Is the performance with HD pictures the best indicator of how well an HD Ready TV handles pre-upscaled SD pictures as well?

[admin_exported]

Hello,

I'm looking at buying a TV to use with my media centre PC. Hence, although most things I watch will still be standard definition, everything I view will be pre-upscaled by the computer. I was wondering if when reading the reviews of TVs I need only be concerned with the performance with HD material, given that I presume the TV is receiving as much information from the upscaled SD source as it would from a genuine HD source (even if the quality of the information is less good).

Or is it the case that the improved image enhancement technology in better TVs will still play a part in improving the look of pre-upscaled SD material? It never seems totally clear in the reviews I read whether the varying performance with SD material is being judged using the TVs own upscaler, or if an external upscaling source is being used.

Thanks for any advice,

Frazer

 

[Anonymous]

See what you mean, myself I use a Onkyo 875 to upscale everything, so SD sources look excellent as well.
My TV is also a full HD one so would suggest you short list the best ones in the reviewed screen size you are after.

 

[drummerman]

The bigger the telly the worse the SD/upscaled picture. There's really no way round it. Some are better than others but if most of what you will watch is SD I'd go for an HD Ready panel rather than full hd and keep it as small as possible, certainly not over 42".

One exception might be Toshiba's new sets which apparently include their excellent proprietary uspcaling technology as used in their latest dvd upscalers. I haven't personally seen one though.

If you plan to get BlueRay and enjoy the big picture then full HD is of course the only option.

I have a Kuro and it is one of the better upscalers but my g/f's £200 20" LCD looks without a shadow of a doubt better on normal SD material though you need binoculars to see it.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not planning on going any higher than 32", so I'm happy with HD ready. My budget is limited though, so what I'm really asking is, given that I can't afford the best TV for all worlds, and that I'm only watching already upscaled SD material (plus some HD), should I be looking for one that excels in HD performance, or one which supposedly does a better job with SD?

That's to say, if a TV gets good reviews for it's SD performance, does this refer purely to it's own upscaling capabilities, or to its performance with pre-upscaled material as well? And therefore could the same TV do well with HD sources but badly with pre-upscaled SD sources in comparison to rival TVs?

Thanks again,

Frazer

 

[Anonymous]

All other things being equal, an HD Ready set will look better with standard definition material than a Full HD 1080p set. With 1080i/p high definition material, the Full HD 1080p set will look better. Having said that, with a 32" set viewed from a reasonable distance, you may well be hard pressed to tell the difference. I'd choose a high quality HD Ready set over a poor quality Full HD 1080p one any day. Just be sure you get one that can accept 1080p 50/60/24 signals and you're set for the next few years at least.

 

[Anonymous]

I think in my price range, all the TVs I look at are going to be HD ready rather than full HD.

So I guess the question I really need answering is this (remembering that most of what I watch will be SD material upscaled by my computer);

For the sake of argument, let's say there are two TVs I am considering and, according to reviews,

TV "A" has great HD but ordinary SD performance, whereas

TV "B" has great SD but ordinary HD performance,

which one should I buy?

Or would I specifically need to know if the SD performance in the reviews was from an upscaling source or not? Often this doesn't seem to be mentioned (i.e when DVD or Sky performance are talked about).

I appreciate that most TVs with good SD pictures are likely to have good HD ones too, but then the issue becomes one of price, and whether it's worth paying the extra money for whichever image improvement technology is specifically helping the SD performance, some of which might (I guess) only relate to the TV's own internal upscaling capabilities. Well that's what I am confused about anyway!

Thanks again for any help,

Frazer

 

[drummerman]

I think you worry to much. Most stuff will look good on a small screen. Just pick one you like the picture of.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

What is your budget?

I think when a review talks of SD proformance they are refering to how the TV handles a non-upscaled image as they then refer to say pre-upscaled DVD images and then BD.

 

[Anonymous]

My budget is basically limited to the £300 to £400 end, but ideally as little as possible. I did buy a last generation middle range (7 series) Philips on clearance from Richer Sounds for £250, but when it got home it wasn't working. So I wasn't expecting to spend any more than that initially. I know I'm going to take a hit on performance if I spend that little for a new TV, but wonder whether that is felt most on the internal upscaling of SD pictures, as HD performance is often still considered quite good at that price range.

