How to achieve an HD picture from a dvd?

Michael F T · Dec 1, 2004

How does a dvd upscaled to 720p compare to an ota movie in HD?

For example, Mr Deeds was on Fox in HD and I loved the picture. How can I get that quality from a DVD? Would any scaler improve the picture to that level? Or is it impossible to improve 480p picture to the level of a HD broadcast.

Thanks

Mr.Poindexter · Dec 1, 2004

You can make a DVD look better with a scaler, but it won't look like HDTV. If a scaler could do that, then would we really even need HDTV source material?

kschmit2 · Dec 2, 2004

While upscaled DVD will look better than at regular DVD-resolution, you will never get the quality that OTA HD has.

Even upscaled (by the broadcaster) HD material should always look better than DVD, because they use uncompressed SD-masters that get scaled to HD-resolution.

Cost being no object, close to HD can be achieved with Teranex or S&W processors.

Michael F T · Dec 2, 2004

That's the answer I was looking for.

The money no object part and what the source is for OTA HD movies.

Thanks

kschmit2 · Dec 2, 2004

Source material for OTA HD is one of many:

- upconverted SD (from D1 or other uncompressed sources)

- D5 master

- ideally a 2k or even a 4k master

and of course

- native HD cameras

Michael F T · Dec 2, 2004

On the Teranex website they mention that Fox used (2001) the Xantus upconverter to convert to 480p.

I would think they would still us a similiar process/product to upconvert the movies they are broadcasting in HD.

I understand a live broadcast of sports or a sitcom can be recorded either with an HD camera or a direct high quality source would respond well to digital improvement.

I was specifically interested in the movies that are broadcast from Fox, ABC, or even HBO.

Since money is no object for me, I will get one for my home and my plane.

kschmit2 · Dec 3, 2004

ABC and FOX definitely use Teranex products, but I don't have any info on HBO. It is very likely though, that they also use Teranex processors.

BTW, 480p is not HD.

oferlaor · Dec 3, 2004

Michael F T,

Hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. If you're serious, please get one for me along with a plane too...

kschmit2 · Dec 3, 2004

Judging by the following quote, I would say Micheal has not really seen the difference between HD and SD:
Quote:

Originally posted by Michael F T
How does a dvd upscaled to 720p compare to an ota movie in HD?

For example, Mr Deeds was on Fox in HD and I loved the picture. How can I get that quality from a DVD? Would the Quadscan improve the picture to that level?

Thanks

I made some pictures to illustrate differences between different resolutions and the effect of upscaling:

I did NOT use high definition video frames for this, but rather some very high quality digital still camera pictures. This way it is possible to show, what the maximum resolution of HDTV material can be.

I had to do this, because I wanted the results to be as good as possible.

Since I don't have access to 4k masters or D5 masters, I figured this approach would be the best.

Each series contains three images: EDIT: NOW I HAVE ADDED A FOURTH PIC

1 - "native 1080p frame" at 1920x1080

2 - NTSC 480p at 720x405 (i.e. the same aspect ratio as the native 1080p frame)

3 - NTSC 480p scaled to 1080p

4 - NTSC 480p scaled to 1080p Lanczos

Image 1 was created by resizing (bicubic smoother) and cropping a 8 MP RAW digital still image

Image 2 was created by resizing to 720x405 (bicubic smoother) and applying the NTSC colors filter

Image 3 was created by resizing image 2 to 1920x1080 (bicubic sharper)

Image 4 was created by resizing image 2 to 1920x1080 using Lanczos resampling in IrfanView.

Images 2 and 3 were saved as JPG in Photoshop (maximum quality, i.e. 12)

Image 1 was saved as JPG in Imageready with the maximum setting that allowed me to stay under 1 MB (all of them were at least "very high quality")

Image 4 was resampled in Irfanview, I then copied the resulting image into Photoshop/Imageready to save them as JPG.

Series 1
http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=34-native-1080p-HDTV.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4804/34-...0p-HDTV.th.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=b2-NTSC480p.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/9669/b2-NTSC480p.th.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=62-NTSC480pscaledto1.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/8553/62-...aledto1.th.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img20&image=n5hntsc480pscaledto1.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/img20/7860/n5hnt...aledto1.th.jpg

Series 2
http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=ea-native-1080p-HDTV.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/1100/ea-...0p-HDTV.th.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=0e-NTSC480p.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/1116/0e-NTSC480p.th.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=d1-NTSC480pscaledto1.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4176/d1-...aledto1.th.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img20&image=m8gntsc480pscaledto1.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/img20/1020/m8gnt...aledto1.th.jpg

kschmit2 · Dec 3, 2004

kschmit2 · Dec 3, 2004

Series 5
http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=a2-native-1080p-HDTV.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/1246/a2-na...0p-HDTV.th.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=ec-NTSC480p.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/662/ec-NTSC480p.th.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=6c-NTSC480pscaledto1.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/3809/6c-NT...aledto1.th.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img20&image=x3xntsc480pscaledto1.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/img20/4669/x3xnt...aledto1.th.jpg

Series 6
http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=aa-native-1080p-HDTV.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/6042/aa-na...0p-HDTV.th.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=ba-NTSC480p.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/9294/ba-NTSC480p.th.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img34&image=af-NTSC480pscaledto1.jpg http://img34.exs.cx/img34/8777/af-NT...aledto1.th.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img20&image=l1antsc480pscaledto1.jpg http://img20.exs.cx/img20/6678/l1ant...aledto1.th.jpg

That's it.

