720p 0r 1080i ?

[keyoctave]

My plasma TV has 720p native screen resolution. I believe that D* sends us a MPEG-4 signal in 720p. Would it be best to leave my HR20 with a 720p output on the HDMI cable or go with 1080i? I really can't see a difference when I switch between the two. Thanks.

[Stuart Sweet]

Bottom line is, do what looks best to you. Most people with 720p TVs like to use 720p, but personally, don't ask why, everything on my TV looks better at 1080i.

[veryoldschool]

My plasma TV has 720p native screen resolution. I believe that D* sends us a MPEG-4 signal in 720p. Would it be best to leave my HR20 with a 720p output on the HDMI cable or go with 1080i? I really can't see a difference when I switch between the two. Thanks.
If your TV is only 720p, then you'll never "see" 1080i, as a 1080i signal will be converted to 720p by your TV.
DirecTV "simply" passes on whatever the broadcaster resolution is.
Some are 720p and others are 1080i, but "only your TV" would know and if 720p is all your TV will display, then..... :)

[dtrell]

My plasma TV has 720p native screen resolution. I believe that D* sends us a MPEG-4 signal in 720p. Would it be best to leave my HR20 with a 720p output on the HDMI cable or go with 1080i? I really can't see a difference when I switch between the two. Thanks.

you plasma TV is not 720p. It is 768p. there are only a very few sets ever made that were 720p, one of them being the prevoous 37 inch panasonic plasma. thats the only one i know of that was ever a 720p plasma. is that yours?

[TomCat]

My plasma TV has 720p native screen resolution. I believe that D* sends us a MPEG-4 signal in 720p. Would it be best to leave my HR20 with a 720p output on the HDMI cable or go with 1080i? I really can't see a difference when I switch between the two. Thanks.DTV sends channels in their original format (unless you count the soon-to-be-history MPEG-2 1080i channels, which are sometimes derezzed to 1280x1080 or 1440x1080). So if you get your local CBS/NBC affils in MPEG-4, they are at 1080i, while your local FOX/ABC affils will be at 720p. Most MPEG-4 sat channels other than these are 1080 (the ESPNs, currently in MPEG-2, are 720p).

If your set is truly a 720p-native set, setting the DVR to 720p is not much different than leaving it at 1080i, although you would avoid some double conversions by setting the DVR to 720.

If you set the DVR to 1080, for instance, the DVR rescales ABC from 720 to 1080, and then your HDTV rescales it from 1080 back down to 720, essentially reversing the process, both of which could be avoided altogether by setting the DVR to 720. Rescaling unnecessarily can be done pretty transparently, but it can only be less than as good as leaving it in 720 mode all the way.

For 1080 content, setting the DVR to 1080 means it gets rescaled to 720 in the HDTV, and setting it to 720 means it gets rescaled in the DVR. Assuming the scalers are fairly equivalent (which is a safe bet) there would be little difference between them.

Bottom line, setting the DVR to 720 probably makes the best sense.

[keyoctave]

you plasma TV is not 720p. It is 768p. there are only a very few sets ever made that were 720p, one of them being the prevoous 37 inch panasonic plasma. thats the only one i know of that was ever a 720p plasma. is that yours?

Your right. Mine is 768. I just had 720 on my mind!:D

[keyoctave]

DTV sends channels in their original format (unless you count the soon-to-be-history MPEG-2 1080i channels, which are sometimes derezzed to 1280x1080 or 1440x1080). So if you get your local CBS/NBC affils in MPEG-4, they are at 1080i, while your local FOX/ABC affils will be at 720p. Most MPEG-4 sat channels other than these are 1080 (the ESPNs, currently in MPEG-2, are 720p).

If your set is truly a 720p-native set, setting the DVR to 720p is not much different than leaving it at 1080i, although you would avoid some double conversions by setting the DVR to 720.

If you set the DVR to 1080, for instance, the DVR rescales ABC from 720 to 1080, and then your HDTV rescales it from 1080 back down to 720, essentially reversing the process, both of which could be avoided altogether by setting the DVR to 720. Rescaling unnecessarily can be done pretty transparently, but it can only be less than as good as leaving it in 720 mode all the way.

For 1080 content, setting the DVR to 1080 means it gets rescaled to 720 in the HDTV, and setting it to 720 means it gets rescaled in the DVR. Assuming the scalers are fairly equivalent (which is a safe bet) there would be little difference between them.

Bottom line, setting the DVR to 720 probably makes the best sense.

