for DVD vs 1920x1080 or 1280x720).

There are various ways of upscaling, and newer TVs are generally acceptable at it (depending on the eye), so you may not really notice much of a difference between your player or TV doing it.

You'd definitely notice if there was no good upscaling done... It's just that the absolute difference between a bad scaler and a good scaler is rather small (unless you really know what to look for) when it comes to products released in the market, where as the difference between smart scaling algorithm (like Lancsoz) and a dumb scaling algorithm (like Linear) is be incredibly noticeable. Thankfully you'd be hard pressed to find a product that does scaling that doesn't use some sort of cubic or bicubic scaling at least (or something comparable).

That's why it's hard to notice the difference between upscaling on and upscaling off sometimes. Upscaling is very real... it doesn't necessarily add detail or anything, but it makes a DVD enjoyable (or maybe tolerable is a better word) on a large high resolution screen (> DVD resolution).

[Joe Redifer]

I really don't find upscaling that impressive. I have a PS3 hooked up via HDMI, but regular DVDs don't really look any better than they do on my stand-alone player at 480p. There most definitely isn't any more detail (which would be impossible). It looks very blurry compared to an actual Blu-Ray disc. The only thing I really like about playing DVDs on my PS3 is that there isn't a pause during the layer switch. Other than that, I find the upscaling basically worthless.

My TV = Sony KD34XBR960 or some crap like that.

[Cambrian]

Originally Posted by TheRealBob

How big is your TV?

I have a 40" TV, and there is a huge difference between upscaled DVD and Blu-ray Discs. If you have a smaller TV, or, and I'm not saying this in a derogatory manner as I've seen this, if your eyesight isn't that great, then you might not see too much of a difference.

I have a Westinghouse 1080p 37" LCD HDTV. So, yes, it is possible that might set might not expose the gap between SD and BD.

Ironically, I find the lossless audio to be more of an appealing factor to go to BD. Once you've heard PCM/TrueHD/DTS-HD MA on a very good sound system, you'll never go back to Dolby Digital.

That's why I hate HD-DVD. Every time I see a release with Dolby Digital Plus on HD-DVD, I want to throw up.

[YouSmellLikeBeans]

I wish people would stop comparing upscaled dvds to blu ray movies. There is no comparison. Upscaled dvds look like garbage compared to blu ray.

[Fozziwig]

Now here's a funny thing:

Evidence about the alleged superiority of DVD picture versus VHS is largely anecdotal and suspicious, given the fact that it mostly originates from the DVD manufacturers themselves. In fact, the actual peer-reviewed evidence tends to point the other direction. In a recent study by Brown University, one hundred students were shown a clip of the movie "Big Momma's House" on VHS and then were shown the same clip on DVD. The students were not told which clip was which format. They were then asked which of the two clips had better video quality, or if they were about the same. Nearly two-thirds of the students (63%) thought that there was no difference. Of the remaining students, 19% thought that the VHS tape looked better! In other words, the students with a preference (narrowly) favored the image quality of the "inferior" VHS clip!

http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001...12921.289.html

The feedback at the bottom of the page is from 2001/02. The poll on that page shows that 50% say DVD is the best HT format with film coming second with 19%. VHS got just 2% despite the best efforts of the author.

Made me smile anyway.

Have no fear. Blu-ray will be a mass market format soon enough and it won't really matter if people don't see some awesome quality difference between Blu-ray and DVD. They will buy Blu-ray.

We can save the arguments for how Blu-ray moves to mass market status until after the Universal & P/DW announcements of Blu-ray support.

Let's just say that those trying to drag Blu-ray down with arguments about the amazing quality of upconversion and the potential of downloads are (like their misguided belief in HD DVD) completely wrong.

[docjan_uk]

From memory, I find the PS3 upconversion to be substandard to my old Denon.
That being said, meh, I see a night and day difference between DVD's and Blu-ray movies.
It's not even in the same ball park, I mean you're just viewing 480P material on a higher resolution screen, there's no real detail there and it's quite visible .

[Firestreak]

Personally I think a regular DVD on an older TV looks better than upscaled on an HDTV.

A DVD upscaled however looks pretty bad to me, almost makes me wish I hadn't gotten used to blu, with so many great movies still only available in DVD.