What is the difference between the quality of a dvd that upcoverts to 1080p and a HD format like blu ray?

Question

I'm a little confused about certain "dvd upconverters". Can they really upconvert a DVD to 1080p? If that's so, wouldn't that mean it would be the same quality as a blu ray or hd dvd? I'm guessing not cause if that was so there would be no need to upgrade to blu ray or hd-dvd, everyone would just get a dvd upconverter.

Answer 1

You are right, the upconverting DVD player (UDP) can't add detail to a 480 pixel image, it can only deinterlace and stretch the detail to fit a higher resolution version.

But .... how different an upconverted DVD will look from an HD disk (Blu-ray or HD DVD) depends on a number of things, including the quality of the video processing in the UDP, the resolution of the display (HDTV or projector), and where the viewer sits.

In brief, if the UDP has good video processing (e.g. an Oppo 981), the image on a 720p display will be relatively close to the HD disk image; however, there will be a greater difference on a 1080p display.

This is because the processing of the 480i image from the DVD improves the picture, while downscaling the 1080p image from the HD disk to match the 720p display degrades the image somewhat.

It is important to put all this in perspective and recognize that even the maximum difference between video at 480i and 1080p is not night and day. See the first link for an example ... and note this is the MAXIMUM difference one can achieve, and a number of factors can reduce the difference. For example, the picture on the 720p display mentioned above would be less sharp than the HD image in the example. Second, a UDP can improve on the DVD image shown in the example. Thirdly, there can be degradation due to sub-optimum cables.

Finally consider the potential impact of viewing distance, and the HD disk may actually look insignificantly different to the DVD disk.

Specifically, most people watch their HDTVs from too far away to fully appreciate the detail available in the picture. For example, for someone with 20:20 vision, a 50" 1080p HDTV is optimally viewed from only 6.5 feet (2 m), while a 720p HDTV would be optimal at 9.1 feet. Viewing from less than this distance will result in seeing the individual pixels (undesireable), but from greater distance a viewer can't appreciate the full resolution. So if you watch a 50" HDTV at more than about 8 feet or so you essentially can't tell the difference between a 720p and 1080p model of the same size. Put another way, if watching from 10-12 feet away you would need a 65" screen to see ANY difference between a 720p and 1080p display.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

You can upconvert a standard 480p signal to 720p/1080i/1080p, but it will never be exactly the same. There is a reason that the normal 480p DVD version of the Matrix is on a disc that holds 4.7Gb of data and the HD-DVD version holds 15Gb; its all in the extra resolution and sound data.

I have a DVD player that upconverts standard DVD to 720p/1080i and it looks great. But when I play a HD-DVD my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player, the HD quality looks better. The upconverter is a good option if you don't want to buy a dual-player that does both HD-DVD/Blu-Ray and you want to be able to watch your current library of DVD movies without having to buy them again.

Answer 3

There is definetly a big difference between HD DVDs and SD DVDs (1080-480 = 600 lines to be exact in real, not interpolated content)

Your question should be, why buy an upconverting DVD player if ANY HDTV can upconvert a SD DVD signal to its native resolution just fine? Why indeed.

So either buy the cheapest possible SD DVD player (with component output) or an HD/Blu-ray player.

Answer 4

The upconverter will create the same native resolution, but there will be far less detail than a high definition format. The upconverter essentially just deinterlaces in a way that creates a much better picture than a regular dvd player, but it isn't as good as HD DVD or Blu-ray. The HD optical formats also have better sound. (Most HD DVD and Blu-ray players upconvert your DVDs just like an upconverting DVD player would.)