Sky+ through DVD improves picture over direct connection...but why?

[admin_exported]

OK, so I should be happy that the picture is better this way but I'm curious to know why. Any ideas??

I recently bought a Sony KDL40V3000 TV. Constrained by the fact that all my source equipment sits in a cabinet to the right of the screen whereas all the connections are on the left...I initially connected everything up out of position before tidying up. Thus my (SD) Sky+ connected via Scart directly to the TV and my Sony RDR-HXD870 DVD Recorder connected to the TV using HDMI. (There's a PS3 in there too, but irrelevant to this query).

When I came to 'tidy-up' and put the cabinet back in place, I found the scart cable to be too short and so connected the Sky+ to the HXD870, as an interim solution. A couple of days later I fitted a longer scart cable from the Sky+ to the TV. It was at this point that I realised the picture quality from the Sky+ source is better when viewed via the HXD870 than direct....why is this?

What is it that the HXD870 does that improves the picture? Is it to do with the TV receiving the signal through HDMI...if so why is the HXD870 tolerable of a Scart input connection and the TV not???

(NB - I am aware that I can change picture settings on the HXD870 but haven't done so, it's confusing enough adjusting settings on the tv itself.)

 

[Anonymous]

The HXD870 upscales the SKY+ SD signal to 1080p

Before, with the SKY box attached to the TV via SCART, it was the TV itself that did the upscaling.

So it seems that the DVD Recorder has a better upscaling chip than the TV.

 

[Anonymous]

That would explain it I guess, but it does surprise me that the upscaler on the TV is less capable than on the DVD player.

Thanks.

 

[FuzzyinLondon]

Not unusual at all really. If all tvs had greater scalers, there would be no market for upscalers - we'd all just be feeding our tvs a 576i signal and letting them do all scaling and deinterlacing.