Thank you TomCat for the detailed explanation! It all makes more sense now.

[JonW]

I use native mode. My TV is 1365x768 and has to rescale everything anyway, so it's better that it only be done once.

Something else to keep in mind is that 1080i uses half the refresh rate of 720p, hence why 720p is preferred for fast action shows like sports. So when converting from 720p to 1080i there's more going on than just scaling, 1/2 the frames are dropped. Likewise when converting from 1080i to 720p 1/2 the resolution is dropped.

On the other hand, since DirecTv cannot transmit in 1080p24 format, so a HD movie is converted to 1080i60. If you have a well-designed TV it can detect the film content within the 1080i60 signal and convert it back to or at least treat it as 1080p24 - but this isn't going to happen if you let the HR2x output in 720p mode.

In summary, if you have a high-quality TV use Native mode; unfortunately Native mode probably still slows down channel switching.

[calpolycrew]

Hmm...I dont know about all that. I have a Panasonic 50' Plasma and when I'm watching channels that are in 720p, I can totally tell when I switch to another channel that is in 1080i. Futhermore my TV tells me wheather the content is 720p or 1080i....so how does it scale it back down from 1080i to 720p, when it says its in 1080i??? I have the HR21 set to Native so it flickers when switching resolutions...

[JonW]

Your TV is telling you what the signal it's getting is, not what it's capable of displaying. If you're not sure what your TV can actually display list the model # and we can look it up. A 50" Panasonic is typically 768P or 1080P, though.

Plasma, LCD, DLP, and LCoS unlike CRTs are fixed pixel displays and are only physically capable of displaying a single resolution although the vast majority of them will accept and convert various resolutions fed in.

That flickering you get with native mode as the TV adjusts to the changing signal is also one of the drawbacks and part of the slowness, but another advantage is that if your TV remembers settings by input resolution (like mine does) it will automatically show 480i/480p content in "wide mode" and 1080i/720p content in "full mode" or whatever you prefer.

[Stuart Sweet]

Bottom line is, do what looks best to you. Most people with 720p TVs like to use 720p, but personally, don't ask why, everything on my TV looks better at 1080i.

If your TV is only 720p, then you'll never "see" 1080i, as a 1080i signal will be converted to 720p by your TV.
DirecTV "simply" passes on whatever the broadcaster resolution is.
Some are 720p and others are 1080i, but "only your TV" would know and if 720p is all your TV will display, then..... :)

VOS, you're absolutely right, which is why I cannot account for my 720p tv looking better when fed 1080i content. Not a lot better, just a little sharper. My theory is that the 1080i signal is downsampled to 1366x768 progressive, and I do have the image enhancements on, while the 720p signal is upsampled to 1366x768, and perhaps the image enhancing software can't do a good job.

Or perhaps my TV is just possessed.

[Mike Bertelson]

My plasma has to either upconvert 720p to 768 or downconvert 1080i to 768.

Speaking only for me, I found that I get a better picture when the source is 1080i.

My plasma seems to do a better job downconverting then upconverting.

I think the only way anyone can choose is test it and see what they come up with.

My 2¢. :)

Mike

[veryoldschool]

VOS, you're absolutely right, which is why I cannot account for my 720p tv looking better when fed 1080i content. Not a lot better, just a little sharper. My theory is that the 1080i signal is downsampled to 1366x768 progressive, and I do have the image enhancements on, while the 720p signal is upsampled to 1366x768, and perhaps the image enhancing software can't do a good job.
Or perhaps my TV is just possessed.
Sounds like it's better at "throwing out" parts of the image, than "making them up". :)

[keyoctave]

OK, another couple of questions......

I notice that on my DVR's HDTV settings, I can select any of the resolutions from 480i to 1080i. Would selecting 720p and 1080i allow the unit to switch between either resolution? Would it have to be in native mode to do that?

[Stuart Sweet]

Technically if you are in native mode and have all resolutions checked, the DVR will put out 480i, 720p, or 1080i. However, your display will still show 768 lines progressively.

[keyoctave]

OK, just so i understand this.......

If i check all the resolutions and have the box set in native mode, the box (DVR) will output whatever that resolution is and passes that through the HDMI cable letting the TV do the up/down conversion/interlacing to it's native display resolution.

If I only check one box (say 720p) and de-select the native mode, then the box does the up/down conversion/interlacing and sends that 720p output through my HDMI cable to my TV which will then have to up convert it to it's native screen resolution.

