Upscaling- Let the TV do it or a Scaler/High Def DVD player?

[wbassett]

Okay here is a question I hope someone can answer.

I recently bought the Sony 55" SXRD 1080p HDTV and a PS3. The PS3 was more of an impulse buy. I was in the store and they didn't have a Toshiba 1080p player and my brother and I want to test HD and Bluray since he has a HD DVD player, so I went ahead and bought the PS3.

I was a little upset when I got home and found that the PS3 does not upconvert SDVDs to 1080p. The two guys at Best Buy told me it did upconvert and it does not. That comes straight from Sony. I am not Sony bashing or anything like that, I was told something and I want to ask a few questions and clarify a few things...

Someone on another forum said 'Why worry about whether the PS3 upconverts? Your TV will do it and do it much better.' Several people agreed and said (in less than polite ways) that I was worried about a none issue and to just let the TV do it. Also here in HTS it was said that the TV will do the upconversion/upscaling. Here is the question... will the TV truly upconvert anything coming in through the HDMI input, and will it do it well? When I say well, will it upconvert a well mastered SDVD to a 'near' HD look?

I have seen a JVC 1080i CRT HDTV mated with the Toshiba A1 in action up close and personal. Granted the JVC only has a DVI input, but it is still a High Def set. When regular Standard Def DVDs were played from a Samsung 931 upconverting DVD player with a DVI output, they did look better than coming from a player that didn't upconvert at all. We then hooked up the Toshiba A1 and put the same DVD in and it was like night and day. The Toshiba was connected to the JVC's DVI input via an HDMI to DVI adapter cable.

We spent a week using the A1 and watching HD DVDs and comparing SDVDs. In some cases the upcoverted SDVD looked almost as good as the HD DVD. So what I am saying is that I did see a major difference between different players, one was a standard no frills player, one a decent player with upconverting capabilities, and then the A1 and there was indeed a difference. If the set handles upconverting, and like other's have said... then theoretically shouldn't they all have looked very similar with the edge going to actual HD content?

One thing I think may be the big factor is the sets. I am not knocking the JVC at all. It is absolutely stellar looking, but it is an older HDTV, I think it is five years old now. Perhaps the newer sets are better at upconverting incoming signals, and that is what I am trying to find out. When my brother bought the JVC there were no High Def sources to really check out, and the manufacturers may not have bothered with the expense of making them upscale the incoming signal since nobody really would know... or perhaps the technology is just that much better now.

I don't have my new system setup yet, but will for the weekend and I will do some testing. Can I expect to see the set upconvert with similar performance that I saw the JVC/Toshiba combination do? If it is true then I will be a happy camper and keep the PS3. If it doesn't, I probably will take it back and get a dedicated player, most likely a HD DVD player and wait for the new Bluray players to come out this summer and decide if I still want BD.

Again, I am not here to bash Sony or Bluray. I have around 1300 SDVDs in my collection and just want to be able to watch them in the highest possible quality that I can, and I have seen what they can look like...

[Sonnie]

In some cases the upconverted SDVD looked almost as good as the HD DVD.

I will agree with this statement in reference to my current XA2 and my previous A1. Both upconvert SDVDs extremely well... better than anything else I've seen or owned.

I cannot give you a technical answer, but I've read where generally the display units are not that great at upconverting and it's better to let the source unit do it, such as the HD or BR player... but again, that's more hearsay than anything else. I would prefer a more qualified answer. They could be making the display units much better now too, if they previously were not that good.

[wbassett]

Sonnie I tend to agree with you. I have seen the Toshiba HD DVD players in action and really am debating on taking the PS3 back. My brother says keep it and buy a Toshiba HD player later, but I kinda think that's **. Not because of the movie split, but because of the upconversion. On another well known site I was flamed and crucified for being miffed that the PS3 doesn't upconvert. That's where I was told the set would do it and not to worry about it... and I just don't think the set does as good a job as what people are trying to tell me. Maybe I am wrong with the SXRD, but it's hard to get past seeing the A1/A2 upconvert and believe my set will do 'just as good'. Like I said, if that was the case then when my brother and I did our little comparison a year ago we shouldn't have seen that much of a difference, and we did... unless technology has improved that much, and maybe it has.

Again, I'm not trying to start a format war or say not to buy Bluray... I bought one. I just think there is no reason why these BD players can't upconvert like the Toshiba's can. I do understand this is a 'game console' and some will say "What did you expect?" Well being told it upconverts I kinda expected that... and some of the user reviews of a comparison between the A1/A2 and various BD players they said Toshiba seems to upconvert better. Now, as far as a Bluray player, the PS3 seems to get raves, so for that you can't beat the price.

