DVD Upscaling to HD res using a PC - Is it possible?

[madad2005]

I've got a media centre and, before I decide what HDTV to get, I'd like to know if modern pc systems can upscale dvds from SD to HD? Will I have to go and buy an actual dvd player with a built-in upscaler?

This is also posted at guru3d.com, but I've still to receive a response from them, so hoping someone here can help instead.

[directhex]

1) switch desktop to 1280x720
2) play dvd fullscreen

congrats, you've got a genuine dvd upscaler

upscaling is a crock. you can't magic pixels out of nowhere. life is not like CSI

[dangel]

But it does look better nonetheless - and there can be a big difference in the quality of the job done depending on which hardware is doing the work. I'd definitely say my nVidia card does a much better job than the TVs built in scaler, plus is more adjustable through both drivers and codecs.

I'm pretty happy with upscaled DVD (even at 1080P)

So in answer to your question - you just need a DVD reader in your PC. Make sure your PC is running the TV's native resolution too - 1280x720 isn't the rule - it entirely depends on your set (Mine's 1920×1080 for example).

[directhex]

Originally Posted by dangel

But it does look better nonetheless - and there can be a big difference in the quality if the job done depending on which hardware is doing the work. I'd definitely say my nVidia card does a much better job than the TVs built in scaler, plus is more adjustable through both drivers and codecs.

true. but there's some misperception that upscaling is more than that - stretching the picture to fit a higher res screen. whilst the quality of resize algorithms varies (aim for lanczos3 if you can get it), there's no silver bullet.

[dangel]

Frankly, there's plenty of people who buy an HDTV and assume that's all they need to see HD content

[directhex]

Originally Posted by dangel

Frankly, there's plenty of people who buy an HDTV and assume that's all they need to see HD content

HD home-taped VHS

[TheAnimus]

what i find truely astounding is the piss poor quality of sky's regular standard definition service.

Its just plain awful. Far too compressed, far too many artifacts. No matter how you try to upscale it, it comes out looking poor.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by TheAnimus

what i find truely astounding is the piss poor quality of sky's regular standard definition service.

Its just plain awful. Far too compressed, far too many artifacts. No matter how you try to upscale it, it comes out looking poor.

garbage in, garbage out. most of the channels on sky use tiny bitrates and sub-SD resolution. many of the channels on freeview too.

consider how a PAL MPEG2 image looks at 2mbit/sec (the average for channel 5), then consider that it drops down as low as 0.5mbit at times

bitrates on satellite tend to be even worse

[madad2005]

Originally Posted by directhex

1) switch desktop to 1280x720
2) play dvd fullscreen

congrats, you've got a genuine dvd upscaler

upscaling is a crock. you can't magic pixels out of nowhere. life is not like CSI

Yeah, this is what I thought, just needed some confirmation. I always play my movies in VLC and it does seem to do a pretty decent job of it. I always thought some form of interpolation would be required between the SD pixels being presented in a high def screen.

Cheers guys.

[Skinleech]

You can use FFDShow's post processing to apply sharpening and all sorts of funky stuff to enhance the upscaling. Never bothered trying it though as I rarely watch DVDs and never watch regular TV. Stuff like Family Guy or South Park doesn't really need upscaling..

Also, I use XBMC which will upscale anyway.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by Skinleech

You can use FFDShow's post processing to apply sharpening and all sorts of funky stuff to enhance the upscaling. Never bothered trying it though as I rarely watch DVDs and never watch regular TV. Stuff like Family Guy or South Park doesn't really need upscaling..

Also, I use XBMC which will upscale anyway.

you'd be surprised

animation looks much much better in hd than "real-life" stuff. crisp lines and edges rather than muddy anti-aliasing (or blocky aliasing)

[madad2005]

Does lanczos3 come with VLC?

[Skinleech]

Originally Posted by directhex

you'd be surprised

animation looks much much better in hd than "real-life" stuff. crisp lines and edges rather than muddy anti-aliasing (or blocky aliasing)

Yeah all very true. I just don't think Family GUy/SP really needs to look sharper. Pixar movies yes, but 22 min tv shows I don't care about.

[dangel]

Originally Posted by Skinleech

Yeah all very true. I just don't think Family GUy/SP really needs to look sharper. Pixar movies yes, but 22 min tv shows I don't care about.

I agree. With SP the whole point is it's supposed to look crappy anyway

[Jay]

I use MediaCenter with a 8500GT and my girlfriend's "Bones" DVD looks amazing, I am mad into HDTV, media centers etc and have a Bluray player but I have to say that MediaCenter does a very good job with DVDs.

For .M4V files etc I use ffdshow with post processing, looks very good but no where near as good as proper HD. As for Sky HD and VM HD I think both a pretty poor in both SD and HD but I think that the VM V+ box has much better SD picture than Sky.