It is best to download the pics from each series into a separate (they are all named the same) folder and then use an image viewer that allows viewing without resizing to screen resolution. You can then use the mousewheel or keyboard to flip between the images.

If you use ACDSee 7, there is an option called â€œPan Lockâ€ in the zoom context menu in viewer mode. This will allow you to flip through images in any magnification level showing you the same part of the image. Just make sure that the images you select for this are of the same dimension (in this case the interesting ones are the native 1080p, and the various upscaled versions). It is much easier to spot differences that way.

Select these in the ACDSee browser and right-click on one of them to select â€œViewâ€. This way only the selected images are available in the viewer mode. You can them use the pan lock method described above.

Have fun and enjoy this comparison

UPDATE: anamorphic comparison in a thread further down the page

Bytehoven · Dec 4, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by kschmit2
Each series contains three images:

1 - "native 1080p frame" at 1920x1080

2 - NTSC 480p at 720x405 (i.e. the same aspect ratio as the native 1080p frame)

3 - NTSC 480p scaled to 1080p

I found it interesting how the fruit on ice looked very similar 1 -vs- 3, but the building was a night and day difference.

While the #1 images very much feel like a HD broadcast resolution to my eye, the 480->1080i seem a little soft and under perform what an upscaled has looked like in my experience.

Have you "calibrated" the $3 images to reproduce scaling capability with any reference to how a 480i image actually scales on various scalers? I ask because I would expect the 480->1080i to be just a little better than your series represents. But I am more than happy to be wrong on this point.

kschmit2 · Dec 4, 2004

The images have been created as detailed in the post (only bicubic sharper w/o any further processing).

I did not want to reproduce the results of various scaling algorithms.

So in fact you could achieve slightly better results for the upscaled pictures, but you will never and under no circumstance be able to recreate the original detail. That detail is lost forever.

As for the fruit picture, you will see when you zoom to 300 or 400 percent and compare the upscaled image to the original that in fact even though the upscaled pic does not initially appear to have lost a lot of detail, at a high zoom level, the loss of detail will be inevitable.

kschmit2 · Dec 5, 2004

I have updated my original post to include lanczos-resampled versions of the upscaled 480p to 1080p pictures.

Kai

J Borsh · Dec 8, 2004

I wonder if you would experience any differences with video material, rather than still photos.

danielo · Dec 10, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by J Borsh
I wonder if you would experience any differences with video material, rather than still photos.

Still being relative new to this scaling area i wonder how much taking PAL as a source vs NTSC would matter in the end result since there are 30% more pixels to start with. If its not too much

work could you make one or 2 ?. Since you clearly are working on a very nice post that shows newbies quickly what is happening also pictures at 1280x720 output would be a great help since well alot of us would love to display 1920x1080 but .....

Tnx for the pictures allready posted.

Daniel.

J Borsh · Dec 10, 2004

danielo,

try this post too:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0&pagenumber=4

Jason

kschmit2 · Dec 10, 2004

I have now done the comparison with anamorphic PAL and NTSC.

Will update later.

oferlaor · Dec 10, 2004

kschmit2,

looking forward to it.

kschmit2 · Dec 10, 2004

As promised, I have now done the comparison with anamorphic SD as source for the upscaled images.

Each series contains five images:

1 - "native 1080p frame" at 1920x1080

2 - NTSC 480p anamorphic at 720x480

3 - NTSC 480p anamorphic scaled to 1080p

4 - PAL 576p anamorphic at 720x576

5 - PAL 576p anamorphic scaled to 1080p

Image 1 was created by resampling (bicubic smoother) and/or cropping a 8 MP RAW digital still image

Image 2 was created by resampling image 1 to 720x480 (bicubic smoother) and applying the NTSC colors filter

Image 3 was created by resampling image 2 to 1920x1080 (bicubic sharper)

Image 4 was created by resampling image 1 to 720x576 (bicubic smoother)

Image 5 was created by resampling image 4 to 1920x1080 (bicubic sharper)

Image 1 was saved as JPG in Imageready with the maximum setting that allowed me to stay under 1 MB (all of them were at least "very high quality")

Images 2 and 4 were saved as PNG in Photoshop (lossless)

Images 3 and 5 were saved as JPG-progressive in ImageReady with either quality 100 or the maximum that allowed me to stay under 1 MB. The minimum quality setting was 92.

Series 1 anamorphic
http://img103.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img103&image=34-native-1080p-HDTV.jpg http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4804/34-...0p-HDTV.th.jpg http://img98.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img98&image=480panam4zo.png http://img98.exs.cx/img98/9886/480panam4zo.th.png http://img98.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img98&image=480panamto1080p3wu.jpg http://img98.exs.cx/img98/5109/480pa...080p3wu.th.jpg http://img98.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img98&image=576panam3ps.png http://img98.exs.cx/img98/8479/576panam3ps.th.png http://img98.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img98&image=576panamto1080p9yj.jpg http://img98.exs.cx/img98/8905/576pa...080p9yj.th.jpg

How to achieve an HD picture from a dvd?

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