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PS3 vs. HTPC DVD Upscaling Comparison PIX

11K views 24 replies 12 participants last post by  madshi 
#1 ·
DVD upscaling screenshot battle!


PlayStation 3 upscaling settings (all enhancements off, "Normal" mode):



The "HTPC" caps are nothing fancy. AviSynth script used for the Lanczos shots:
Code:
Code:
MPEG2Source("VTS_01_1.d2v")

LanczosResize(1440,1080).AddBorders(240,0,240,0)
ConvertToRGB()
madVR with default settings:



PS3 was captured via HDMI at 1920x1080i60, which for still videos is equivalent to 1080p (and progressive frames were picked out of the 3-2 pulldown sources). Capture format is YUY2, 4:2:2 YCbCr uncompressed. HDCP be damned...


I'll take suggestions for other content to try if anyone has any.
 
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#7 ·
I added madVR to the lineup, using its default settings. My method was to disable "exclusive" fullscreen mode and use Alt+PrintScreen on MPC-HC x86 with its inbuilt MPEG-2 renderer set to Weave. Don't bother comparing PNG filesizes since these were compressed with a different app than the others.


Basically the only visible difference vs the AviSynth is in the chroma, and the lowered artifacting and dulled reds are both due to madshi's clever application of a soft bicubic resize to chroma while upscaling luma with Lanczos.


I don't see anything else that stands out as unique amongst its upscaling settings but I've never really used it before, so if you have any suggested options I can try those.
 
#10 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by msgohan /forum/post/19509737


It doesn't take into account overscan?

I would associate the term Overscan with CRT type displays, there is no need for overscan in plasma, LCD, DLP or D-ILA displays. The EIA chart was intended to be used with a TV camera to check the cameras performance. For the numbers to be meaningful you had to frame the chart so the wedges just touched the raster boundaries.

Quote:
I just used what's available on this TVblink disc, so if you know of a correct source I would be interested.

We are in the process of moving and all my DVD & Blu-ray test disc (and associated printed materials) have been packed away so I have no reference material at this time. AVS member dr1394 (Ron) has quite a few test patterns on his site, click here for info.
 
#11 ·
Ah, well I'm not really up to doing the colorspace conversions and MPEG-2 encoding from those raw files while ensuring that accuracy is maintained. Hopefully the DVE shots I've added will do.


I've also added some shots showing the difference when 1.33 content is played back as a file from a thumb drive instead of as a DVD-Video. Less cropping, and both luma and chroma are handled in a different way. Unfortunately, there is no way to switch to YCbCr when in file mode so I had the PS3 output RGB Limited with the capture card doing the conversion to YUY2 (evidently adding some light dithering). I confirmed with S&M that the relatively large shifts taking place aren't as a result of this conversion however.


I replaced the two initial Lanczos shots containing color, because I found that my YV12 system codec was doing blocky chroma upsampling (new Windows install..). I'm using AviSynth to convert all of them now.
 
#14 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkAsh /forum/post/19441352


This is interesting. It looks like the PS3 does a better job up-scaling the images, but it does some cropping. I wonder why that is.

Really? Looked to me like the PS3 was over sharpened and on the color tests, the PS3 had some color bleeding. They do look similar though. (of course, I'm looking at them on a computer monitor at work. although, for these comparisons, I dont think that really matters here. I doubt much would change if I looked at home on my 50" 1080p TV.)


I guess its preference. I prefer a smooth, clean image (for upscaled content) over a edgy picture with ringing. I suppose on a small screen, an over-sharpened image looks nice.


Maybe if you get bored, msgohan, you could compare the PS3's Mosquito NR to PC.
That would interest me (probably other to?), but I know it takes some work to do these things. Don't blame ya if you didn't want to.



How do you take the PS3's screencaps, btw? (I dont have one, but curious if it was some external device that would be useful on other equipment.)
 
#15 ·
A PCIe card called the AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR.


I can't say I've ever been interested in the mosquito filters, so do you know if there are PC equivalents to compare against? Or what content would be a good test?


I did a few more comparisons with some AviSynth resize filters by tritical, though I didn't bother posting them. The results with his "edge-directed interpolation" filters were close enough to the PS3 that I think it's safe to say it relies on a similar implementation for upsizing.
 
#19 ·
Working links for the pics, and I've added the NNEDI3 pics that I mentioned. Since it only upscales by powers of 2 I used a NNEDI3+Lanczos combo.
Code:
Code:
[CODE]nnedi3_rpow2(rfactor=4,qual=2).LanczosResize(1440,1080).AddBorders(240,0,240,0) #4:3
nnedi3_rpow2(rfactor=4,qual=2).LanczosResize(1920,1080) #16:9
[/CODE]

Settings



TVblink

......... HTPC Lanczos vs .......... HTPC madVR Default vs ........... HTPC NNEDI3 vs ............. PS3 "Disc" Mode vs ....... PS3 "File" Mode (RGB)




Digital Video Essentials

......... HTPC Lanczos vs .......... HTPC madVR Default vs ........... HTPC NNEDI3 vs ............. PS3 "Disc" Mode




......... HTPC Lanczos vs .......... HTPC madVR Default vs ........ PS3 "Disc" Mode




 
#20 ·
Excellent work.. i really appreciate your time.


Could you plz give some more information about madvr settings.

Which are the default settings?

What about Lancozs? Did you activate the anti-ringing filter?

Did you try Jinc algorithm ,too?


I would also like to know how you set up nnedi3?
 
#21 ·
My madVR and NNEDI3 settings are right there in the post and Lanczos is in the OP so I'm not sure what else you're looking for there.


Does Jinc give noticeable differences?
 
#22 ·
nnedi3 offers superior PQ but I really like also what ps3 can do.

Whats your opinion? Did you notice any differencies on real life content between HTPC & PS3?

You used softcubic 100 for chroma and lanczos4 for luma.

I think lanczos4 produces a lot of ringing.

You could download a newer version of madvr and try Jinc3 with Anti-Ringing for luma.

You may like it you may not ...



Could you also give some more infos about how you setup nnedi3?

Some more step-by-step instructions maybe?
 
#23 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony_Montana  /t/1287869/ps3-vs-htpc-dvd-upscaling-comparison-pix#post_23333852


Could you also give some more infos about how you setup nnedi3?

I'm getting the impression that you want to use it for real-time playback, but it's an Avisynth filter designed for transcodes. On my machine I get 4fps.
 
#24 ·
nothing in one year on this thread ! Here i go:


1- can someone explain why on earth hasn't there been a better sd upscaler (hardware or software) than the 10 year old PS3 ?

2- during these past 12 months since this topic, has there been advancements in HTPC upscaling ?

3- ok MDvr and the likes are effective....but are they usefull on small screen sizes (42"-50") ? is there even a point in wanting the best upscaling for small tv's ?

4- at the end of the day, what is better hardware upscaling (like the new ps4 does) of software upscaling (one again like the reference ps3 does) ? why ?

thanx !
 
#25 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by msgohan  /t/1287869/ps3-vs-htpc-dvd-upscaling-comparison-pix#post_23336780


I'm getting the impression that you want to use it for real-time playback, but it's an Avisynth filter designed for transcodes. On my machine I get 4fps.

How time flies. One year later, and now madVR offers real-time NNEDI3 upscaling (if you have a decent GPU).
 
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