Standard DVD played in a 1080i Upconvert player to a 1080p TV results in what resolution?

Question

And, if you know, what are the steps in the process? How am I gaining resolution that wasn't there in the first place?

Answer 1

The HDTV will deinterlace to progressive scan 1080p upscaled.  Read the wikipedia page.

Answer 2

You don't get any resolution. Both the DVD player and the TV just scale the original DVD picture. It is all about interpolating pixels.

The question is: Who is doing a better scaling; the player or the TV?

Even if you player outputs at 480i, the TV will scale it all up to 1080p - its native resolution.