I did talk to Sony about the set and they said as far as 1080i vs 1080p, that the set will convert 1080i to the 1080p display. If that is the case, then I could go with an A2, get my high quality upconversion on all my SDVDs and still be able to get HD movies in HD DVD format. This wouldn't even be an issue if the PS3 upconverted as Best Buy inaccurately stated. If they had said it didn't, or at least they didn't know, I would have still bought either a Sony Bluray or a Toshiba 10080p player from them so it's not like they were going to be out any money...

[Sonnie]

I don't see this issue as being anything to do with the format war, since standalone BR players upconvert. It may very well as you have heard though... not as well as the HD DVD players.

I've already ordered BR DVDs and will order a BR player with the next ones are released over the next few months. Then I can make a direct comparison myself on the upconversion. As it stands, my A1 did a fabulous job and as far as I can tell the XA2 does as well. I know I said "extremely well" for the XA2 above, but I probably need to view it some more to qualify it.

[SteveCallas]

It comes down to what scalers the display vs dvd player is using and how well they are implemented. It also comes down to whether you are keeping the signal being fed to your display digital or not and if all the processing is done on one end. The DVD Benchmark tests from www.hometheaterhifi.com are a good way to research thequality and scaling of a player. Home Theater Magazine did a test last year on whether certain high def sets could even process 1080i correctly, you an see those results in this post. The Sony LCOS sets passed. I know I'd guiding you all over the place, but if you go to the display forums at AVS, I'm sure someone knows what scaling chip your model uses, then you can probably read up on how well a player using that same chip does at the DVD benchmark tests. In my case, my display and dvd player use the same scaling chips, so I let the player do the scaling so I can send the video signal digitally. I don't know about the PS3, but most players do not allow you to send 480i over HDMI. If you can't send a digital 480i and you can't send a digital 1080i or 1080p, anything inbetween will be a mishmash of upscaling, some of it done in the player and some of it done in the display - that's not a scenario you want. Hope that helps.

[wbassett]

Yeah it actually does some.

I also called Sony back, and spoke to another person that deals with HDTVs and they both said the sets do a good job, but not as good as a dedicated player/upscaler. Seeing that the PS3 isn't a dedicated player, upscaling may not be a concern they had when building it. They would want a multipurpose machine that does a lot of things well but doesn't necessarily do any one the best. That makes sense to me.

I am putting the final touches on my TV stand I am building (I need a custom size to accommodate the 106" screen above it). Hopefully I'll be spinning a high def DVD soon and then some standard def ones over the weekend.

As far as AVS, there is some good information there but also an awful lot of opinions based more on emotion than facts. Even the moderators told me it's a forum and nothing should be taken as gospel and it's more for 'entertainment purposes'... their words not mine. I'd rather ask over here than get flamed over there

You guys are great and civil at the same time. I didn't think that was possible on a forum!

[SteveCallas]

I hear ya. With SD DVDs, is the PS3 able to send 480i over HDMI, or just 480p?

[wbassett]

Well I have everything setup and connected. No calibration as of right now. I wanted to check things out right out of the box.

First SDVD, Die Another Day from the newest Bond collection- it looked very good. I can't tell right now if it is really upconverted and better or if I am in a placebo mode. I think over the weekend I will drag my 36 inch Toshibha back in the room and compare them side by side.

First impressions, and I am going to start a thread on this set too... it was a wow at first... Like I said I intentionally set things up straight out of the box to get an initial user experience. The set was a floor demo model and I can say everything we have been told and know is true. (I did know this for a long long time now), in store setups are really bogus. They pump up everything.

After five minutes I had eye fatigue. I checked the settings and of course they were set to vivid picture, max everything. This just proves that the instore display sets are setup to wow people and not to have a realistic picture. Tomorrow I will go through a calibration of the system.

Okay, so other than that how was it and upconversion? So far with viewing just a couple SDVDs, it looks like the PS3 and the set is improving the image over what I recall from 480p.

I'll have to play around with things more, but SDVDs do look nice. Also the PS3 (I know this isn't a thread about the PS3) performs nicely after some initial setup. It auto resumes very well, something the Toshiba A1 doesn't do.

Am I pleased? Yes. Do I think it's all sunshine and roses? I still would like to see a side by side comparison. In May my brother is coming to visit and he said he would bring his Toshiba HD DVD player and some movies. Right now I have 30 days to decide on the PS3, but it is looking okay for now.