Is a Blu-Ray player just a transport when using Bitstream?

[Anonymous]

Can AV Receivers be set up to upscale/not upscale different sources i.e. don't upscale 1080p/24 from the blu ray player but do upscale SD from the blu ray player or 1080i/SD from the SkyHD box?

If anyone has an answer for this query, I'd be interested in hearing it (note I've clarified the original query).

As ProfessorHat explained, an AV receiver cannot upscale a 1080p/24 blu ray disc, as it is already at that resolution when it leaves the blu ray player (& you've set the blu ray player to "auto", I.e., you're not downscaling 1080p/24 picture).

Setting the blu ray player to "auto" would also ensure that DVD pictures are upscaled by the AV receiver.

Again, set the Sky HD box to "auto", & your AV receiver will upscale the pictures.

Bigboss - the reason I asked this is because I'd heard that you could upscale twice which can give you detrimental results i.e. an over processed image. I know technically the blu ray can't upscale 1080p/24 but is it possible for an AV receiver to try to upscale everything that it receives, including 1080p/24, leading to something being over processed? Thanks in advance for all your explanations and insights.

 

[bigboss]

Can AV Receivers be set up to upscale/not upscale different sources i.e. don't upscale 1080p/24 from the blu ray player but do upscale SD from the blu ray player or 1080i/SD from the SkyHD box?

If anyone has an answer for this query, I'd be interested in hearing it (note I've clarified the original query).

As ProfessorHat explained, an AV receiver cannot upscale a 1080p/24 blu ray disc, as it is already at that resolution when it leaves the blu ray player (& you've set the blu ray player to "auto", I.e., you're not downscaling 1080p/24 picture).

Setting the blu ray player to "auto" would also ensure that DVD pictures are upscaled by the AV receiver.

Again, set the Sky HD box to "auto", & your AV receiver will upscale the pictures.

Bigboss - the reason I asked this is because I'd heard that you could upscale twice which can give you detrimental results i.e. an over processed image. I know technically the blu ray can't upscale 1080p/24 but is it possible for an AV receiver to try to upscale everything that it receives, including 1080p/24, leading to something being over processed? Thanks in advance for all your explanations and insights.

I've never heard of a picture being "upscaled" to the same resolution.

 

[professorhat]

Bigboss - the reason I asked this is because I'd heard that you could upscale twice which can give you detrimental results i.e. an over processed image. I know technically the blu ray can't upscale 1080p/24 but is it possible for an AV receiver to try to upscale everything that it receives, including 1080p/24, leading to something being over processed? Thanks in advance for all your explanations and insights.

You can't upscale twice - upscaling is the process by which an image or a video of a lower resolution is made to fit a higher resolution screen - this is done by essentially making up data to fill the gaps. Some upscalers are more sophisticated than others, but if that image or video already fits the screen exactly, then nothing you can do will make it fit that screen better! I guess it could theoretically be possible for something to downscale an image, then upscale it back, but I don't know why you'd ever want to do that, and I don't think there would be a setting to do this (since it makes no sense!).

The only way I can think you could do this inadvertently would be to set your Blu-ray to manually output at 576p, then get your AV receiver or TV to upscale back to 1080p. Clearly then, the Blu-ray player would downscale Blu-rays from 1080p to 576p (throwing away information in the process), and your AV receiver or TV would upscale them back to 1080p. This is a very undesirable state and is why I mentioned ensuring you don't do this in my first post! But it takes two devices to do this - one to downscale and then another to upscale.

Processing the image is a different story - it's perfectly possible to set your Blu-ray player, your AV receiver and your TV to change the image (assuming they have that ability). Most do, and this includes things like noise reduction (NR), edge enhancement, sharpness etc. etc. Generally, I'd recommend starting with all these extra processing tools switched off - you can then tinker with them individually to see what affect they have and whether you prefer the picture with them on or off etc.

 

[Anonymous]

Bigboss, Professorhat, thanks.

The scaling down then up etc on various devices is known as 'double scaling' which is as you say a bad thing to do. I understand your point about the difference between processing and upscaling.