What does a better job of upgrading picture and sound quality of older DVD's, upscaling or upconverting?
1039571
Upscaling and upconverting are used interchangeably though I'm sure the definitions my technically be different. As far as DVD's are concerned, neither do anything to the sound quality and applies to video quality as far as I know. The "up convert" capabilities of the Samsung DVD-C500 results in an excellent 1080p resolution. It still isn't true HD! No DVD upscale (or up converting) player will ever result a true HD picture, but this unit produces video of fantastic quality via HDMI in my opinion.
1584969
Movies are grainy due to the grain found naturally in the film. Some are digitally infused with grain like Miami Vice. Others grain is digitally removed to present a cleaner piece before transfer to DVD, like the original star wars movies. But about 80% of the movies out there are not cleaned up or simply have poor transfers. So, will an up converting player like the ones from Oppo help you? Nope. Up conversion is based on the material on the disc. If there is grain already in the movie, up conversion will only enhance the grain further. Only super smart processors like ABTs Edge or ABTs VRS and the Reon can intelligently remove some grain without softening the picture too much, but even then there is only so much a player can do. Grain is something one much live with when it comes to DVDs and Bluray.
1398086
No. Upconversion can only be done with HDMI. This applies to both Blu Ray players and Upconverting DVD players.
791240
Hook up your cable box with an hdmi cable for the best picture quality. I have a 1080p tv and my sd cable chanels look almost as good as hd. If you have an old cable box have them bring you a new one (put a few drops of water on it to fry it and say it fryed itself and theyll replace if for free). Also i got an upconverting dvd player for free with my tv and when its hooked up with an hdmi cable it has basically the same picture quality as HD dvd, just not as good sound quality as HD.
1586995
Dear Peter, Thanks for your inquiry. Since there are no 4K or UHD discs available, the Blu-ray player itself does not upscale. There are however, many audio receivers that do upscaling and perhaps that is what you are asking. Hope that makes things clearer for you. Regards, Eric Cohen World Wide Stereo
1160311
i think you need to buy a bluray upscaler like oppo bd 103 or bd 105 to upscale your dvd
254516
Yes, the up conversion on this set is amazing. I have a Panasonic plasma 1080p and the difference really is amazing.
1031971
I bought one recently because my (1) my old TV died and my TV service (Verizon FIOS) offers several HDTV channels. There are HDTV channels for all the major networks and several of the cable channels: ESPN, HBO, etc. I watch baseball (Red Sox) on HDTV and I'll be able to watch football in HDTV in the Fall. So it was easier for me to decide to switch to HDTV. As for your existing DVD movies, while they're not HD, they will look better on a 56" DLP. The HDTV screen aspect ratio is much closer to that of the original movies, so if you watch the movie in its original format, the "letterbox" effect isn't as dramatic. I'm very pleased with the way my DVDs look on HDTV ... not HDTV quality, but MUCH closer to a movie theater experience than before. If my old TV hadn't died, I probably would have waited until HDTV was the "norm" as you are considering doing. In retrospect, I'm glad it died. Paul
934064
A late response but thought I'd chime in. The up-conversion can help with standard def satellite but little difference with HD channels. One of the best benefits of systems offering up-conversion besides better picture quality is that it will take the non-HDMI inputs and send them out the HDMI output. It is very awkward running audio from a device to the receiver and the video to the TV and having to switch inputs on the receiver and the TV.
1727114
David,This would normally be an easy question to answer, as yes, according to the Sony website, one should see improvements with audio as well as video with this particular upconverting dvd player. Yet what you wrote leaves me with some questions as to your home set-up. Could you please elaborate on how you are connecting your dvd player, receiver, and television together?I only ask because my experience with standard DVD quality audio has always been phenomenal, and not once have I ever felt it was "simple stereo", save for when I watch older movies not encoded in DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. David,This would normally be an easy question to answer, as yes, according to the Sony website, one should see improvements with audio as well as video with this particular upconverting dvd player. Yet what you wrote leaves me with some questions as to your home set-up. Could you please elaborate on how you are connecting your dvd player, receiver, and television together?I only ask because my experience with standard DVD quality audio has always been phenomenal, and not once have I ever felt it was "simple stereo", save for when I watch older movies not... » Read More David,This would normally be an easy question to answer, as yes, according to the Sony website, one should see improvements with audio as well as video with this particular upconverting dvd player. Yet what you wrote leaves me with some questions as to your home set-up. Could you please elaborate on how you are connecting your dvd player, receiver, and television together?I only ask because my experience with standard DVD quality audio has always been phenomenal, and not once have I ever felt it was "simple stereo", save for when I watch older movies not encoded in DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. « Show Less
191954
No, the upscaling only works on analog connections. It passes HDMI through as-is.
1234707
Standard DVDs are in the 480p format (Regular TV is less). HDTV is broadcast in 1080i, and is supposed to eventually get up to 1080p. The DVD player enhances or "upconverts" the DVD video so that it looks better on an HDTV. HDMI is just another type of cable connection (e.g., RCA, Component, S-Video, optical audio, etc.), the benefit of HDMI over component is that it is 100% digital. In other words, nothing converts component video to HDMI. If you do go and buy HDMI cables, don't pay a fortune for the stupid monster brand; you can get 6' HDMI cables for less than $10 each here on Amazon through the 3rd party distributors, and they are just as good. A digital signal (1's and 0's) is not going to be effected by gold connectors or any other garbage like that. Only Analog (RCA - red, white, and yellow) would be effected by gold connectors.
1628788
I do not believe it improves quality. I think it only converts an analogy to a digital signal with the same quality. I use it to connect an old DVD player to an HD TV and that works very well.
253452
I just picked one up from BB today, and the included manual isn't much more helpful. According to the manual, it is going to be up to the individual production of discs as far as what you'll be able to get from components. IF the protection is enabled, without HDMI you will only be able to view 480i or 480p. 720p or 1080i, either through HD DVD or upconverted SD DVD would/could be blocked. Hope this helps. Like I said, I have the unit and I'm watching it now with SD DVDs until tomorrow, and the upconversion is MUCH better than my previous Toshiba DVD upconversion player. Star Wars III was absolutely fantastic (picture wise. Unfortunately this unit cannot yet "upconvert" poor scripts, but I digress). If anyone wants to ask anymore questions, I'll be picking up a couple HD DVDs tomorrow (Tuesday 4/18) as well as getting some from Netflix, so I'll have plenty of review material.
2061160
I know that on my HD-XA2 you can choose which level of definition you want. From 480p to 1080p. Also, it has a feature on the menu that allows you to go from HD DVD to Standard DVD. So, I guess you can fiddle with them to get the results you want.Hope that helps, and, I hope everything works out for you.
1785498
My player doesn't upscale very well at all. And, I am hooked up using HDMI. No way does Blu-ray Disc compare to HD DVD. I used to have an HD-XA2 and an HD A35 and those players were amazing at upscaling. Sometimes you couldn't tell the difference between high-def and standard def.
1586994
Dear Peter,Thanks for your inquiry. Since there are no 4K or UHD discs available, the Blu-ray player itself does not upscale. There are however, many audio receivers that do upscaling and perhaps that is what you are asking. Hope that makes things clearer for you.Regards,Eric CohenWorld Wide Stereo