Which brings me back to the original question; if most reviews do refer to the internal upscaling when they talk about SD performance, is the perfomance with HD material a better guide of how well a TV will handle the upscaled SD material from my computer?

Sorry for banging on about this, but I'd rather not spend £350 buying a TV that doesn't perform as well as the Philips I was going to get, unless the main difference in performance is in the internal upscaling, which I'm not going to use.

Frazer .

 

[Alsone]

To build on what the others have said, HD ready = picture scaled to 2x the original size. Full HD = 4 times the original.

Try viewing scaling a JPEG on your PC with a photographic programme to 200% then 400% to see the effect it has (view it full size when finished). Bottom line, the less you upscale the better the picture. HD ready is the way to go if you like SD.

 

[jase fox]

drummerman:
The bigger the telly the worse the SD/upscaled picture. There's really no way round it. Some are better than others but if most of what you will watch is SD I'd go for an HD Ready panel rather than full hd and keep it as small as possible, certainly not over 42".

This also depends on how good the plasma is really? In january 2007 i got the Panasonic 42 PX600 plasma & SD pictures lookes awful from it, when i then upgraded to my current set the 50PZ700 SD pictures are great, i was really nervous about this at the time as i thought if SD pictures looked that bad on a 42" screen what are they going to be like on a 50" & to my surprise thay were 10 times better.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks again for all the replies; I really am grateful for attempts to help, but I have changed the title of this thread to better describe what it is I really would like to know. As I said, at my price range, I'm only looking at 32" HD Ready TVs anyway, so the fact that larger, full HD TVs might show up more starkly the lack of detail in SD material is not really relevant to my query.

Frazer

 

[nads]

so really you can take HD out of the equation then?

as you will only be upscaling to the native TV resolution from SD if you let the TV or the PC do it.

So which has the better upscaler?

just get the TV that gives the best picture (that you can see) and that looks the best, as all the other connections you need and you will be sorted.

 

[Anonymous]

It seems I'm getting a lot of advice to pick the TV I think looks best in the shop; but I'm loathed to trust what I see when it's obvious they are not all set up to their best potential, and often don't all display the same material for comparison.

I was in a big Currys the other day and the Panasonic's were by far the most impressive; but I was told that they had been set up by Panasonic themselves (including the video they were displaying). Some of the others looked dreadful, but clearly weren't properly configured, and were showing off air SD rather than HD video.

All of which still begs the original question anyway; given that the TVs in store seem most likely to be displaying either off air SD or DVD HD material, which one of these two sources should I be using to compare performance and get an idea which TV would look best with my pre-upscaled SD material?

Frazer

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Unfortunately big chains like that aren't a good place to choose a new TV, at least not if picture and sound quality are important to you (and it sounds like they are). If you really want to compare properly, you'll need to visit a proper AV dealer and arrange a demo. Odds are though that you'll pay a premium for this service. This is fair enough, as far as I'm concerned, but it makes better financial sense if you're shopping for a bigger, more expensive set.

The trouble is that to know what a TV can really do, you need to calibrate it. In theÿchain stores, it's possible that some sets are calibrated, but it's likely that most aren't. In any case, you've know way way of knowing which ones are or aren't.ÿ

To answer your question, your new TV will apply the same processing to an already upscaled SD signal as it will to a native HD signal. It will receive both as 720p, 1080i or 1080p and it won't know the difference. If it does native HD well, then it's really the upscaling capability of your source (DVD player, Sky HD box etc) that matters.

Are you still shopping for a 32" TV? Still on a budget? Go out and buy last year's Sony. You won't be disappointed.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply; this is the info I was looking for. It seemed logical to me that an upscaled picture would be treated in the same way by the TV as a real HD source, but I just wasn't sure whether any image processing technology that seems particularly to help improve SD sources would be of particular value for pre-upscaled material as well.

Thanks again,

Frazer

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe noise reduction. But most videophiles would avoid this for all but the poorest sources, as generally it doesn't work very well and tends to remove fine detail as well. If you do use noise reduction, it's better to do it at source before any scaling or other processing. Noise is unlikely to be a problem with native HD sources, except where it's intentional, for example if the director was going for a grainy look. But then that's not really noise at all.