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RE: Upscale or down????

Posted by David Aiken on July 4, 2008 at 16:10:15:
Well, if you go BD you will be downscaling BD but still upscaling DVD and I doubt you'll get by without viewing a lot of DVDs for the forseeable future. BD offerings are still limited so you won't be giving up on DVD, or replacing the whole of your current collection.

What you really want to know is whether, at 720p, there's a worthwhile difference in picture quality between BD and DVD. My LCD, a Loewe Concept 32, is a 1366x 768 screen. I run a PS3 and I have to say that I've seen, and heard, improvements with every BD disc I've been able to directly compare to a DVD copy of the same film. In some cases the improvements are greater than in other cases. Not every DVD demonstrated the best that could be done with DVD and the same is true of BD. Some discs are better than others, but BD is better than DVD and downscaled BD is better than upscaled DVD in my system.

Having said that, a lot depends on your viewing distance. You lose the benefit of higher resolution as you sit further away from the screen. If you're sitting more than, say, 3 times the screen diagonal away from the screen you probably won't notice much in the way of added resolution. You would probably notice better colour rendition and the new lossless codecs and the uncompressed PCM soundtracks definitely give better sound quality than the DVD audio formats so there may still be something in it for you at more distant viewing distances.

Then there's the cost factor. The cheapest current BD player with good all round capabilities is the PS3 which is what I'm using and it does a very good job and represents excellent value for money in the BD player stakes.

I think that's the best answer anyone can provide for you. In my view BD does offer an improvement in picture quality over upscaled DVD, even if the BD is downscaled, but how much of an improvement will depend on how far away you sit and you can lose all of the resolution benefits by sitting too far away. A BD player, even a PS3, will cost you more than many upscaling DVD players. Only you can decide whether the benefits you can gain are worth the cost.

FWIW, I'm glad I went BD and having seen high def video, even on a 768 screen, and heard the high def audio formats, I would not want to give up their benefits. I still enjoy DVDs when I view them, which is a lot of the time, but BD does offer a highly enjoyable bit more.

David Aiken