Will a scaler/Processor improve cable TV? Can I get better Stretch? So far I have been watching mostly cable TV sad right :). So my question is will a scaler/processor improve HD cable much? I'm sure it can help SD cable right? Lastly can I better stretch modes then my panasonic plasma? I think my favorite is when the 4:3 picture is not stretched but they strech and blur to fill the 16:9 screen. Can the scaler/processor detect aspect of cable TV? Lastly will a scaler/processor improve panning on plasmas?

SDTV cable TV is usually interlaced and the cable box usually does a poor job of de-interlacing. Some of today's TV's do a good job so you may or may not need a processor to improve on things that way.

1080i cable also needs de-interlacing, unless you have a 1080i TV (usually with direct view CRT or little projection CRT's) A TV that does good SDTV de-interlacing may or may not do good HDTV de-interlacing.

For the DVDO processors you need the VP50 for good HDTV de-interlacing; skip the VP30 and lesser models.

Are you saying you want to stretch the picture but the TV won't do it the way you want?

Some stand alone processors have stretch modes for 4:3 pictures. Almost none do stretching automatically. It is impossible to determine the aspect ratio by taking hints from the video content (pixels). Any aspect ratio identification has to be using flags between frames or fields in the video data.

If the station or studio or producer puts non-uniform stretch into the picture, it is unlikely any processor will have the exact inverse stretch to undo that with.

Video hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/viddoubl.htm

Thanks I have a Panasonic 1080p Plasma from 2007 and I don't remember the model off hand. Of course at least comcast cable box only gives you a choise of 720p or 1080i so its going to scale 720p up as I have it set to 1080i. I thought automatic would be asking to much. Does the DVDO do better stretching the Panasonic? Can the processors remove digital noise or make compression artafacs less noticable?

You have no option to pass SD cable out at 480i? If not, you should see what other boxes your company has. A cable box is a crappy processor.

After seeing what my receiver can do (FLI2310) for SD cable, I'm thinking once I get a real VP like the DVDO Edge for Gefen Pro, I may ditch my HD cable package. Between having HD DVD/Bluray and OTA HD locals (sports), my processed digital cable should look good enough to satisfy me. That and I only get about 15 HD channels...

Oh yes of course the Motorola box will pass SD at 480i currently I have it set to 1080i though. Your post does make we want to look into the Edge or Gafen Pro. I mostly watch the few HD cable channels we have but do of course watch other channels. I am moving to a town that has IO cable so now I am wondering if I should get satellite.

IMHO a Lumagen scaler has much better 4:3 to 16:9 NLS (Non-Linear Stretch) than any other product that I've seen. The Lumagen also has Mosquito noise reduction, "no-ring" scaling and allows you to fully calibrate your video system.

Randy