How good are upcoversion DVD players?

On Dec 21, 5:16 am, ninphan wrote:

However, anyone who suggest that upscaled DVD can look "almost as
good" as Blu-ray or HD DVD is flat out lying. There is no upscaling
DVD player that can come remotely close to a good HD DVD or Blu-ray
disc like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Transformers, Cars,
Ratatouille, Die Hard 4, Planet Earth, Spider-man 2/3, King Kong,
PLanet Earth, The Matrix, The Patriot, etc.

It is not close at all.

Of the 70,000+ titles on Netflix, I suspect the vast majority
look much better in upscaled DVD than they do on Blu-ray or
HD-DVD. And many, if not most of those 70,000+ would look
the same IF they were available on the HD/Blu disks because
the source is the limiting factor and the Blu-Ray disk itself would
just be an upconversion from the source.


480 lines of information vs. 1080 lines of information
8 Mbps vs. 40 Mbps
MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4

Only if it's disk-limited.

On Dec 21, 12:17 pm, Anoni Moose wrote:

480 lines of information vs. 1080 lines of information
8 Mbps vs. 40 Mbps
MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4

Only if it's disk-limited.

Plus there's the matter of many if not most folk having
768 HDTV's where 1080 lines of information is wasted.
Comparison points then are probably 480 vs 720p.

In article
,
Anoni Moose wrote:

On Dec 21, 5:16 am, ninphan wrote:

However, anyone who suggest that upscaled DVD can look "almost as
good" as Blu-ray or HD DVD is flat out lying. There is no upscaling
DVD player that can come remotely close to a good HD DVD or Blu-ray
disc like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Transformers, Cars,
Ratatouille, Die Hard 4, Planet Earth, Spider-man 2/3, King Kong,
PLanet Earth, The Matrix, The Patriot, etc.

It is not close at all.

Of the 70,000+ titles on Netflix, I suspect the vast majority
look much better in upscaled DVD than they do on Blu-ray or
HD-DVD. And many, if not most of those 70,000+ would look
the same IF they were available on the HD/Blu disks because
the source is the limiting factor and the Blu-Ray disk itself would
just be an upconversion from the source.


480 lines of information vs. 1080 lines of information
8 Mbps vs. 40 Mbps
MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4

Only if it's disk-limited.

If the movie was originally shot on film, it is at a higher resolution
than even the best of HD. Therefore those films are downres'd.

But most movies are shot at least at 1080p or better, even in digital.

So you are not entirely correct.

That said. Most of the early HDDVD and BD titles are not much better
than upscaled SD in picture quallity. But in the case of BD, most have
lossless audio tracks, so you usually, but not always get better audio.

With HDDVD, DD+ is better than plain old DD5.1, but not lossless and not
nearly as good as TrueHD (which is). And unfortunately, shortsighted
studios usually didn't opt for TrueHD. Major screwup imo.

But as time goes on, more of the newer releases, both catalog and new
films are getting better treatment. TrueHD or lossless PCM on almost
all new titles.

On Dec 21, 3:17*pm, Anoni Moose wrote:
On Dec 21, 5:16 am, ninphan wrote:

However, anyone who suggest that upscaled DVD can look "almost as
good" as Blu-ray or HD DVD is flat out lying. There is no upscaling
DVD player that can come remotely close to a good HD DVD or Blu-ray
disc like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Transformers, Cars,
Ratatouille, Die Hard 4, Planet Earth, Spider-man 2/3, King Kong,
PLanet Earth, The Matrix, The Patriot, etc.

It is not close at all.

Of the 70,000+ titles on Netflix, I suspect the vast majority
look much better in upscaled DVD than they do on Blu-ray or
HD-DVD. *And many, if not most of those 70,000+ would look
the same IF they were available on the HD/Blu disks because
the source is the limiting factor and the Blu-Ray disk itself would
just be an upconversion from the source.



480 lines of information vs. 1080 lines of information
8 Mbps vs. 40 Mbps
MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4

Only if it's disk-limited.

I agree with Lloyd - you are very much mistaken.
Most film can be scanned at 4,000 lines of information, substantially
more than 1080p.
There is not much released on Blu-ray or HD DVD that has a source of
less than 1080 lines or higher.
One I can think of is "28 Days Later" which was shot on a Canon PAL
camera with 600 lines of resolution, but the upgrade in audio over the
DVD is worth it.
And no, 1080 is not "wasted" on a 768 line HDTV, it still looks far
better than DVD.
That's what happens when you use superior, more efficient codecs at a
higher bandwidth.
Say bye-bye to the majority of macro-blocking and noise.
No upscaled DVD looks better than an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.
Who's been telling you this nonsense? I've rarely heard such blatantly
incorrect information.
YOu know the recent release of Blade Runner? Warner scanned the
original film elements at 4k (4,000 lines).
A 1080 line representation of this 4k source will be 6x sharper and
clearer and much more free of compression artifacts than the DVD.

