Comparing quality of SD upconversion

[jsteinhauer]

What do you look for specifically, if you are trying to compare how well one BD player unconverts SDDVDs to another, or if you are comparing a BD player to a SDDVD upconverting player for that matter? Is it something you just eyeball? This doesn't seem very objective, since almost everyone will start out biased toward the player with the better reputation. Oh, all other hardware (display, AVR) stay the same.

[Clark Kent]

One widely cited objective test is Silicon Optix's HQV testing which puts the dvd playback through a series of image tests. Cheap players tend to do very poorly on these tests. There is also the Secrets of Home Theater testing which mainly consists of flag based challenges. On a calibrated display the difference between upconversion of different players become apparent with careful scrutiny. Many base it on what upscaling chip each player uses. Right now the top chip is the Realta, found in the new Denon 3800 BD player. Usually if you find out what chip a player uses you can figure out how good of a upconverter it is.