Excellent post Scott. With all the hype and jingo behind these numbers, it always does well to get a refresh on the reality of the situation, even as an enthusiast. You have encouraged me to experiment with the settings on my various DVD players! One question that I think many will wonder; in your experience, where is the threshold where a DVD player starts to outperform a TV's scaling? What I mean is, there will be lots of people spending $2000 on a TV, but few that would spend half that on a DVD player. Obviously experimentation is key, but by your abbreviated logic, "In general, a $2000 TV's processor is likely to be better than the one in a $50 DVD player", one might think that the processing in a $2000 TV is better than a $250-$300 player, whereas in my experience, there is a point where the DVD player begins to outperform a TV's scaler, even at a fraction of the cost. At what price range do you think, on average, a player begins to perform better?
Upconfusion
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Last Saturday, I followed up on a question posed by a listener who had called in the week before asking about how to configure an upconverting DVD player for a 720p display. Unfortunately, the 12 minutes of my segment wasn't really enough time to fully explain this confusing subject, so I thought it might be a good idea to go over it again here...
First, let's take a look at the concept of an upconverting DVD player, which can be bought for well under $100. This device includes a video processor that takes the standard-def content on a DVD and "upconverts" it to high-def resolution by creating new pixels that aren't in the original image. How well it does this determines how good the picture looks, but I must point out that no matter how well the upconverter works, the image will never match the razor-sharp detail of true HD content such as Blu-ray or HDTV broadcasts.
In most cases, the player can only send the upconverted image to the display using an HDMI connection, and it can be set to output one of several possible resolutions—specifically, 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. For those who don't know, 720p means a resolution of 1280x720 sent progressively (that is, each video frame is sent all at once), 1080i means a resolution of 1920x1080 sent interlaced (each video frame is divided into two halves that are sent sequentially and stitched together by the display), and 1080p means a resolution of 1920x1080 sent progressively. (For more on what these terms mean, see my previous blog here.)
So the question becomes, what should you choose as the player's output resolution? That depends in part on the native resolution of your display and the type of signal it can accept. All modern HDTVs have a fixed native resolution—that is, the number of pixels on the screen, which is most often specified as the number of pixels across by the number of pixels down. There are three standard native resolutions for all HDTVs: 1280x720, 1366x768, and 1920x1080.
Virtually all displays with 1920x1080 native resolution are called "1080p" and can accept all signals, including 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. But displays with 1280x720 or 1366x768 native resolution are often called "720p" or "1080i" TVs. Why? Because these terms refer to the type of signal the TV can accept via HDMI. Most TVs with 1280x720 or 1366x768 resolution cannot accept a 1080p signal, but they can accept a 720p or 1080i signal. All HDTVs can also accept a standard-def signal—that is, 480i or 480p.
No matter what type of signal an HDTV gets, it must convert the image represented by that signal to its native resolution. For example, if a TV with 1280x720 resolution gets a 1080i signal, it must "downconvert" the resolution in that signal, removing some pixels from the image. If a TV with 1920x1080 resolution gets a 720p signal, it must upconvert the resolution in the signal, adding pixels that aren't in the image. And if any HDTV gets a 480i or 480p signal, it must upconvert it to the screen's native resolution. Finally, all HDTVs must "deinterlace" any interlaced signal—that is, 480i or 1080i—before it can be upconverted or downconverted (if necessary) and displayed.
To recap, an upconverting DVD player takes the standard-def material on a DVD and upconverts it to output a signal at 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. Of course, you can also disable the player's upconversion and simply send 480i or 480p. An HDTV can accept some or all of these signals and convert them to its native resolution.
The problem is this—the more processing the signal goes through, the greater the potential to degrade the image quality. Also, it's critical to determine which processor—the one in the DVD player or the one in the TV—does a better job of upconverting standard-def material on a DVD. In general, a $2000 TV's processor is likely to be better than the one in a $50 DVD player.
For these reasons, I always recommend trying different settings to see which one works best with your particular equipment. Find a movie clip with lots of fine detail and some motion, such as a pan across a city skyline, and play it at all of the player's available output resolutions (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p); you will have to skip 1080p if your display can't accept it. Which setting looks best on your TV? Which setting lets you see the sharpest detail with the fewest jittery or shimmery artifacts in areas of fine detail? The answer won't be the same for all players and displays.
