Greetings,

I am new to some of this technology, so please forgive any inaccurate terminology on my part. Let me give a brief background to set up my question.

We're in the market for a new TV. This will replace our existing SD tube TV. All of our video sources are non-HD (SD Tivo, PS2, Wii, regular DVD player). Despite the fact that we're all non-HD it still seems obvious to me that if we're going to get a nice new flat-screen TV, it should be HD. This reasoning is based on the thought that we'll most likely start adding HD capable things going forward.

So while shopping for this new TV, it occurred to me to see how low-def signals looked on HD TVs. I quickly discovered that not all HD TVs are created equal in this regard. Furthermore, I discovered that it can be very difficult to comparison shop for HD TVs that do a good job with low-def - because they're always showing HD signals in the store.

Additional googling and research led me to basic reading on upscaling and de-interlacing and so forth - which led me to dedicated scalers.

Looking at the price of most of these scalers, my jaw is on the floor (the majority of them cost more than the TV we were going to buy). So my question is this:

Are their options somewhere more in the middle price/performance wise between the scalers built into HD TVs and the $1,000+ dedicated external scalers?

Baring this, is there any sane way I can compare the quality of the built in scalers in newer HD TVs?

Any help/advice/ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,

-Matt

Firstly, if you want to watch SDTV, get a plasma, not an LCD. The way the image is drawn is much more forgiving of SD artefacts (although low bitrate TV material can still look bad on anything).

Secondly, Pioneer tend to have very good processing if you want to try to keep to a TV without the need for an external scaler.

Otherwise, for SD processing, a second hand Lumagen HDP or DVDO vp30 (as long as it has the abt102 addon board) should do you fine.

also, if you decide to go with a processor/scaler, check out the 'edge', under $800. see/read threads on it here.
has abt processing.

also, see http://gefen.com, look around site. they may have what you want.

do the research on all these things.

So, I assume that a dedicated scaler is almost surely going to produce a much higher quality result that anything built into the TV correct? Or are their some TVs that come with higher*ish* quality scalers (such as Pioneer suggested above)?

Thanks,

-Matt

So, I assume that a dedicated scaler is almost surely going to produce a much higher quality result that anything built into the TV correct? Or are their some TVs that come with higher*ish* quality scalers (such as Pioneer suggested above)?

Thanks,

-Matt

I would get the TV/Projector you want to get and then watch it for awhile. If you're content with the image produced then don't get a video processor, but you may find that the image from one or more source devices is problematic and then you can justify the purchase of a video processor. It will also help you to determine which video processor to get depending upon the image problems you're seeing.

That's not to say a vidoe processor wouldn't improve your picture quality, but sometimes ignorance is bliss (and also cheaper) :)

Just my two cents.

Thanks for all the help.

I think what I've decided to do at least for now, is buy a TV that should perform reasonably without a separate scaler. I will evaluate the need for one after I've had it for a bit (as suggested).

Right now, I'm liking the new Vizio VP505XVT as it appears to have better than average video processing built right in (the Reon). In addition to this - it's plasma which I understand may be better (than lcd) when it comes to SD.

Any thoughts on this approach?

Thanks,

-Matt

I would recommend you spending the extra $1,000 on a better television first. I think that a nice Kuro or a top of the line LCD would be better than a mid-ranged set with a scaler. I also think that the noise reduction that my Algolith Flea does a better job at improving a SD image than my ABT102 although having both will help and can be found at decent prices.