On Dec 21, 1:06 pm, ninphan wrote:

I agree with Lloyd - you are very much mistaken.
Most film can be scanned at 4,000 lines of information, substantially
more than 1080p.

I think you're both kind of missing my intended point. Do you
subscribe
to Netflix? See how good a 1956 minor movie looks? The
original film MAY have been great to scan for a HD disc in 1956,
but what they scanned was noisy, scratchy, faded,
loss of contrast , etc. film (if that). Sometimes the DVD looks
truly like a VHS tape was the source. So you're perhaps right
in terms of potential in the best possible situation,
but my point is to bring things down to the pragmatic
earth and talk about the less good end of things. For
those with good original film available and/or money to
do good restoration work, the potential in a HD disk is
amazing. But for those others your enthusiasm may not
quite play out as well as you suggest they will.

There is not much released on Blu-ray or HD DVD that has a source of
less than 1080 lines or higher.

Yes, that was my point as well with my Netflix comment. How
many of the 70,000 films are on Blu-Ray or HD DVD? What
percentage? VERY small I'd wager. So, how does the DVD of
some movie compare with the Blu-ray disk that DOES NOT EXIST?
The regular DVD looks a LOT better! And the plain DVD looks even
better
upconverted! The blu-Ray version looks like a blank screen. I don't
care how much bandwidth that blank screen is using nor what
encoder format it's using. It is still blank. And most all of the
titles in Netflix inventory are of this blank-in-HD-version category.

One I can think of is "28 Days Later" which was shot on a Canon PAL
camera with 600 lines of resolution, but the upgrade in audio over the
DVD is worth it.
And no, 1080 is not "wasted" on a 768 line HDTV, it still looks far
better than DVD.

So, upconverting 480 is a waste, but downconverting 1080 to 720 isn't.
Hmmm...

That's what happens when you use superior, more efficient codecs at a
higher bandwidth.
Say bye-bye to the majority of macro-blocking and noise.
No upscaled DVD looks better than an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.

You're still missing the point. I never said it did. Re-read my
postings.
You're talking potential, I'm talking about the entire current movie
inventory.

Who's been telling you this nonsense? I've rarely heard such blatantly
incorrect information.
YOu know the recent release of Blade Runner? Warner scanned the
original film elements at 4k (4,000 lines).
A 1080 line representation of this 4k source will be 6x sharper and
clearer and much more free of compression artifacts than the DVD.

Yes, big productions will be carefully done. They may even do
full restorations of the films. But most don't, in my observation.
For the next few years (at a minimum) there will be NO film put
onto HD DVD or Blu-ray where the source isn't of high quality
(or better). It'd be a waste -- but the films that do go into those
formats will be a drop in the bucket compared to the titles in
plain DVD where even fuzzy scratchy originals that are VHS
quality at best are still made into disks. IOW the movies put into
HD are NOT typical of "movies that exist". Now the VHS quality
ones are also not typical -- but they do exist. Many are such
that a HD version would likely be better than DVD version, but
the difference will be smaller because the source may only
be a little better than DVD and not quite up to full HD (not
just resolution, but in terms of condition of the images on
that film).

How do I know about these with marginal quality? Who
told me? Nobody, I just saw them. I've had netflix for many years
where I've personally seen roughly a thousand DVDs from them,
and before that we used to rent'm from Blockbusters. I tend
not to get new movies, if of interest I see those in the theater.
I get the ones I missed in the past (or before I was born) or
foreign films that didn't play here anyway. Probably not the
ones made into Blu-Ray or HD DVD disks.

I'm not anti HDTV, I've a new TH-58PZ750U set. I don't
think it's a pile of junk (although my bedroom's HDTV Olevia set is
by comparison). I'll eventually get a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray when
the winner is chosen or dual-format players drop in price
a good bit (and take less power, and are smaller, etc) and when
the movie selection has expanded quite a bit (especially
historically).

On Dec 21, 6:14*pm, Anoni Moose wrote:
On Dec 21, 1:06 pm, ninphan wrote:

I agree with Lloyd - you are very much mistaken.
Most film can be scanned at 4,000 lines of information, substantially
more than 1080p.