Once you find the best setting, your DVD collection will look as good as it can on your system. But it still won't look nearly as good as Blu-ray, so be sure to add a Blu-ray player as soon as your budget permits.
If you have an audio/video question for me, please send it to scott.wilkinson@sourceinterlink.com.
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Comments
Actually, I don't think there is a threshold. For example, Kim Wilson just finished her review of the Mar antz AV8003 pre/pro, which lists for $2600. She found that the Anchor Bay video processor in that piece did not upconvert 480i very well at all. Granted, the AV8003 is not a DVD player, but the principle is the same. Anchor Bay is a well-respected processor maker, yet its chipset did not perform well in a $2600 product. In addition to the quality of the processor, it depends on the manufacturer's implementation of it. Thus, a cheap DVD player might scale better than an expensive TV.
You inadvertantly answered another nagging question. My current HDTV is 1080i, but is a smallish screen since I was an early adopter. My viewing distance is a bit on the long side, so when articles discuss not being able to distinguish the difference between 720P and 1080P at a particular viewing distance, they fail to discuss that in order to scale a 1080 signal (i or P), pixels must be dropped. Even if I can't perceive the difference, I'll know the difference. If a person has an HD source such as Blu-Ray, then a 720P display isn't really an option. Getting back to up-conversion, it seems that 720P would work fine for a 480 source.
Great article Scott. I have one question about this quote: "... 1080i means a resolution of 1920x1080 sent interlaced (each video frame is divided into two halves that are sent sequentially and stitched together by the display)." Are the frames really "stitched together" by the display or is it like conventional SD (CRT) displays where the viewer's eye mixes the odd and even frames together?
Yes, the frames are really stitched together by the display. All modern digital displays flash each entire frame on the screen at once, so the two "half frames" (aka "fields") must be recombined before the display circuitry can put the frame on the screen. It's not like the old CRT days when the display actually drew one field followed by the other and our eye/brain system merged them together.
This is a great topic because it creates so much confusion. Your answer is pretty political, giving no real guidance on what to do except to try it themselves. This is not a good strategy IMO because the differences in deinterlacing quality only show themselves in certain scenes. The reality is that there is no real good answer unless you know A LOT about video processing which can take some time to study. Upconverting DVD players are generally worthless IMHO. There are a few that do a good job and those will be reviewed in detail by publications so you will know exactly how well they work. If they are not publicly reviewed, then they likely suck and you are probably better off leaving them at 480i. But not always. Here is my advice. If you are concerned about video quality enough to read this, buy a quality DVD player that has been reviewed well. Set the resolution to your native resolution of your TV. If you have a 768p Plasma, use the 480p setting on the DVD player.
I don't see how my discussion is "political," and I maintain that the best solution is to try all of the player's different output settings to see which one works best with your TV. This is the best unbiased guidance I can offer. I disagree that setting the output to the native resolution of the TV is always the best way to go
I agree that buying any DVD player is a waste of money these days. I would always recommend a Blu-Ray player as well, but we are not always buying these things for ourselves. The readers of your blog are considered experts by their friends and family, and often are called in to make recommendations and setup advice. The people we advise are not going to try every resolution to see what looks best. They just want an answer. The answer I gave is what I tell my friends and family. I ran out of space on my last comment but I also tend to recommend that they avoid 1080i unless their TV is 1080i native because it introduces an extra deinterlacing step even for 1080p displays that is often done improperly by the display. Unless their DVD player can go to 1080p, I tend to recommend 480i/p depending on DVD player / TV quality. is this not good advice? This whole thing has become one huge screw up IMO. I'm just glad my Onkyo 875 can handle it all nearly perfectly.
I still say there is no one right answer to this question. If I were advising friends and family about which player setting to use, I'd try all the settings in their system to see which one works best and then tell them to use that setting. I do tend to agree that upconverting DVDs to 1080i is probably not the best solution, because the player must first deinterlace the 480i data on the disc, then scale it to 1080p, then interlace that to 1080i, which does introduce an extra step. I also tend to agree that sending 480i from the player is probably better than upconverting in the player, but not always. For example, one of the instructors in the THX video-calibration class I took told me of some LG upconverting DVD players that look terrible when set to output 480i.
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