Is this correct?

[jello2594]

it seems that many of you are concerned about image scaling, and rightly so. Why dont you do what I did, and get yourself a professional external scaler? I personally use the Anchor Bay DVDO VP50. However, Anchor Bay is coming out with a new processor called the DVDO Edge, which costs a lot less, and has most of the features you'll need most.

I put my HR20 into "Native" mode (turning on all the resolutions), my Panasonic plasma into 1:1 pixel ratio, and the VP50 is what resizes the image for my display. It makes most Standard Definition material look like High Def. I've put it side-by-side with having both my plasma scale the image, and having the HR20 scale the image, and its easily better to have the external processor do it instead of either.

As a nice plus, for BBC America, and other SD programs that are run as letterbox, I have the VP50 scale the image properly so it fills the screen and maintains the original aspect ratio. Looks much better than using the Zoom feature of the Panasonic plasma.

As a side note, I'm actually a television network engineer, so I can tell even the most minute discrepancies in picture quality, but even the non-engineer friends can see the differences I'm talking about.

[Mike Bertelson]

it seems that many of you are concerned about image scaling, and rightly so. Why dont you do what I did, and get yourself a professional external scaler? I personally use the Anchor Bay DVDO VP50. However, Anchor Bay is coming out with a new processor called the DVDO Edge, which costs a lot less, and has most of the features you'll need most.

I put my HR20 into "Native" mode (turning on all the resolutions), my Panasonic plasma into 1:1 pixel ratio, and the VP50 is what resizes the image for my display. It makes most Standard Definition material look like High Def. I've put it side-by-side with having both my plasma scale the image, and having the HR20 scale the image, and its easily better to have the external processor do it instead of either.

As a nice plus, for BBC America, and other SD programs that are run as letterbox, I have the VP50 scale the image properly so it fills the screen and maintains the original aspect ratio. Looks much better than using the Zoom feature of the Panasonic plasma.

As a side note, I'm actually a television network engineer, so I can tell even the most minute discrepancies in picture quality, but even the non-engineer friends can see the differences I'm talking about.
Don't need to. ;)

I have it set to 480p & 1080i and it does a great job with scaling. :D

Mike

[TomCat]

Thank you TomCat for the detailed explanation! It all makes more sense now.Uhh...yeah. Except it doesn't exactly apply if you are 768-native and not 720.

That means that you will give up some small amount of rez some of the time on some 1080 content if you choose 720 as the DVR output. "Native" mode might make more sense for you, except it can lengthen channel-change times and HDMI handshake times, up to 7-8 seconds, which many find intolerable.

If your set was made before 2005 (when most sets started to do 1080 deinterlace properly) 720 might actually still look better, since the DVR DOES do deinterlace properly, and setting your DVR to 1080 means that happens in the DVR rather than in the HDTV.

Best advice is to try them all and pick what works best for you. There will actually be little difference anyway.

[TomCat]

...Something else to keep in mind is that 1080i uses half the refresh rate of 720p, hence why 720p is preferred for fast action shows like sports. So when converting from 720p to 1080i there's more going on than just scaling, 1/2 the frames are dropped...Not exactly. The faster refresh is one reason, but not the main reason, which is that there will not be any interlace motion error on moving images (or at least a whole hell of a lot less than with 1080i).

Half the frames are not dropped. Half of each frame, the alternating lines in each frame, are dropped. Each frame of 720p takes 1/60th of a second. Each frame serially delivered as 720 progressive is rescaled into 1080 lines. The odd lines are kept from the first frame and the even lines are dropped. The odd lines then become the 540 lines that comprise the first field of the interlaced frame. The even lines are kept from the second progressive frame and the odd lines are dropped. Those remaining even lines then become the 540 lines that comprise the second field of the same interlaced frame. Two fields of 1/60th second each then make one interlaced frame of 1/30th second each (actually 1/59.94 and 1/29.97). If they simply dropped half the frames outright, that would reduce the resolution to 540.

...Likewise when converting from 1080i to 720p 1/2 the resolution is dropped... Again, not really. There are over 2 million pixels in a 1080i frame and less than a million in a 720p frame. That sounds a lot like over half the resolution is dropped, but resolution is dependent upon much more than sheer pixels per frame. Since two frames of 720p are delivered in the same time frame as 1 frame of 1080i, the delivered pixel rate is pretty similar, with 720p delivering about 88% of the pixels per second that 1080i does.

