Upscaling SD content - which is better?

donnajunkie

am i missing something? whats this about if the picture fills the screen it has been upscaled? how come a few years ago when we had a crt widescreen tv the picture could be made to fit the whole screen but that wasnt upscaled, that tv wasnt even hd ready. i dont know how upscaling works but i feel sure its nothing to do with fitting the picture to the screen. its about number of lines on screen. oh, and i know when a dvd player upscales it still isnt proper hd, it is near hd as they usually say.

ps if hd tvs upscale sd pictures then why dont they make a song and dance about it in the spec? it is made a big deal of in the spec for upscaling dvd players. if hd tvs upscale sd pictures themselves then what is the point in making dvd players capable of upscaling?

superscaper

donnajunkie wrote: »

if hd tvs upscale sd pictures themselves then what is the point in making dvd players capable of upscaling?

You can certainly see the difference if you play an ordinary DVD in a non upscaling DVD player and then an upscaling one.

donnajunkie

superscaper wrote: »

You can certainly see the difference if you play an ordinary DVD in a non upscaling DVD player and then an upscaling one.

yeah, of course. what i was saying is there is no need to make dvd players upscale if the tvs can do it themselves. afterall you wont get any benefit from a upscaling dvd player on a tv that isnt hd ready. so if all hd ready tvs upscale then the dvd players dont need to. am i right or wrong?

aliEnRIK

donnajunkie wrote: »

if hd tvs upscale sd pictures themselves then what is the point in making dvd players capable of upscaling?

Because people get pulled into the HYPE, and believe theyre better
And they DO benefit a lot of the cheaper market tvs (Especially supermarket brands etc)
But top quality graded tvs, you will barely notice a difference (Or in fact be WORSE off with playing an upscaled dvd, depending on the player ~ as is my case)

aliEnRIK

superscaper wrote: »

You can certainly see the difference if you play an ordinary DVD in a non upscaling DVD player and then an upscaling one.

again ~ that is HIGHLY subjective.

aliEnRIK

donnajunkie wrote: »

. so if all hd ready tvs upscale then the dvd players dont need to. am i right or wrong?

Partially, its down to how well they scale. Some do it well, others not so good (Which will in turn benefit a decent upscaling dvd player)
Your Samsung 'should' be pretty damn good at scaling itself

donnajunkie

i must say at first i think that the picture is miles better when i watch an upscaled dvd and then i get used to it. i then start to think if it is all in my mind and it was just some sort of placebo affect. however the upscaled dvd definitely looks better than the sd picture from sky+.

aliEnRIK

donnajunkie wrote: »

i must say at first i think that the picture is miles better when i watch an upscaled dvd and then i get used to it. i then start to think if it is all in my mind and it was just some sort of placebo affect. however the upscaled dvd definitely looks better than the sd picture from sky+.

My suggestion would be to watch upscaled for a month, then normal for a month. Should be able to tell then which is better. But the Samsung should have a pretty decent scaler in it.
As for Sky +, its going to have many a problem as its full of errors with not being a true digital picture (ie ~ not straight off a disc or hard drive). The scart cable will make a difference though, my dad uses a Russ Andrews scart cable and it looks nearly as good as a dvd

donnajunkie

dvd and sky+ used to have pretty much the same standard of picture except for the obscure channels that have weaker signals. now the upscaled dvd has a much better picture than all channels.

Millionaire

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Thank you for all the opinions.

Just my luck, had an email back from JL to say the TV is out of stock

Anyone know where else the same tv is available at same price and 5 yr warranty? (£599)
Dixons/Currys/Pc world won't increase their standard 1yr warranty for same price, and sony center are unable to match the price.

Closest I could find with 5yr warranty is

http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/content/products/details/index~modelcode~SON-KDL40V4000U~dept~ctv~subdept~LCDTV~brand~sony.htm

They price match aswell