High Def or Upconvert?

Question

I have an LG 32" 720p tv, with the Xbox Hd DVD player and the Sony PS3 Blu-Ray. Neither of those players upconvert regular DVDs, but I was wondering, considering I have a 720p tv, will the upconverted dvds look nearly as good as the HDs or Blu-Rays?

Answer 1

You are going to see minimal difference in detail -- although probably a bit of colour difference (HD disks and DVDs use a different colour space).

Look at it this way:

- you have an upconverting HD player (in fact 2 of them).

- Since your TV is 720p you would be either deinterlacing and upscaling DVDs (480i) to 720p or downsampling HD disks (1080p) to 720p. Both processes change the original image. The DVD upconversion makes the DVD image more like the HD disk (the amount dependent on the quality of the video processor in the player) and the downsampling process degrades the 1080p image somewhat. So in a sense you are in a bit of a half and half situation. That said, the DVD will never have the same detail as the HD disk.

But whether the difference is what you would consider significant is an open question.

Consider the link for an example of -- depending on your perspective -- how much or how little difference there is between DVD and HD disks. (slide the bar from side to side to see the difference on any specific portion of the picture). Now consider your image will be somewhere in between.

Further, If you sit more than 5-6 feet from your 32" HDTV, you will not be able to realize the full benefit of the resolution (the normal eye simply can resolve the individual pixels on the screen untill you get to about 5 feet away (~1.5x screen size), but beyond that you gradually lose the ability to resolve detail).

So overall unless you have really good eyesight and sit very close to the screen the chances of you seeing significant differences are remote.

With that small an HDTV and only 720p ... you would be wasting your money paying extra for Blu-ray of HD DVD disks. But try it ... you have the equipment and nothing beats experimental results over theory.

Answer 2

No, it won't look nearly as good as hi-def media.

Answer 3

Don't worry SD DVDs will be around for quite awhile, most of us have large library's of older DVDs. The newer better DVD players upconvert SD discs to near HD quality, the best in my opinion is the Oppo brand, based on their Faroudja chip set. So you do not have the guess who will win the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

A standard DVD player, without upscaling, can output video resolution at 720x480 (480i).

Upscaling is a process that mathematically matches the pixel count of the output of the DVD signal to the physical pixel count on an HDTV, which is typically 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080i - and, some cases, 1080p).

To get the full impact of true high definition viewing from a disc format, you need to have either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player connected to an HDTV via an HDMI connection and be viewing actual Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc content.

Answer 4

Both the xbox and PS3 upconvert over HDMI, but upconverting is a far cry from the quality of a true HD source.

Answer 5

Actually the PS3 does up convert to the output level that the PS3 is set for ie. 720p or 1080i but even if you watch the standard DVD at the 480p that it is designed for it will look almost as good as up converting, up converting the signal is more gimmick than an enhancement.

Answer 6

toshiba hd e1 on ebay is great at upconverting and its a hd dvd player i managed to get 1 for £132 i did not think it would be much different but i was wrong upscaling is very good