BDP-S500 Where is the upscale???

[aninel]

Hi all,

I bought my Sony BDP-S500 player two months ago. It works fine with all the blu-ray discs (22 so far, only Disney discs longer loading times), although a cloth is recommended to be at hand to wipe out any dust particle on disc surface before inserting it.

Yet, I don't see ANY upscale of many DVDs from my like 400 SD discs archive. My machine is linked via HDMI to Sony BRAVIA KLD-40X2000 1080p set, sound is sent via optical cable to Sony STR-DB940 QS receiver.

I rule out putative poor personal optical acquity because I am a freak concerning the sound and image.


Any suggestions are very welcome. Thanks

Ninel
Germany

PS: posting for the first time, however reading since long. Very good site.

[darkpoet25]

Hmm....you may want to be sure you have the latest firmware update. Try going into your menu option as well, there may be some option to turn on the upscaler, although I imagine it should be automatic. This is the first time I've head of this. Oh well, welcome aboard!

[Edh63]

Not every SD is going to upscale beautifully. Some will look better than others, but they all should have some PQ improvement. I watched "Dan In Real Life" the other night on SD and I cannot tell you how fine the PQ was upscaled on my BDP. It seriously looked HD. Not all of the SD movies I watch look this clean though.

[aninel]

Hi Cliff,

There is nothing in the menu that can turn the upscale on. I would say that the menu is rather simple, at least not what I imagined. I will try with more discs to see if I spot something, at least a bit. Thanks
Ninel

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by aninel

Hi Cliff,

There is nothing in the menu that can turn the upscale on. I would say that the menu is rather simple, at least not what I imagined. I will try with more discs to see if I spot something, at least a bit. Thanks
Ninel

You are correct, there is nothing that will "help" your player upscale any better. What I've stated is exactly what is. Different SDs will upscale better than others. I wouldn't put much thought into it.

[WickyWoo]

I wouldn't be shocked if the same upscaler wasn't in your TV already, meaning that all you're doing is eliminating the artifacts of the digital/analog/digital conversion

[ronjones]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

I wouldn't be shocked if the same upscaler wasn't in your TV already, meaning that all you're doing is eliminating the artifacts of the digital/analog/digital conversion

All HDTVs with fixed pixel displays (flat panel LCD or plasma and projectors using LCoS, DLP or LCD) include scalers since all input resolutions must be scaled to the display's native resolution. So if the DVD or BD player is outputting 480i or 480p when playing standard DVDs, the TV will upscale. In some cases the BD or DVD player will do a better job in upscaling as compared to the HDTV (it depends on whether the player or the HDTV has the better video processor doing the scaling). Also some people are mislead into believing that an upscaling DVD or BD player should made a standard DVD into an HD quality image. Of course this is not true.

[Edh63]

Originally Posted by ronjones

All HDTVs with fixed pixel displays (flat panel LCD or plasma and projectors using LCoS, DLP or LCD) include scalers since all input resolutions must be scaled to the display's native resolution. So if the DVD or BD player is outputting 480i or 480p when playing standard DVDs, the TV will upscale. In some cases the BD or DVD player will do a better job in upscaling as compared to the HDTV (it depends on whether the player or the HDTV has the better video processor doing the scaling). Also some people are mislead into believing that an upscaling DVD or BD player should made a standard DVD into an HD quality image. Of course this is not true.

Just to clarify, I'm not naieve enough too think that upscaling means that you would get HD PQ from a SD, so I'm assuming you're not referencing me. However, the disk that I am referencing, Dan In Real Life, was an exceptionally good upscale and I can attribute that to the quality of the BD players ability to upscale.

[darkpoet25]

Originally Posted by Edh63

You are correct, there is nothing that will "help" your player upscale any better. What I've stated is exactly what is. Different SDs will upscale better than others. I wouldn't put much thought into it.

I just assumed there was an option to turn it on or off. Since I own a PS3, I have the ability to do that and set the upscale to 1080p, full screen, etc. That was my fault, and you are right, I have seen some dvd's that didn't that much better when upscaled.

[nycomet]

Originally Posted by aninel

Hi all,

I bought my Sony BDP-S500 player two months ago. It works fine with all the blu-ray discs (22 so far, only Disney discs longer loading times), although a cloth is recommended to be at hand to wipe out any dust particle on disc surface before inserting it.

Yet, I don't see ANY upscale of many DVDs from my like 400 SD discs archive. My machine is linked via HDMI to Sony BRAVIA KLD-40X2000 1080p set, sound is sent via optical cable to Sony STR-DB940 QS receiver.

I rule out putative poor personal optical acquity because I am a freak concerning the sound and image.


Any suggestions are very welcome. Thanks

Ninel
Germany

PS: posting for the first time, however reading since long. Very good site.

I agree. The BDP-S300 does a lousy job upscaling. I use a different dedicated Sony upscaling oldray DVD player. It does a fantastic job upscaling.

[JasonR]

Originally Posted by nycomet

I agree. The BDP-S300 does a lousy job upscaling. I use a different dedicated Sony upscaling oldray DVD player. It does a fantastic job upscaling.

Really? I just watched Atonement on SD and thought it looked fantastic!