Video Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on December 03, 2008 at 20:24:39

In Reply to: RE: an Upscale question....thanks Zane but posted by WernerLen@aol.com on December 02, 2008 at 14:41:43

Upscaling is different to de-interlacing.

With standard definition DVD you have a 720 x 480 pixel image. In interlaced form each pair of "frames" contains half of the 480 lines, one frame containing the odd numbered lines and the other containing the even numbered ones. Progressive output simply merges those pairs of frames so that the full 480 line information is sent in one package.

Upscaling is conversion of the 720 x 480 image to one with another resolution such as your 720p display shows. That's 1280 x 720 pixels. Whether or not your player can upscale will depend on the player. Read the manual and check the output options.

You can de-interlace without upscaling but upscaling is usually done in conjunction with de-interlacing. The one exception would be if you need to feed a display a 1080i picture.

Your TV is capable of both de-interlacing and upscaling standard definition video. It has to be in order for it to be able to display standard definition off air TV broadcasts. You may get a better quality image if you let the TV do these processing options or you may get better results letting the player do one and the TV do the other. It all depends on which device has the best processing capability for each function. Try letting the player output a 480i signal and then swap the player output to 480p. Which looks better? Then, if the player can ouptut a 720 p signal, swap between that and whichever looked better of the 480i and 480p images. Once again choose the best looking picture. That's the one to stick with.

Players and TVs both vary considerably in the quality of the processors they use so spending a bit of time checking out the options can result in better picture quality.





David Aiken