Not only that, but there is a huge difference between potential resolution and perceived resolution. 1080i has a potential resolution somewhat higher than 720p for still images, but in the real world 1080i still images do not appear to be significantly sharper (and they actually are not), only mildly sharper, due to many factors. For moving images, 720p images actually are perceived as sharper (and in some ways they actually are sharper).

Bottom line, there is very little perceived difference in resolution between 720p and 1080i, even on 1080p-native displays, and of course the only resolution that matters is the resolution that is perceived. If one system were actually superior to the other, then would not have all networks adopted the superior format? Of course they would. But neither is actually a superior format, which explains why folks can rarely if ever even tell the difference.

[CompuDude]

At the risk of piggy-backing onto this discussion, I'm guessing for a 1080i rptv (crt) set such as mine, which does 1080i as it's max best res (does not do 720p at all, as far as I know), I should lock the DVR on 1080i? That way the DVR will upscale 480p content to 1080i, and it will down-res 720p content to 1080i, and actual 1080i content will be passed perfectly?

[veryoldschool]

At the risk of piggy-backing onto this discussion, I'm guessing for a 1080i rptv (crt) set such as mine, which does 1080i as it's max best res (does not do 720p at all, as far as I know), I should lock the DVR on 1080i? That way the DVR will upscale 480p content to 1080i, and it will down-res 720p content to 1080i, and actual 1080i content will be passed perfectly?
Having had a TV like that, your options are 1080i & 480i, or just 1080i..

[houskamp]

whatever looks the best to you is what counts.. I have one with all res's set and one with 720/1080 set.. thats how they look the best to me, and thats what counts :)

[jello2594]

Don't need to. ;)

I have it set to 480p & 1080i and it does a great job with scaling. :D

Mike

I disagree. The HR20/21 does a mediocre job at scaling - better than older displays, probably on-par with current displays, but worse than a commercial display such as the Panasonic commercial units, and much worse than an external scaler.

[TomCat]

I disagree. The HR20/21 does a mediocre job at scaling - better than older displays, probably on-par with current displays, but worse than a commercial display such as the Panasonic commercial units, and much worse than an external scaler.It sounds like possibly the reason you disagree is because you bought an external scaler. It's OK to drink the Kool-Aid if you can afford to, but the reality of scaling today is that the techniques are not really all that sophisticated (because they don't have to be) and there really are not lots of different ways to do it or enhancements that can improve it.

It's all about the math, and the math is the same everywhere, meaning that the best algorithm possible is now ubiquitous, at least now that processor speed is no longer a factor (which it most-definitely was in 2003 and is why external scalers were born which had ways of increasing the power and cleverly employing workarounds).

But now that it is not a factor, completely-transparent scaling can be done cheaply by any HDTV vendor. This means that modern scalers in modern DVRs or displays may have even surpassed those in external scalers bought just a couple of years ago. Driven by the hunger for new HD displays, that technology matured very quickly in the last few years, making what might have been a good, if expensive, idea a few years ago, obsolete.

It's not unlike CD players that were $1500 in 1983 but were reduced to one mass-marketed chip + transport by a decade later that provided better quality and cost the manufacturer under $5. My company paid $35,000 for ATSC demodulators in 1999 that are now easily outperformed by the AM21, which is quite often given away free.

[Toyo]

Very educational thread....

Here is my setup, you guys tell me if I am doing this correctlt?? Please

HR-21 to the IN on my Onkyo 605 via HDMI
HDMI out going to my Panasonic TH-42PZ77U 1080P.
HR set to Native, with all the resolution boxes checked.

When I change channels the delay is only a second if not faster. I do not have any delay for the most part. The picture is pretty darn good to me. Though it might be able to be better, but I have no reference to compare it with?

Now here is where the confusion comes in. Some people claim the Onkyo does not scale anything past 720P. I can't seem to find a true answer to this one.

I do know that when I play my Panasonic BD-30 Blue Ray the picture is much better.

I cant seem to find the correct answer to my setup. Some people say I am getting the best my equipment can display, while others say my Onkyo is hanicapping me.

I would appreciate any feedback.

Jello, It sounds like maybe a scaler might be in the future for me. If my Panny doesnt do a good job.

[jello2594]

Um, its not drinking the Kool-aid, it's knowing the difference between a product that has good algorithmic interpolation for adding and subtracting lines, and one that does a mediocre job of it. I understand that technology has improved for the low-end consumer market of HDTVs, but due to the demand of broadcasters and affiliates requiring HD/SD interim products, high-end consumer products by makers of chipsets for commercial units will perform better than the circuitry in IRDs that are sold at at a loss or given away.

