View Full Version : How important is DVI/HDMI versus RGB/YUV in a scaler?


Drbuzzo
02-17-08, 02:49 PM
A little bit of background:

I have a Westinghouse digital 1080p Television which is connected by DVI to my cable box through a DVI/HDMI adapter cable. The cable box also has YUV output and the tv has two YUV inputs as well as a VGA/RGB input. The cable box will output full resolution on the analog outputs. It doesn't have any kind of downresolution for analog built in. The TV is LCD, so obviously component video is not native to the display.

I'm considering buying a scaler/processor because the SDTV looks rather crappy on the television and the deinterlacing leaves a lot to be desired. The catch is that I don't have a huge chunk of change to spend on one and hence I'd like to get the best value I can. There's a couple of places I've gone to in New York which do buy and sell of high end home theater stuff and I can get some really nice gently used stuff there for a lot off the list price. Some faroudja/Lumagen/key digital stuff shows up there from time to time. Of course there's also eBay.

But here's the problem: A lot of the time this stuff is three or four years old and it might not support DVI or other digital formats. Hence I'm going to have to use analog HD stuff. Some of them can be upgraded, but some can't and it might be expensive to do so.

So here's the basic question:

Am I better off buying a high end video scaler that just does analog? or should I just rule that out and instead buy one which has digital interfaces, even if it means buying one that is less high end in general or doesn't have the features?

If I had the chance to buy a processor with very good motion adaptive deinterlacing and other features within my budget but it only has RGB, is it worth it? Or would the sacrafice of DVI negate the better deinterlacing and processing?

Allan Jayne
02-17-08, 07:21 PM
Analog scalers do not support HDCP copy protection so lots of upcoming BLue Ray and like hi-def movies won't work ont hem.

Analog scalers, even if the result is HD, are perfectly OK for SD sources like regular DVD and laserdisk.

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

Drbuzzo
02-22-08, 12:36 AM
Analog scalers do not support HDCP copy protection so lots of upcoming BLue Ray and like hi-def movies won't work ont hem.

Analog scalers, even if the result is HD, are perfectly OK for SD sources like regular DVD and laserdisk.

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

my primary use for it is the digital cable and the ATSC receiver and not for Blu-ray. I would like it mostly for upconverting 480i but also to improve 1080i->1080p and 720p unpconversion.

The thing is the cable box has an output HDMI. If I go with an analog scaller I have to ditch that and go with the RGB or YUV out and also the analog in to the tv. Downscaling is not an issue.

But will it loose much quality by not using DVI?