upscaling feature in HTIB/AVR

[zoey]

Guys I wanted to know If any one of you has an AVR or a HTIB with upscaling feature. Have you used it with STB ( Airtel, Big TV, TATA SKY ) or DVD's. Has this feature made any significant difference in the picture quality ?. I know the upscaling feature is available in DVD players and TV. But what I want to know is having this feature in AVR has made any difference in PQ. It would be great if you guys could share your thoughts and experience.

 

[ashishkesarwani]

Guys I wanted to know If any one of you has an AVR or a HTIB with upscaling feature. Have you used it with STB ( Airtel, Big TV, TATA SKY ) or DVD's. Has this feature made any significant difference in the picture quality ?. I know the upscaling feature is available in DVD players and TV. But what I want to know is having this feature in AVR has made any difference in PQ. It would be great if you guys could share your thoughts and experience.

It depends either on your source or your AVR. If the source has a better upscaling chip then it would be better than the AVR and vice versa. It makes a lot of difference to the picture quality if the Upscaling Source is Good one like mine where I use Nr905 for Upscaling my SD pictures from Tata Sky. It is always adviceable to do the upscaling at the source itself but in the case of STB we have to look at the AVR's or the Display to do the Upscaling for us in which case the former has the better upscaler than the later.

 

[venkatcr]

Zoey, this has been discussed many times before. The quality of DTH transmissions in India are not good enough to be scaled beyond 720P. I have scaled DTH transmissions to 1080P and got nothing extra on the screen excepting noise.

DTH transmissions to be scaled to 1080P need to be transmitted in MPEG4 format and you need a STB that has an HDMI or at the least a component connection.

Sun TV is claiming FullHD transmission in two channels - Discovery and some sports channels. Their charges are some 30K per year including STB that has a HDMI port.

Of course, there is no harm in getting a scaling AVR. Sometime or the other DTH transmission in India will reach appreciable levels.

Cheers

 

[zoey]

Thanks for your reply venkat . I read all the posts that are related to Upscaling in this forum but I wanted to know more of personal experience ... like you have mentioned " I have scaled DTH transmissions to 1080P and got nothing extra on the screen excepting noise". BTW which video processing engine does your AVR have, I mean Onkyo uses Faroudja DCDi CINEMA in some models and newer ones have HQV Reon-VX video processing.

 

[venkatcr]

BTW which video processing engine does your AVR have, I mean Onkyo uses Faroudja DCDi CINEMA in some models and newer ones have HQV Reon-VX video processing.

Mine has HQV Reon processor.

Cheers

 

[dillihifi]

Hi zoey

Just wanted to chip in. There are at least three types of scalars which are available in the market. Anchor Bay (new) in some denons and yams. Further some of the higher end receivers use the Faroudja chips for upscaling which has been very highly regarded. But of late I think they are losing out to others. HQV Reon is very highly rated scaler found in the the expensive receivers.

Further the 42 inch plasmas are rated as 720p only with a few screens going upto 1080p panny g series being one. As far as high def goes anything above 720p is considered as high def.

This scaling basically reduces your sitting dstance wrt to the screen so that you can see more detail. If your sitting position is more you wont observe much difference due to scaling.

The TV transmission and the dvds can be scaled up but i doubt whether any startling differences can be seen. People say that the best the TV can display is the native resolution of the TV so stay with 720p or 1080p to match that of the TV.

Further, to your discussion I just wanted to open up a new direction that in spite of our having 16:9 screens the dvds do not fill up the screen even in their native resolution any comments from our experts ????

 

[argho]

Hi zoey

Further, to your discussion I just wanted to open up a new direction that in spite of our having 16:9 screens the dvds do not fill up the screen even in their native resolution any comments from our experts ????

That's because movies are shot in a different format - 1:2.39

Have a look at this link.
Aspect ratio (image) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dillihifi]

I am aware of the fact that they are mastered differently but I meant was is there any device we can use to make the movie fill the screen but not by stretching the picture which appears very odd. Further as all screens available in 16:9 why do the studios not remaster movies in this format. Many times on TV I have seen resized moveies where the characters do not appear stretched though the original film was in cinemascope.

Wondering if any TVs available which can make both the TV material and the DVDs look good wrt to the size