Why do you think television networks and content distributors continue to use products like the Snell & Wilcox Alechmist instead of a cheap standards converter? ...Or monitor their signals on Sony LMD monitors instead of a Hitachi plasma? While some inexperienced people cannot tell the difference, most everyone else can, especially those with the horrible job of watching entertainment (gossip) TV all day.

It sounds like possibly the reason you disagree is because you bought an external scaler. It's OK to drink the Kool-Aid if you can afford to, but the reality of scaling today is that the techniques are not really all that sophisticated (because they don't have to be) and there really are not lots of different ways to do it or enhancements that can improve it.

It's all about the math, and the math is the same everywhere, meaning that the best algorithm possible is now ubiquitous, at least now that processor speed is no longer a factor (which it most-definitely was in 2003 and is why external scalers were born which had ways of increasing the power and cleverly employing workarounds).

But now that it is not a factor, completely-transparent scaling can be done cheaply by any HDTV vendor. This means that modern scalers in modern DVRs or displays may have even surpassed those in external scalers bought just a couple of years ago. Driven by the hunger for new HD displays, that technology matured very quickly in the last few years, making what might have been a good, if expensive, idea a few years ago, obsolete.

It's not unlike CD players that were $1500 in 1983 but were reduced to one mass-marketed chip + transport by a decade later that provided better quality and cost the manufacturer under $5. My company paid $35,000 for ATSC demodulators in 1999 that are now easily outperformed by the AM21, which is quite often given away free.

[jello2594]

First off, why is your Onkyo touching the video portion of the HDMI? That unit should be simply passing the data through - unless for some reason the Onkyo is doing some sort of on-screen display on your plasma. Onkyo's website confirms that the TX-605's HDMI ports will handle 1080p. It's important to remember that any unit that needs to decode any data in the HDMI connector (such as audio in the case of the Onkyo) isn't passing through the video, but repeating it.

This should never cause any sort of noticeable video effects, as it remains digital data, but once you introduce things such as OSD, scaling, etc., then it could cause either harm, good, or both.

In my setup, all of my working sources - PS3, HDDVD, Oppo DVD, HR21, HDV deck, BetaSP deck, an OSD output of my pre-amp, and my security camera system (4 HDMIs, 2 component, 1 S-Video, 1 composite) all go through my DVDO unit, along with their corresponding audio (Optical, Coax, or analog). The HDMI from the DVDO goes to my Panasonic plasma (the plasmas only connection besides power), and a digital coax output from the DVDO goes to my audio setup. My universal remote control simply changes the input on the DVDO depending on what source I want to watch and that's all. I have a true minimum number of cables in my system. My pre-amp only has a single coax cable as an input (though it has 20 audio inputs available - 8 digital, 12 analog) from the DVDO, and it has no video going through it at all. There's only one HDMI cable going to my plasma from the DVDO. Everything else is connectors from the source components to the DVDO, or audio outputs from the pre-amp to my amplifiers in my closet.

My HT system used to be really complicated, with all sorts of cables interconnecting every component. It just made so much more sense to make it as simple as possible.

Very educational thread....

Here is my setup, you guys tell me if I am doing this correctlt?? Please

HR-21 to the IN on my Onkyo 605 via HDMI
HDMI out going to my Panasonic TH-42PZ77U 1080P.
HR set to Native, with all the resolution boxes checked.

When I change channels the delay is only a second if not faster. I do not have any delay for the most part. The picture is pretty darn good to me. Though it might be able to be better, but I have no reference to compare it with?

Now here is where the confusion comes in. Some people claim the Onkyo does not scale anything past 720P. I can't seem to find a true answer to this one.

I do know that when I play my Panasonic BD-30 Blue Ray the picture is much better.

I cant seem to find the correct answer to my setup. Some people say I am getting the best my equipment can display, while others say my Onkyo is hanicapping me.

I would appreciate any feedback.

Jello, It sounds like maybe a scaler might be in the future for me. If my Panny doesnt do a good job.

[Toyo]

Jello2594, I appreciate your feedback. Well at least I have another source that confirms my Onkyo does 1080P!