I think you're both kind of missing my intended point. *Do you
subscribe
to Netflix? *See how good a 1956 minor movie looks? *The
original film MAY have been great to scan for a HD disc in 1956,
but what they scanned was noisy, scratchy, faded,
loss of contrast , etc. film (if that). Sometimes the DVD looks
truly like a VHS tape was the source. *So you're perhaps right
in terms of potential in the best possible situation,
but my point is to bring things down to the pragmatic
earth and talk about the less good end of things. *For
those with good original film available and/or money to
do good restoration work, the potential in a HD disk is
amazing. *But for those others your enthusiasm may not
quite play out as well as you suggest they will.

There is not much released on Blu-ray or HD DVD that has a source of
less than 1080 lines or higher.

Yes, that was my point as well with my Netflix comment. *How
many of the 70,000 films are on Blu-Ray or HD DVD? *What
percentage? *VERY small I'd wager. *So, how does the DVD of
some movie compare with the Blu-ray disk that DOES NOT EXIST?
The regular DVD looks a LOT better! *And the plain DVD looks even
better
upconverted! *The blu-Ray version looks like a blank screen. *I don't
care how much bandwidth that blank screen is using nor what
encoder format it's using. *It is still blank. *And most all of the
titles in Netflix inventory are of this blank-in-HD-version category.

One I can think of is "28 Days Later" which was shot on a Canon PAL
camera with 600 lines of resolution, but the upgrade in audio over the
DVD is worth it.
And no, 1080 is not "wasted" on a 768 line HDTV, it still looks far
better than DVD.

So, upconverting 480 is a waste, but downconverting 1080 to 720 isn't.
Hmmm...

That's what happens when you use superior, more efficient codecs at a
higher bandwidth.
Say bye-bye to the majority of macro-blocking and noise.
No upscaled DVD looks better than an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.

You're still missing the point. *I never said it did. *Re-read my
postings.
You're talking potential, I'm talking about the entire current movie
inventory.

Who's been telling you this nonsense? I've rarely heard such blatantly
incorrect information.
YOu know the recent release of Blade Runner? Warner scanned the
original film elements at 4k (4,000 lines).
A 1080 line representation of this 4k source will be 6x sharper and
clearer and much more free of compression artifacts than the DVD.

Yes, big productions will be carefully done. *They may even do
full restorations of the films. *But most don't, in my observation.
For the next few years (at a minimum) there will be NO film put
onto HD DVD or Blu-ray where the source isn't of high quality
(or better). *It'd be a waste -- but the films that do go into those
formats will be a drop in the bucket compared to the titles in
plain DVD where even fuzzy scratchy originals that are VHS
quality at best are still made into disks. *IOW *the movies put into
HD are NOT typical of "movies that exist". * *Now the VHS quality
ones are also not typical -- but they do exist. *Many are such
that a HD version would likely be better than DVD version, but
the difference will be smaller because the source may only
be a little better than DVD and not quite up to full HD (not
just resolution, but in terms of condition of the images on
that film).

How do I know about these with marginal quality? *Who
told me? *Nobody, I just saw them. *I've had netflix for many years
where I've personally seen roughly a thousand DVDs from them,
and before that we used to rent'm from Blockbusters. *I tend
not to get new movies, if of interest I see those in the theater.
I get the ones I missed in the past (or before I was born) or
foreign films that didn't play here anyway. *Probably not the
ones made into Blu-Ray or HD DVD disks.

I'm not anti HDTV, I've a new TH-58PZ750U *set. * I don't
think it's a pile of junk (although my bedroom's HDTV Olevia set is
by comparison). *I'll eventually get a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray when
the winner is chosen or dual-format players drop in price
a good bit (and take less power, and are smaller, etc) and when
the movie selection has expanded quite a bit (especially
historically).

a) I never said upconverting 480 was a waste. your TV set will
upconvert it anyway to the panel's native resolution if you don't
b) I have 1956's "The Searchers" starring John Wayne on Blu-ray and it
is amazing picture quality. Even if a film was not big budget, if it
was shot on film it can benefit massively from an HD transfer.
c) talking about discs that don't exist is just plain silly

On Dec 21, 3:41 pm, ninphan wrote:

c) talking about discs that don't exist is just plain silly

Ignoring the fact that the movie selection available for regular
DVD's is tremendously better than the HD or Blu versions is
also plain silly. Until this changes, it needs to be addressed
in terms of what people use and buy (or rent) and how it
is viewed best.

