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Thread: Buy an SD-upscaling DVD player for WAY more than hi-def?

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    Buy an SD-upscaling DVD player for WAY more than hi-def?

    Like a lot of people, we huffed and puffed when we heard just how expensive Blu-ray Disc high-definition DVD players were going to be but genuine hi-fi and home-cinema buffs, we now suspect, will simply have shrugged and reached for the Carte Blanche the moment they heard there was a waiting list.

    At least, that's the impression we were left with after learning the prices of some of the more esoteric upscaling standard-def DVD players that were being displayed at the combined What Hi-Fi? and Best of Stuff shows.

    More in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline.

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    i don't understand the point of an upscaling player - they can't magic extra resolution out of nowhere, so what exactly do they do of worth?

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    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    I've been looking into some of the upscaling DVD players the past few weeks.

    To start at Play.com they have a High Def player for around £450, looking at Argos they don't actually have any High Def players yet but they do have a few with HDMI output sockets that can upscale for around the £70 - £80 mark.

    Play:

    http://play.com/Electronics/Electron...r/Product.html

    Argos (Upscales to 1080i )

    http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...%2Bplayers.htm

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    Senior Member charleski's Avatar
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    Most of what you pay for is the ability to handle interlaced video. Good deinterlacing takes processing power and memory, and you're not going to get that in a £70 box, though £2.7k is going overboard, but you're paying for a big box with lots of connectors and flexibility and, one would hope, quality power supply and analogue stages.

    Not all 'upscaling' is the same, either. There are several different resizing algorithms, here's a page showing the effect of the different algorithms on resizing photographs. As before, the more sophisticated algorithms need more processing resources.

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    charleski,

    I don't pretend to know much about image resizing but is it the case that the issues encountered are the same for upscaling as downsizing?

    I ask because the page your reference is purely about downsizing.

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    Senior Member charleski's Avatar
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    I should have linked to this page to show the differences in upsizing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by charleski View Post
    I should have linked to this page to show the differences in upsizing.

    Thanks!

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    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    I was just pointing out that there are other alternatives available. I will be buying one of the players from Argos in the new year. It will do me until I actually get a HD player (when they come down in price).

    Granted the one I pointed out in Argos is a £70 player that upscales with few connections on the rear. That is one hell of a lot cheaper than what they are pushing at the £2000 mark. It may not be as good as the expensive one but as long as it is functional and does what it says on the box it is good enough for me till I get the HD player.

    I feel it will be the same for a lot of people, especially with families like myself.

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    I'm sure charleski wasn't knocking you, just trying to make you (and the rest of us) better informed.

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    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    Yeah, not denying that at all. Good that he has took the time to point out the differences.

    For me I would prefer to spend less until the HD players become more the norm like VHS to DVD transition a few years ago. Like I also mentioned, there are other alternatives and it is down to personal choice and cashflow.

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    Has all the piri-piri! GeorgeTuk's Avatar
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    Is upscaling the ability for the image to fill a 37" screen at DVD quality or am I getting this all wrong?

    I just bought a 37" Toshiba and while DVD playing is pretty good would be nice to get rid of the letterbox on most DVDs.

    Stealth Geek - And Proud!

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    I bought a 42" Hitachi HD Plasma about a month ago, with some of my DVD's I still get small black bars across the top and bottom of the screen (about 2 inch deep). However, there are quite a few that completely fill the screen.

    Check that your DVD / Sky etc is actually set to 16:9 format in the picture settings. If it is set to 4:3 you are more likely to get deeper black bars top and bottom of the screen.

    Upscaling is making the picture sharper on the bigscreen. Kind of like the difference between 640x480 resolution and 1024x768 resolution on a PC monitor. Higher the resolution the sharper the image quality is.

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    Senior Member charleski's Avatar
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    Don't all HD-ready TVs have basic upscaling built-in already though? Otherwise they'd be playing SD TV signals in a small box in the middle of the screen. Unless you've got lots to spend on some specialised (and, frankly, over-priced) processing hardware, is there any point in worrying about whether a DVD player upscales at all?

    TBH, I can't help thinking that the best result would be from an HTPC, which would cost a third of the Denon box even with a fancy case. I've been pretty impressed with the deinterlacing and upscaling quality of the nvidia MPEG2 decoder and doubt that the Denon could beat it.

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    HEXUS.social member 99Flake's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by charleski View Post
    TBH, I can't help thinking that the best result would be from an HTPC, which would cost a third of the Denon box even with a fancy case. I've been pretty impressed with the deinterlacing and upscaling quality of the nvidia MPEG2 decoder and doubt that the Denon could beat it.
    I wouldn't like to bet on that one, people may think that Denon is overpriced but what you must remember is that it is likely to be attached to amplification sources that cost twice its price as well as speakers that may have five figure price tags. It is intended to be the best DVD player you can buy, not just for picture but for sound reproduction as well. Hence why it doesn't have HiDef built in. This is a player for those that have already spent tens of thousands on the rest of their hifi kit.

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    the quality of that box will be significantly better than that of a pc - all the components and algorithms will be the BEST available, and there is a point - for buffs who have 1000+ dvds, and an hd tv, getting a very good upscaling player is significantly cheaper than re-investing in an entire collection of hd-dvds, with a similar effect.

    to answer your question, yes, all hd tvs have upscaling in them, and, in fact, in a lot of cases it'll be better than doing it on a player. reason for this is that very few tvs have an exact hd- resolution (1280x760 or the 1080 resolution). most instead have 1366x768, or thereabouts. if you upscale on the player, the 1280x760 source is then upscaled AGAIN on the tv.. and as each upscaling drops a tiny bit of quality - you're dropping twice rather than just the once.

    i've got an upscaling dvd player (a toshiba 350, so a fairly cheap one), but i've never even hooked it up to my hd set, let alone used it for the upscaling. might have to do that at some point
    hughlunnon@yahoo.com | I have sigs turned off..

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferral View Post
    I was just pointing out that there are other alternatives available. I will be buying one of the players from Argos in the new year. It will do me until I actually get a HD player (when they come down in price).

    Granted the one I pointed out in Argos is a £70 player that upscales with few connections on the rear. That is one hell of a lot cheaper than what they are pushing at the £2000 mark. It may not be as good as the expensive one but as long as it is functional and does what it says on the box it is good enough for me till I get the HD player.

    I feel it will be the same for a lot of people, especially with families like myself.
    Interesting stuff on that player at Argos. Including remote hack.

    Appears that you can connect USB drives to it to play media from!

    Means I can get rid of my noisy bedroom PC in that case. Which will make the wife happy. Till it comes back when we get our (my ) HDTV, unless this plays HD DivX?

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