Which upscaler to use....(source, amp or TV)?

[admin_exported]

I have the following set up:-

Sources (V+, PS3) connected to an Onkyo 905 amp (via HDMI) connected to a Sony 46w4000 (via HDMI).

I understand that all of the above (V+, PS3, Onkyo and TV) have video upscalers.

My standard definition (from V+, PS3 - normal DVD) is an excellent picture and the HD picture (from V+, PS3 - bluray) is even better.

I was just wondering if anyone knew which upscaler for SD sources is best. How do you 'force' one piece of equipment to upscale and another not to upscale (as I'm presuming that you shouldn't use more than 2 to upscale).

As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a novice at these type of things!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have found that my Onkyo 875 has the edge on upscaling.

I even Bitstream the PS3 on Blue ray as the sound is fuller and more enjoyable with the Amp processing it in THX DD!

My SB source is a Sony RHD970 and I set that to 720p and allow the 875 to process it up to 1080p before sending it HDMI to the TV.

On most SB programmes it looks as good as full HD.
The Reon processing in the 875/905 is excellent.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Trevor,

I think my setup is similar to yours (i.e. allowing the amp to upscale the video).

Although, I tend to use LPCM on HD audio from the PS3 bluray. (I understand there is much discussion and differing opinion on LPCM v Bitstream from PS3 on True HD audio, and I'm not qualified to comment on that one!).

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

The trickiest part of upscaling video is deinterlacing. PAL DVDs and TV broadcasts are 576i. The PS3 won't output 576i over HDMI, only 576p, 720p, 1080i or 1080p. If the V+ box is anything like the Sky HD box, that won't output 576i over HDMI either. So in your system you won't get to see what the Reon chip in your 905 can really do. Having said that, the deinterlacing in the PS3 is pretty good these days.

I'd advise against processing the video twice if possible. The most likely outcome is an increase in the quantity and severity of processing artifacts.

 

[professorhat]

There's a good article on this in the current issue of WHF. The findings were in the main that, other than when you have a high end amp / TV / projector, the source is usually the best upscaler. My own findings agree with this and I also have the PS3 and the 905 and found that the PS3 was a better upscaler for DVDs than the 905 when I checked. Can't comment on the V+ box.

Of course don't take my word for it, try it out for yourself. It's very easy to try the difference. Obviously to test the PS3's abilities at upscaling, set it to output at 1080p when watching a DVD - it doesn't matter what the amp is set at since it's receiving a 1080p signal from the PS3, it will just pass it through. To test the amp's upscaling, set the PS3 to output 576p and the amp to output 1080p and compare it with before. Finally, to test your TV's upscaling, set the PS3 to 576p and the Onkyo to "Through" to force it to pass through the signal as received i.e. 576p. This will then force the TV to upscale this to its resolution. Do this a few times and then go with the setting which you feel produces the best picture.

Of course remember to set the PS3 back to 1080p when you're playing a Blu-Ray otherwise you'll be losing out on the extra detail contained in the native 1080p signal of the Blu-Ray disc.

*EDIT - corrected deliberate mistake discussed below

 

[Big Aura]

I know this month's WHFS&V has an upscaler feature, which generally comes out in favour of the screen to do this, but it's had to manage when you've a few sources. DVD/Freesat and potentially blu-ray shortly.

if you set everything to "upscale" are you inviting trouble?

 

[Clare Newsome]

Big Aura:
I know this month's WHFS&V has an upscaler feature, which generally comes out in favour of the screen to do this,

Erm, no it didn't - in most cases, the source was superior. But remember, the feature specifically dealt with DVD upscaling, not TV broadcasts from a set-top box (in which case i'd take the OP's Onkyo for the upscaling).

 

[aliEnRIK]

I have a Pioneer plasma, PS3 and Pioneer LX50 dvd player

I USED to upscale via the PS3 as I didnt know any better but since found my tv has a FAR better scaler and the LX50 a better scaler than my tv. Its really down to the individual equipment you have.