P.S. - When talking about biggies, I wasn't talking about the budget
when it was made. I'm talking about interest in it now.
Some very minor low-budget films ended up being blockbusters
like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers which was a toss-away
el-cheapo made film that did very well and sufficiently
popular for
restoration money to be spent on it now. Likewise most any
John
Wayne movie is now one that will have special attention
paid
to transfers, restoration, as well as storage of
originals. See
how well they store and transfer the Womber of Khandalstan
staring Bert Donglehopper.

On Dec 21, 6:14 pm, Anoni Moose wrote:
On Dec 21, 1:06 pm, ninphan wrote:

I agree with Lloyd - you are very much mistaken.
Most film can be scanned at 4,000 lines of information, substantially
more than 1080p.

I think you're both kind of missing my intended point. Do you
subscribe
to Netflix? See how good a 1956 minor movie looks? The
original film MAY have been great to scan for a HD disc in 1956,
but what they scanned was noisy, scratchy, faded,
loss of contrast , etc. film (if that). Sometimes the DVD looks
truly like a VHS tape was the source. So you're perhaps right
in terms of potential in the best possible situation,
but my point is to bring things down to the pragmatic
earth and talk about the less good end of things. For
those with good original film available and/or money to
do good restoration work, the potential in a HD disk is
amazing. But for those others your enthusiasm may not
quite play out as well as you suggest they will.

There is not much released on Blu-ray or HD DVD that has a source of
less than 1080 lines or higher.

Yes, that was my point as well with my Netflix comment. How
many of the 70,000 films are on Blu-Ray or HD DVD? What
percentage? VERY small I'd wager. So, how does the DVD of
some movie compare with the Blu-ray disk that DOES NOT EXIST?
The regular DVD looks a LOT better! And the plain DVD looks even
better
upconverted! The blu-Ray version looks like a blank screen. I don't
care how much bandwidth that blank screen is using nor what
encoder format it's using. It is still blank. And most all of the
titles in Netflix inventory are of this blank-in-HD-version category.

One I can think of is "28 Days Later" which was shot on a Canon PAL
camera with 600 lines of resolution, but the upgrade in audio over the
DVD is worth it.
And no, 1080 is not "wasted" on a 768 line HDTV, it still looks far
better than DVD.

So, upconverting 480 is a waste, but downconverting 1080 to 720 isn't.
Hmmm...

That's what happens when you use superior, more efficient codecs at a
higher bandwidth.
Say bye-bye to the majority of macro-blocking and noise.
No upscaled DVD looks better than an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.

You're still missing the point. I never said it did. Re-read my
postings.
You're talking potential, I'm talking about the entire current movie
inventory.

Who's been telling you this nonsense? I've rarely heard such blatantly
incorrect information.
YOu know the recent release of Blade Runner? Warner scanned the
original film elements at 4k (4,000 lines).
A 1080 line representation of this 4k source will be 6x sharper and
clearer and much more free of compression artifacts than the DVD.

Yes, big productions will be carefully done. They may even do
full restorations of the films. But most don't, in my observation.
For the next few years (at a minimum) there will be NO film put
onto HD DVD or Blu-ray where the source isn't of high quality
(or better). It'd be a waste -- but the films that do go into those
formats will be a drop in the bucket compared to the titles in
plain DVD where even fuzzy scratchy originals that are VHS
quality at best are still made into disks. IOW the movies put into
HD are NOT typical of "movies that exist". Now the VHS quality
ones are also not typical -- but they do exist. Many are such
that a HD version would likely be better than DVD version, but
the difference will be smaller because the source may only
be a little better than DVD and not quite up to full HD (not
just resolution, but in terms of condition of the images on
that film).

How do I know about these with marginal quality? Who
told me? Nobody, I just saw them. I've had netflix for many years
where I've personally seen roughly a thousand DVDs from them,
and before that we used to rent'm from Blockbusters. I tend
not to get new movies, if of interest I see those in the theater.
I get the ones I missed in the past (or before I was born) or
foreign films that didn't play here anyway. Probably not the
ones made into Blu-Ray or HD DVD disks.

I'm not anti HDTV, I've a new TH-58PZ750U set. I don't
think it's a pile of junk (although my bedroom's HDTV Olevia set is
by comparison). I'll eventually get a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray when
the winner is chosen or dual-format players drop in price
a good bit (and take less power, and are smaller, etc) and when
the movie selection has expanded quite a bit (especially
historically).

