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Don't be fooled

post #1 of 13
3/5/08 at 7:58am
Thread Starter 
Here's a quote from a Toshiba executive "And we're going to improve this even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images." (referring to so called "upconverting DVD players)

Dependent on the quality of the transfer to HD, the size of your TV and your viewing distance you may not notice a difference between HD and DVD.

However, that's not what this executive wants you to believe. He wants you to believe upconversion can replace higher resolutions. This is NOT 100% true.

As movie recording moves to using HD cameras the difference between HD and DVD should be more obvious. But you may not always see a difference -when I compare my Fast and Furious DVD to the HD DVD I don't see a difference. However, that's an analog to digital transfer and my plasma TV is only 37". Sahara on the other hand looks very impressive in HD DVD.

I am not saying you should jump on the HD bandwagon. But HD definitely has the capability to produce a better picture than DVD no matter how good it's upscaler is. Upscalers can not add missing detail! Of course DVDs can look fantastic, which is why your average consumer won't care about HD DVD as average consumers aren't usually interested in the best audio/video quality.
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post #2 of 13
3/5/08 at 10:04pm
LOL. Ever here of "garbage in garbage out". You can't magically make something that sucked originally look good no matter how much you upscale it. If the content wasn't there to begin with it still won't be there afterward. Toshiba is sounding desperate. Sad.
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post #3 of 13
3/6/08 at 12:16am
Typical marketing... Which is rather unfortunate to those who don't know any better.
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post #4 of 13
3/6/08 at 1:01am
While upconversion certainly can't fully replace high def I think there are many, many cases where it can. I just got an upconverting player, so I've been going through my DVD collection and I'm astonished at how good most of them look, even some older movies (Godfather I and II for instance).

Marketing tries to tell you that high definition is a necessity, and while I would never disagree that it's better than standard DVD's, I don't think it's hard to imagine a situation where an even better upconverting player would render the difference between standard DVD and Blu-Ray indistinuishable to the movie buying masses (obviously most of the people on this forum would be able to tell but that's a miniscule percentage of the market).
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post #5 of 13
3/6/08 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by musicman07 View Post

LOL. Ever here of "garbage in garbage out". You can't magically make something that sucked originally look good no matter how much you upscale it. If the content wasn't there to begin with it still won't be there afterward. Toshiba is sounding desperate. Sad.

I think there are some in the video processor forum that would disagree with you. Anyway, how did this get into the Audio forum? I think the OP should repost in the HD-DVD player forum.
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post #6 of 13
3/6/08 at 10:47pm
Well I've shot and edited both film and photography before so odds are I know more than the blowhards in the video forum which I don't visit. But yes this should be over there not in audio. And yes I was professionally trained in film production.
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post #7 of 13
3/7/08 at 4:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by big angry View Post

While upconversion certainly can't fully replace high def I think there are many, many cases where it can. .

It is just a matter of screen size and viewing distance.
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post #8 of 13
3/7/08 at 6:19am
Oh yea, There are plenty of people in this forum that buy the high end Denon DVD players. There is a market for quality up conversion.
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post #9 of 13
3/7/08 at 7:00am
Anyone viewing DVD on a fixed-pixel HD display is viewing an "upconverted" image, whether their DVD player does it or not. It's possible that the DVD player is better at it, and that taking the TV's scaler out of the loop will improve the image. It's not HD, though.


On a small enough display, or from far enough back, DVD (480 real lines no matter how you spin it) will look pretty much the same as BD. Projecting it big shows what it really looks like.
Does it matter to "the masses"? Not really. They'll buy anything.
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post #10 of 13
3/7/08 at 7:11am
I went from 52 inch at 17 feet to 65 inch at 7 feet and the difference is big. Your milage may vary. If I only had 100 inch screen it would probably make you sick to compare. I have not sampled the hd audio but I have 2 hdmi cabls on order and will do so shortly.
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post #11 of 13
3/7/08 at 7:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Gilvey View Post

Anyone viewing DVD on a fixed-pixel HD display is viewing an "upconverted" image, whether their DVD player does it or not. It's possible that the DVD player is better at it, and that taking the TV's scaler out of the loop will improve the image. It's not HD, though.


On a small enough display, or from far enough back, DVD (480 real lines no matter how you spin it) will look pretty much the same as BD. Projecting it big shows what it really looks like.
Does it matter to "the masses"? Not really. They'll buy anything.

Exactly what I wanted to say. Very few people on the board have even seen a native 480 image on a Plasma or LCD. ALL consumer grade HDTVs "Upconvert". So if HD programing looks better than your run-of-the-mill DVD player, it will still look better than a new "Upconverting" DVD player.
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post #12 of 13
3/7/08 at 8:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelJHuman View Post

Here's a quote from a Toshiba executive "And we're going to improve this even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images." (referring to so called "upconverting DVD players)

Dependent on the quality of the transfer to HD, the size of your TV and your viewing distance you may not notice a difference between HD and DVD.

However, that's not what this executive wants you to believe. He wants you to believe upconversion can replace higher resolutions. This is NOT 100% true.

As movie recording moves to using HD cameras the difference between HD and DVD should be more obvious. But you may not always see a difference -when I compare my Fast and Furious DVD to the HD DVD I don't see a difference. However, that's an analog to digital transfer and my plasma TV is only 37". Sahara on the other hand looks very impressive in HD DVD.

I am not saying you should jump on the HD bandwagon. But HD definitely has the capability to produce a better picture than DVD no matter how good it's upscaler is. Upscalers can not add missing detail! Of course DVDs can look fantastic, which is why your average consumer won't care about HD DVD as average consumers aren't usually interested in the best audio/video quality.

The video processor is there for 2 purposes..
One is for upscaling, NR, enhancement, aspect ratio.
And the second is for doing transcoding from 1 format to another format, since video sources can output many different types/protocols they need to be converted to a standard so that the display can show these.

For example..
If the user prefers 1 upscaler over another in the system chain, than no biggee just turn OFF the scaling part and just use its transcoding capability.

Just my $0.02..
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post #13 of 13
3/8/08 at 6:00am
Thread Starter 
I am not sure that addresses my point M I am aware of transcoding. What I was talking about was manufacturers trying to pass of scaling as some sort of HD conversion process - which seems to confuse the concept of the resolution of the source with the resolution of the display.

Of course makers of HD discs can pull off the same deception by simply upscaling a SD transfer to HD and writing it to the disc.
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