But it seems all these people who believe the PS3 has a great scaler really dont know what theyre missing

 

[Anonymous]

aliEnRIK:
I have a Pioneer plasma, PS3 and Pioneer LX50 dvd player

I USED to upscale via the PS3 as I didnt know any better but since found my tv has a FAR better scaler and the LX50 a better scaler than my tv. Its really down to the individual equipment you have.ÿ

But it seems all these people who believe the PS3 has a great scaler really dont know what theyre missingÿ

Interesting. I have a PS3 and an LX5090 and I find that 1080p from the PS3 looks much, much better than 576p scaled up by the TV.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
Finally, to test your TV's upscaling, set the PS3 to 1080p and the Onkyo to "Through" to force it to pass through the signal as received i.e. 576p. This will then force the TV to upscale this to its resolution. Do this a few times and then go with the setting which you feel produces the best picture.

Thanks Prof,

I'm presuming you meant "set the PS3 to 576p" as opposed to 1080p for testing the TV's upscaling abilities?

Will try the differing options you suggested - will involve a bit of faffing around with all those settings though. As stated I am very happy with my current PQ, but I guess we're all striving to get even more out of our individual set-up's.

 

[aliEnRIK]

beaverme:aliEnRIK:
I have a Pioneer plasma, PS3 and Pioneer LX50 dvd player

I USED to upscale via the PS3 as I didnt know any better but since found my tv has a FAR better scaler and the LX50 a better scaler than my tv. Its really down to the individual equipment you have.

But it seems all these people who believe the PS3 has a great scaler really dont know what theyre missing

Interesting. I have a PS3 and an LX5090 and I find that 1080p from the PS3 looks much, much better than 576p scaled up by the TV.

Are you sure its set right?

I found I needed to leave it like that for a few days before the differences were clear (Took time for the tv to 'acclimate' to the new setting if you will)

 

[Anonymous]

Yep. I'm certain it's set up right.

 

[Big Aura]

Clare Newsome:Erm, no it didn't - in most cases, the source was superior. But remember, the feature specifically dealt with DVD upscaling, not TV broadcasts from a set-top box (in which case i'd take the OP's Onkyo for the upscaling).

oops - that'll teach me to speed-read....! Can an amp be set to upscale from certain sources but not all? Assuming (for the sake of example) my Sony DVD player is best to upscale dvd content, but both my amp and tv also upscale... Will I end up double or triple upscaling (and is that a bad thing?).

Also, will that impact on the standard of my HD Freesat content - i.e. will the tv and/or amp snuffle that picture by upscaling again, or does it sense that there's a HD image which shouldn't be tampered with?

 

[professorhat]

vineetpatel69:I'm presuming you meant "set the PS3 to 576p" as opposed to 1080p for testing the TV's upscaling abilities?

Oops, yes - well spotted on the deliberate mistake there! It is a faff but it's only the way to tell really. Something to do when you're bored and have a spare hour!

aliEnRIK:But it seems all these people who believe the
PS3 has a great scaler really dont know what theyre missing

No, I just have a TV with a poor upscaler

 

[Clare Newsome]

Big Aura - Most upscaling amps allow you to individually assign settings for each input, so yes, you can upscale certain sources but not all (for example, at home I upscale Sky+ HD via my amp, but DVD does its own upscaling). They will also pass through any 1080p signal straight to your display.

Again, most TVs/projectors do the same thing - if they're receiving a signal that matches their resolution, they'll display it as it is. Otherwise they'll upscale (or downscale, in case of HD Ready TV receiving 1080p signal) the image to suit.

 

[Big Aura]

thanks Clare.

 

[jase fox]

Clare Newsome:
Big Aura - Most upscaling amps allow you to individually assign settings for each input, so yes, you can upscale certain sources but not all (for example, at home I upscale Sky+ HD via my amp, but DVD does its own upscaling). They will also pass through any 1080p signal straight to your display.

Again, most TVs/projectors do the same thing - if they're receiving a signal that matches their resolution, they'll display it as it is. Otherwise they'll upscale (or downscale, in case of HD Ready TV receiving 1080p signal) the image to suit.

So how do you get an amp to say just upscale SKY HD ?

I use the upscaler in my bluray player & at the moment i use my plasmas upscaler for SKYHD so if i wanted my amp to "just" do the scaleing for sky HD how would i go on about it?