I use a computer, have rented thousand Netflix/BlockBuster DVD or at
least some portion under. Apart from "up-converting" tabletop DVD
players, as with a computer, it becomes a game of aspect ratios - or
no such thing from a well-endowed software player. All that's
happening in the latter case is a computer stretches the original
source material variously in override mode (out of formal aspect
ratios any tabletop I've seen is defined by). Variously people like
or don't the results. I do and can live with some leeway for
distortion. The other take on "up-converting" is source material
invariably is worsened - what happens is artifacts are simply
"stretched up" into bigger problems. Grain or scratch off a "scaled
down" or the "black bars" version becomes undesirably detailed after
enlargement. The big picture for the most real estate. Again, various
people, and pay no matter. I don't. They're often encodes captured
off an antenna, SD, with a tuner card and at marginal reception. It's
just another movie plotline at that point, some movie I couldn't care
about quality. Woody Allen's Another Woman in grainy SD reception vrs
Blade Runner. I have the original Blade Runner VCR release for source
and would prefer that be done right (involving plugging in a capture
board and firing up the encoders). Heard it was also released on
Laserdisc. Doubt my VCR cassette (in good condition) is any worse for
the quality.

Quality encodes are entirely another matter, starting with the general
premise "garbage in garbage out". The source must be accessible and
pristine to up-convert a forgone result derived by a prior mismatch of
encode parameters. Working within the mismatch from (after) effect-
filtering and push-button gimmickry within less than optimal results
is pretty much pointless, given a good source and work that's done
right in the first place. Now there's HD/BluRay - for the same to
apply within a respective format of given specifications, limitations
and tolerance levels.

On Dec 21, 4:22 pm, Flasherly wrote:

The other take on "up-converting" is source material
invariably is worsened - what happens is artifacts are simply
"stretched up" into bigger problems. Grain or scratch off a "scaled
down" or the "black bars" version becomes undesirably detailed after
enlargement. The big picture for the most real estate. Again, various
people, and pay no matter. I don't.

I'll agree with you there, however I'm not sure that it's up
converting
that is making things look worse so much as just the watching of it
on a physically larger TV. If one just put one's large HDTV into
480i mode instead of taking 1080p from an upconverter, would
the huge 480i look better or is it the size that's the problem?

P.S. - I say this semi tongue in cheek because the HDTV set will
internally upconvert the 480i into it's native format before
displaying it and on a "true HD" set, that'll be 1080p
"anyway".

On Dec 21, 7:55 pm, Anoni Moose wrote:
On Dec 21, 4:22 pm, Flasherly wrote:

The other take on "up-converting" is source material
invariably is worsened - what happens is artifacts are simply
"stretched up" into bigger problems. Grain or scratch off a "scaled
down" or the "black bars" version becomes undesirably detailed after
enlargement. The big picture for the most real estate. Again, various
people, and pay no matter. I don't.

I'll agree with you there, however I'm not sure that it's up
converting
that is making things look worse so much as just the watching of it
on a physically larger TV. If one just put one's large HDTV into
480i mode instead of taking 1080p from an upconverter, would
the huge 480i look better or is it the size that's the problem?

P.S. - I say this semi tongue in cheek because the HDTV set will
internally upconvert the 480i into it's native format before
displaying it and on a "true HD" set, that'll be 1080p
"anyway".

Well, that's characteristic of the chipset and the television set, and
how much "spin" if any is applied to the incoming signal. Are they
featuring chipsets with on-the-fly encoding improvements? Something I
suspect I have little of, or would I particularly care to elect to
have, with mine - active noise filtering being the only variable the
set allows (and probably an ATSC-only thing). The rest is simply a
reference. Uncompromising references. The better the set, the better
potential and flat references. Upconverting from 480i or straight-
across 1080p is only going to be as good as the source material. A
beautiful rendition of material suited 480i obviously renders better
(apart from embedded aspect ratios) if stretched out larger, than poor
quality regardless a higher format. Sure, I can choose to sit and
look a better picture -- if it's poorer quality rendition (encode) and
if I don't upconvert it across the entire screen. I won't see all the
mistakes for the smallness. Question then becomes: Do I then want to
actually see smaller "quality pictures"? (A: Hell, emphatically,
no.) I want everything the HDLCD is capable. I didn't pay for the
screen to make a part of it inaccessibly black, bordered and optional
for "columnar color-set" adjustments (who's jerking who...). That's
the "merciless" aspect of having one - getting reacquainted with all
those old movies from the unforgiving stance of sources, movies that
were once fit for a 28" CRT from a DVD standalone set-top, now shown
exactly for what they are (but via software players, instead. The
standalone, hopefully, is history for me at this point). It's a
physically larger screen thing, as you say. The other thing is apples
and oranges. This isn't a set-top player - it's a computer
entertainment center with someone behind it running their own encodes.