Do Blu-Ray Players upcscale standard DVDs to full 1080p?

Question

I have a 1080p HDTV....I bought a Blu-Ray player and I bought the movie 300 in Blu-Ray...I also bought 300 on standard DVD just to compare the 2. First I inserted the Blu-Ray disc into the Blu-Ray player and played a fight scene, then I inserted the standard DVD into the same Blu-Ray player and played the same fight scene....They both looked amazing but I did not see any difference between the 2. The Blu Ray disc did not look better than the standard DVD.

Does this mean that the BluRay Player upscales the DVDs to full 1080p? And if so, is it worth buying Blu-Ray discs or is it better to buy the cheaper standard DVDs if they look virtually the same?

Answer 1

Up-scaling improves a standard definition DVD and makes it look better.  It's still not HD quality and can't be made to equal HD.  You can see the difference if you look at an up-scaled DVD compared to a real Blu-Ray.  Any improvement is just enhancing what is on the DVD and is an interpolation of the data on the disc.

Answer 2

Blue-Ray is real HD and will only show true HD when you insert a Blue-Ray disc... however if you insert a SD DVD it will upscale the pixels not the quality. Some DVD players can upscale SD DVD's to HD.

Answer 3

I actually was just at Best Buy this past weekend and asked the sales dude the same thing.  He said that there are mechanics in the Blue Ray and improve the standard DVD's which make it "near HD" quality, but still not as good.  So it is definitely better than a standard DVD but not quite as good as Blue Ray.