A good upscaling DVD player - is it worth doing, anyway?

[Channard]

I've got an LCD arriving soon, a 27 inch one, and I was wondering if it's worth buying an upscaling DVD player. I don't plan on upgrading my DVD collection any time soon, and so I was wondering if and upscaling player would give me a worthwhile improvement?

Also, if it would, can anyone recommend a good upscaling player? I watch PAL and NTSC movies from various regions. So I'd be after one that could be made multiregion. And preferably one that can convert NTSC to PAL pretty well, as the Yakumo and Samsung DVD players can. I know most LCDs should play NTSC, but I've found that it looks much sharper when played in PAL mode.

[gjkendall]

I've got an LCD arriving soon, a 27 inch one, and I was wondering if it's worth buying an upscaling DVD player. I don't plan on upgrading my DVD collection any time soon, and so I was wondering if and upscaling player would give me a worthwhile improvement?

Also, if it would, can anyone recommend a good upscaling player? I watch PAL and NTSC movies from various regions. So I'd be after one that could be made multiregion. And preferably one that can convert NTSC to PAL pretty well, as the Yakumo and Samsung DVD players can. I know most LCDs should play NTSC, but I've found that it looks much sharper when played in PAL mode.

Oppo 981 could be what your after:thumbs:

[Keiron99]

I'm bemused by "upscaling". I only have a CRT, but recently got a new Sony receiver. One of the strong points of this item is its "upscaling" of most inputs to 720 or 1080.

However, on another forum, I was told all LCDs and Plasmas upscale anyway. If they didn't, you'd have black bars around the image on the screen ie.the image is upscaled by the display to fill fill the screen.

In which case, why did I spend a premium on an upscaling receiver, and why would anyone want an upscaling DVD player? Why not just let the display do it itself?

[nwgarratt]

However, on another forum, I was told all LCDs and Plasmas upscale anyway. If they didn't, you'd have black bars around the image on the screen ie.the image is upscaled by the display to fill fill the screen.



Correct. A CRT TV cannot even show upscaled picture as it is 576i only.

With a budget TV. It is possible to get a better scaler in the player but a decent TV will beat most DVD player scalers. It is just a user preference which one does the scaling.

[DeadKenny]

In which case, why did I spend a premium on an upscaling receiver, and why would anyone want an upscaling DVD player? Why not just let the display do it itself?
The hint may be in the fact a dedicated upscaler can be as expensive as the display itself, which makes you wonder about the quality of the built in upscaler? ;)

However if you want to get a little idea behind quality of upscaling, you could do a simple experiment just with JPEG images and using a paint package that has rescaling options. Some packages will have various options to scale images and if you try each one you see quickly how some (the quicker ones) are poor quality.

A simple scaler will just double up the pixels, which whilst gives a big image, it just enlarges the flaws in the image. A decent scaler will analyse the image and scale it whilst attempting to keep it perceptively the same as it was when small. Problem is, this requires more processing and that costs money.

Found out myself how upscaling can improve the picture just by playing a DVD on my laptop output on VGA at 1920x1080 on my 1080p LCD. Compared to my DVD player connected by SCART it's considerably better. Thing is, that wasn't even the best upscaling it could do as the video filter has more enhanced upscaling though my laptop just doesn't have the grunt to do it without stuttering.

Another thing though is upscaling or otherwise, a player with HDMI output has an advantage over DVD players with analogue outputs just because you are not getting a digital->analogue->digital conversion. Also, with LCDs now you can get 1:1 mapping with the input if the display supports it (VGA will do it anyway usually), which means doing away with the overscan you get on TVs, and revealing a lot of extra picture you never knew existed.

Of note, Denon aren't even considering Blu-Ray and HD-DVD at the moment because they see more value in upscaling DVDs to a quality suitable for HD displays to get the maximum quality out of DVD.

[kerbcrawler]

Of note, Denon aren't even considering Blu-Ray and HD-DVD at the moment because they see more value in upscaling DVDs to a quality suitable for HD displays to get the maximum quality out of DVD.

And what of the Oppos? I'd heard they were as good as - if not better than the Denon's at a fraction of the price.

On the other extreme I hear Arcam's latest universal upscaling DVD players are a force to be reckoned with (if you have the dosh to spare that is).

Also - do you know where one could find other - informed opinions on how good their LCDs upscaling is.

I have a 40" Sony Bravia XBR1 and am told they're supposed to be pretty good in the upscaling department but I haven't been able to find some professional opinions to back that up.

Thanks from another interested party.

kc

[Channard]

Thanks for the info so far. Unfortunately my LCD had to go back as it was faulty, and when I get my money refunded, I'm going for an AOC instead. But I did get a chance to play the DVDs on the screen via my 360 on VGA, and the upscaling looked pretty sweet. As far as budget goes, I'm probably looking to spend up to seventy quid on an upscaling player, so I think the oppo ones are a bit out of my league.

[thescrounger]

I bought the Toshiba 370E today. I wasn't expecting much of a difference over component but I was pleasantly surprised. There's certainly a notable difference when I toggle the HDMI setting between 576p and 720p.

[CHEWY56]

The Sunday Times has a good review of six players

'InGear has tested six DVD players selling for between £50 and £120, and overall we’ve found their performance surprisingly good. Each played back movies to a picture standard superior to most noname machines, and many boast features that until recently would only be found on far pricier models.

All six machines have a digital HDMI socket, an essential connection that delivers both video and audio in one convenient cable to your screen or surround-sound system. Crucially, it also offers the possibility of upscaling, where a standard-definition DVD picture is boosted (upscaled) to a clarity in theory approaching high definition, if viewed on an HD-ready screen.'

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/test_bench/article1747020.ece