Layman explanation of upscaling/upconversion please

[admin_exported]

I am planning on upgrading my STR-DA1200ES for the STR-DA2400ES in the near future to facilitate a BluRay HTPC that I intend to build.

As a lot of you have probably already experienced these purchases have to be sold to the Mrs. Well I swayed her with the HTPC and while I had her teetering I pushed for new speakers, as I had her on the run I maximised my chances and tried for the new amp.

It was all going so well until she started asking questions instead of just listening.

I came up short with upscaling. She wanted to know if the amp could upscale a terresterial television signal. My understanding was that the picture from the DVD or Satellite Receiver could be upscaled via the HDMI inputs. After double checking the on the internet I'm a little bit confused with the mention of component.

Would someone mind spending the time to explain upscaling and upconversion on this amp in simple terms? 

 

[Gerrardasnails]

adamshaw:
I am planning on upgrading my STR-DA1200ES for the STR-DA2400ES in the near future to facilitate a BluRay HTPC that I intend to build.

As a lot of you have probably already experienced these purchases have to be sold to the Mrs. Well I swayed her with the HTPC and while I had her teetering I pushed for new speakers, as I had her on the run I maximised my chances and tried for the new amp.

It was all going so well until she started asking questions instead of just listening.

I came up short with upscaling. She wanted to know if the amp could upscale a terresterial television signal. My understanding was that the picture from the DVD or Satellite Receiver could be upscaled via the HDMI inputs. After double checking the on the internet I'm a little bit confused with the mention of component.

Would someone mind spending the time to explain upscaling and upconversion on this amp in simple terms?ÿ

The 2400es, like most receivers under the £1k mark, only upscales an analogue feed - ie, S Video and component. It won't upscale an hdmi feed. If you have your screen connected to the receiver using hdmi, you would only need to connect your receiver to your other boxes (whatever cables you need to use). So the receiver would then upconvert to the hdmi connection of your screen. So, you could have a sat box connected to the receiver using S Video and the receiver would upscale the feed to up to 1080p and then pass the feed through the hdmi cable connecting screen to receiver.

Without knowing which connections all your boxes have, I can't go into too much detail of how you can set up. However, if you have a standard sat box which has a scart connection (it should have the S Video connection too), you can connect it to the receiver only to be upscaled. If you have an HD box but only one hdmi connection to your screen and the HD box has component as well, you can connect the box to the receiver with component and it will upscale it too. You would also need an audio cable.

Hope this helps.

 

[Gozaradio]

I'm going to ask this because I've never quite understood why you would need to upscale any HDMI input to a receiver.

My DVD player currently provides a 1080p output which goes directly into my TV. A Blu-Ray player will do the same. If I put it through a receiver (when I eventually buy one), what could it possibly upscale it to?

 

[simonlewis]

Nothing, amps don't upscale HDMI.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

slewis:Nothing, amps don't upscale HDMI.

Some do. The top of the range models upscale hdmi. And to ask the other poster, some receivers will have better upscalers than say the Sky HD box or an average upscaling dvd player. You cannot upscale bluray but it's only bluray or HD DVD that is actually 1080p, the rest are upscaled to 1080p. Also HD sat boxes are only 1080i, so a receiver could bump it up to 1080p or do the upscaling from scratch.

 

[Gozaradio]

Fair point on the HD sat boxes - so it's all really a matter of which bit of kit you want to do the upscaling and ultimately, the TV will do it if nothing else does.

Out of interest, does anyone see much of a difference between the standard 1080i output from a Sky HD box versus a pricier receiver taking it to 1080p? I can't imagine it being staggering.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Gozaradio:
Fair point on the HD sat boxes - so it's all really a matter of which bit of kit you want to do the upscaling and ultimately, the TV will do it if nothing else does.

Out of interest, does anyone see much of a difference between the standard 1080i output from a Sky HD box versus a pricier receiver taking it to 1080p? I can't imagine it being staggering.

I haven't seen it but I would say that the upscaling from SD tv would look better upscaled by a really good receiver.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the explanation. So if I understand you right, tha amp is converting the analogue component to digital and then upscaling via HDMI. Input analogue/output digital.

My Topfield has HDMI, component and S/PDIF. It will upscale on it's own to 1080i but if I wanted to upscale to 1080P then I would have to connect the Y/Pb/Pr and either S/PDIF or HDMI for the audio. So a more expensive amp is just cutting down on the spaghetti at the back.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

adamshaw:
Thanks for the explanation. So if I understand you right, tha amp is converting the analogue component to digital and then upscaling via HDMI. Input analogue/output digital.

My Topfield has HDMI, component and S/PDIF. It will upscale on it's own to 1080i but if I wanted to upscale to 1080P then I would have to connect the Y/Pb/Pr and either S/PDIF or HDMI for the audio. So a more expensive amp is just cutting down on the spaghetti at the back.

If you went for a receiver like the 2400es, you would connect using component which would offer you an unscaled 720p (I think) image from HD channels and have the receiver do the upscaling to 1080p, SD pictures would be upscaled to 1080p also. You could then try watching with an hdmi connection which would give you a real unscaled 1080i image (with HD channels) and an upscaled SD image to 1080i. A more expensive receiver like the Onkyo 906 would upscale the hdmi connection to 1080p also if you left the scaling to the Onk.

 

[ElectroMan]

Gerrardasnails:slewis:Nothing, amps don't upscale HDMI.

Some do. The top of the range models upscale hdmi. And to ask the other poster, some receivers will have better upscalers than say the Sky HD box or an average upscaling dvd player. You cannot upscale bluray but it's only bluray or HD DVD that is actually 1080p, the rest are upscaled to 1080p. Also HD sat boxes are only 1080i, so a receiver could bump it up to 1080p or do the upscaling from scratch.

Some cheaper amps upscale HDMI also, such as Onkyo.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Take into consideration that upscalers use algorithms to attempt to 'guess' the colour of each pixel so invariably some upscalers will look better than others. My Pioneer tv upscales better than my PS3 and both my pioneer dvd players