Does the PANASONICs UPSCALE or UPCONVERT 480 signals??

Here's what happens. Plasma and LCD panels are called "fixed pixel displays", meaning that they have a set number of pixels for the surface area of the panel. Flat panel technology scales images to the native resolution of the panel. So, whatever source you feed it, it will up convert a lower res signal, or down convert a signal that has a higher resolution than the native resolution of the panel. Basically it has only so many pixels and does its best to use what is available. Some times it looks pretty good, and other times it looks like crap. Much of it depends on what you are feeding the panel.

The reason why you might want an upcoverting player or even a dedicated box just for scaling comes down to the actual quality of the scaling. Its not that it wont happen, its how good does it look when it happens.

Some devices have the cheapest (and therefore crappiest) scaling processor available... and this can impact the end image.

99% of the time it is simply to take money out of your pocket!!

Read the link in my sig!!

Just bought the 50px75u yesterday and called Pani this morning regarding upconversion because I currently have a Dishnetworks SD (480i). Pani said the 75u does not upconvert 480i to anything. I read somewhere that it does. The person from Pani seemed very knowledgeable and sure of this...

As the previous poster said, your TV has a fixed display, so anything and everything you put into it gets displayed in the 720p format (actually 768p if you want to get technical but let's keep things simple).

What the Panasonic person was probably trying to avoid was giving you the impression that the TV somehow will turn your standard def 480i feed into HD. It doesn't. But it does take those 480 lines and do some mumbo jumbo to get the "extra" 240 lines it needs to display and "deinterlaces" it to make it p instead of i. But it can't create detail or frames that aren't there in the first place. I do hope you've got your upgrade to Dish HD scheduled

For the original poster, regular DVD looked pretty nice through my 360 as well, no plans to go out and get a seperate DVD player.

jeff

Been using the venerable Panasonic RP-91 for years since it was the Caddy of DVD players at the time. It outputs 480p into a 58PH10UK via component and looks as good as several upconverting players I have demo'd.

I can grind a bit more PQ out of it if I run it through a Silicon Optix WhiteHorse HQV external scaler which would lead me to believe any modern DVD player using the Realta chipset should do the same.

Have not taken the plunge into BluRay or HD-DVD so I cannot comment on day to day use when playing standard DVDs. Of course either looks spectacular when playing HD material but it should really be married to a
1080p Plasma to get the full benefit. Still, BluRay demos at 1080i into the 58 are a quantum leap and tax refunds are coming......

TW

While I'm inclined to believe that as well, my experiences with the 50PX75U and the PS3 tell me there may be some value in upscaling.

I disabled the PS3's scaling and enabled the output of all resolutions and let the 75U handle de-interlacing and scaling of DVD's -- then enabled the PS3's normal scaling on DVD's, which will send a 1080p signal to the 75U instead. The 1080p signal looked noticeably better.

Now keep in mind that my 75U has been ISF calibrated. According to my calibrator, there are differences in the way the display handles a 480i/p signal as opposed to a 720p/1080i/p signal, and differences in service menu settings associated with each.

I suspect that the Panasonic either has terrible SD processing, is poorly set up for SD signals, or both. At least as far as the 75U is concerned, I don't believe any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that a 480i DVD signal is being handled as well as a 720p/1080p signal from the PS3.

Perhaps with a display like the 5080 though, 480i would be the way to go.

While in my experience with the 75U, upconverting definitely helped, I don't think it would be worth the money to buy a standalone upconverter like the Oppo. They make a fine product, but pretty much all of the HD-DVD and Blu-ray players are great upconverters as well, so I think you'd be better off buying one of those, or waiting until they fall into your price range.

Even with the terrible scaling on the 75/77U, upconverting doesn't make a huge difference. The upgrade to blu-ray, though, is night and day -- so save your money for that (shame that hd-dvd is dead... since it's so damn cheap now).

Bingo, although I'd prob drop it down a little to 90%

Yeah - I thought it did upscale 480i to p.

Dish will be here Thursday morning - YES!! Had to put on a small dog and pony show about canceling service and going with DTV to get the free HD upgrades - they were easy and nice about it so it all worked out.

Question - I bought a Panny TH50PZ500U after Christmas. I have Charter HD service but the charter box connects through the output (from charter box) to the TV through 5 cables, because there is no HDMI output from the charterbox. I am wanting to purchase a Blu Ray player, and settled on the Panny PD35. My question is -- If I hook up the incoming charter coax to the charter box, then instead of going straight to the Panny TV, and instead go from the charter box INTO the Panny Blu Ray player, then go from the Blu Ray with a HDMI cable, to the new Panny TV, will it (the Blu Ray P35 player) upconvert the 480/ 720/ 1080I signals to 1080P?

This question will be better answered in the BD35 forum as it has to do with the Panny's capabilities. The short answer is yes, the BD35 upscales (fairly well too). I do not know if it upscales over component though.

As an aside: 5 cables? Three for component video, and... two for rca audio? Or what?

No this wont work because the Panasonic Bluray player does not have any inputs, only outputs.

No inputs hmmm! Not even a coaxial input?

No. The TV will scale everything to 1080p, don't worry.