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
There's a good article on this in the current issue of WHF.ÿ

There isn't. I've just been reading it and it's awful. No explanation of or even mention of deinterlacing at all. Although 576p isn't mentioned explicitly in each of the system test write-ups, it's mentioned enough times to make me think that was the only SD signal tested. 576i isn't mentioned at all. As such the deinterlacing capabilities of the amps and displays on test are bypassed, which means that they're not fulfilling their true potential. As deinterlacing is the first, most complex and most commonly messed up step in upscaling SD video, I think this article is flawed. It certainly doesn't show people how to get the best from their systems.ÿ

 

[professorhat]

Well I thought it was good

Besides, wasn't the article really about upscaling DVD? In which case interlacing / deinterlacing a signal wouldn't come into it since no modern DVD / Blu-Ray player would natively output 576i and no modern HDTV would require an interlaced signal to be input into it?

Maybe I missed the point (wouldn't be the first time).

 

[Anonymous]

Plenty of modern DVD / Blu Ray players can natively output 576i, including at least some of (maybe all of) the ones included in the article. And while modern TVs might not require 576i, if your TV or your amp's processing is better than your source's processing, your picture will improve because of it.

To get the best picture you'd ideally only process the video signal once. To do that you either need to do all the processing in the source or get an unprocessed signal out of the source. The closest thing to an unprocessed signal from most players will be 576i over HDMI. The only thing better really is SDI, but that's very hard to find on domestic kit. When you do process the signal, it takes more than good quality scaling to get a good picture. You need high quality cadence detection and deinterlacing as well.

My point is that if you have an amp or a display with a Reon, Faroudja or similar chip in it and you really want to see what it can do with DVD, you need to feed it the original interlaced signal that came off the disc. The same thing applies to set top boxes. Not all DVD players and set top boxes provide the option of 576i over HDMI. Some (generally cheaper) players will only output 576p (or higher) over HDMI. Most players will output 576i over component though. Sometimes this will give a better picture than the deinterlaced HDMI output.

 

[professorhat]

Having read more about it, I see where you're coming from now - I wrongly assumed DVDs were stored in progressive format, but since I've just read that this isn't true, I take your point about deinterlacing having to occur within the DVD / Blu-Ray player, when you could let your amp / TV do this and see which is better. A quick look at my system shows the Sony BDP-S550 can output at 480i/576i but the PS3 only allows 576p.

So to the OP, don't worry too much about this for the PS3 as you can't choose anything except 576p to test your upscaling, but for others, worth a look at also trying to output at 576i and see what happens then.

 

[professorhat]

jase fox:So how do you get an amp to say just upscale SKY HD ? I use the upscaler in my bluray player & at the moment i use my plasmas upscaler for SKYHD so if i wanted my amp to "just" do the scaleing for sky HD how would i go on about it?

Jase, assuming your Sky HD box is connected into your amp, set your amp to upscale to 1080p (or if it has an Auto setting, set it to this). This way, if you set your Blu-Ray to output at 1080p, this signal will just pass through the amp undisturbed as it is already at the desired resolution. If you then set your Sky HD player to 576p / 576i (whichever it has - see the discussion above!), when this reaches the amp, the amp will upscale this as it is not at the required resolution.

 

[aliEnRIK]

jase fox:So how do you get an amp to say just upscale SKY HD ?

I use the upscaler in my bluray player & at the moment i use my plasmas upscaler for SKYHD so if i wanted my amp to "just" do the scaleing for sky HD how would i go on about it?

SKY HD is a funny beast in that its upscaling isnt very good and its deinterlacer is absolutely awful

It FORCES SD to deinterlace if 1080i isnt selected so on that basis alone (and ONLY where SKY HD is concerned) its best to set to 1080i and let the tv deinterlace

Why they couldnt leave it at 576i I really have no clue. SKY+ actually has better SD pictures (So long as a top grade scart is connected) as it leaves it at 576i

 

[giggsy1977]

Apologies for the hijack...

Quick question for the WHF team and/or anyone that has one, what is the upscaler like on the Humax Foxsat HDR?

Is it better or worse than the scaler on the Onkyo 876?

Is it better or worse that the scaler on the current Panansonic plasmas and Sony LCD's?

Want my amp to sound good, but as I can't afford a Pioneer and want the best possible upscaled SD broadcasts over Freesat, what would people recommend?

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
So to the OP, don't worry too much about this for the PS3 as you can't choose anything except 576p to test your upscaling, but for others, worth a look at also trying to output at 576i and see what happens then.

ok - some of this discussion is way over my head (the other part of the discussion is way way over my head!).

I'll have a play with the individual settings and see if there's an improvement in PQ and report back.