If I didnt run my HDMI to my Onkyo from DVR, back to Plasma, then how would it obtain the best 1080 picture? If I run just video to my Onkyo, am I not cutting myself short if I downgraded to component? Or shall I just run HDMI to my Blue Ray? All I have going to my Panny is 1 HDMI IN and the power plug as well. In regards to the Onkyo having OSD, yes I do use that. But I should be able to use component for that.

I have a 10:00 AM appt with Panasonic at my house. My TV started making a loud ticking noise 1 night, loud enough to wake me up after I fell asleep in my Lazy Boy one night. They want to check it out. Actually it is a high end A/V business they subbed the work out too. MAybe I will ask him what his suggestion would be as well.

Thanks alot!

[dtrell]

Sounds like it's better at "throwing out" parts of the image, than "making them up". :)

depends on your HD set. i have a pioneer 5070 plasma which was proven by CNET to use all of the data of a 1080i signal to downconvert to 768p. many other sets throw out half the lines of a 1080i signal then upconvert the 540p to 768p. this has been discussed ad nauseum in a thread on the AVS forum. my set is very good with 1080i signals as a result.

[jello2594]

Jello2594, I appreciate your feedback. Well at least I have another source that confirms my Onkyo does 1080P!

If I didnt run my HDMI to my Onkyo from DVR, back to Plasma, then how would it obtain the best 1080 picture? If I run just video to my Onkyo, am I not cutting myself short if I downgraded to component? Or shall I just run HDMI to my Blue Ray? All I have going to my Panny is 1 HDMI IN and the power plug as well. In regards to the Onkyo having OSD, yes I do use that. But I should be able to use component for that.

I have a 10:00 AM appt with Panasonic at my house. My TV started making a loud ticking noise 1 night, loud enough to wake me up after I fell asleep in my Lazy Boy one night. They want to check it out. Actually it is a high end A/V business they subbed the work out too. MAybe I will ask him what his suggestion would be as well.

Thanks alot!

Since it's a digital source and digital display, you should probably stay with an HDMI connection between them. However, since the Onkyo is decoding the digital video stream so it can burn on on-screen display on top of it, you might want to try to bypass the Onkyo for video switching, at least temporarily, to see if you can tell a difference in picture quality. Simply connect the HDMI from the display directly to the DirecTV receiver, and a short digital audio cable to an input of your Onkyo. If you can see a definite difference in picture quality, that means the Onkyo may be negatively affecting the picture quality in the decode/encode/decode process, and you may want to change to a true external HDMI switcher (or scaler) and live without the OSD.

As a little bonus, the external scaler will also tell you what resolution and refresh rates you're dealing with both on the output of your source and what's being fed to the display.

[JonW]

Now here is where the confusion comes in. Some people claim the Onkyo does not scale anything past 720P. I can't seem to find a true answer to this one.

You should have the Onkyo configured to just pass on the signal as-is. Confirm with your Panasonic that it's seeing 480i, 720p, and 1080i coming in on different channels.

Some of the higher-end Onkyo's have the Reon HQV scaler, and it's possible there might be situations where it would be worth using that since it may be a better scaler and de-interlacer than what's in the TV.

But the general rule of thumb is to keep the scaling and conversion steps down *unless* you're trying to solve a problem with a weak link in the chain or take advantage of a feature.

btw, my Denon 4308ci can overlay graphics without performing scaling. I'm always tempted to turn it off though, because the graphics block too much of the screen and stay up too long.

[Toyo]

you guys are great, I really appreciate your help. Can you shoot me a link to a good scaler? I have never looked into one of these before.

[CompuDude]

you guys are great, I really appreciate your help. Can you shoot me a link to a good scaler? I have never looked into one of these before.

http://www.anchorbaytech.com/products/systems/vp50pro.php

REALLY nice scaler. There are cheaper options, but I wouldn't count on spending less than $1k.

[jello2594]

you guys are great, I really appreciate your help. Can you shoot me a link to a good scaler? I have never looked into one of these before.

I think the upcoming DVDO Edge (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1051246) may be a good choice to those who dont need every single bell and whistle.

If you're looking for a bargain, you can join their Public Beta and get the unit for $500. Just read this post. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1051294)

[TomCat]

Um, its not drinking the Kool-aid, it's knowing the difference between a product that has good algorithmic interpolation for adding and subtracting lines, and one that does a mediocre job of it. I understand that technology has improved for the low-end consumer market of HDTVs, but due to the demand of broadcasters and affiliates requiring HD/SD interim products, high-end consumer products by makers of chipsets for commercial units will perform better than the circuitry in IRDs that are sold at at a loss or given away...You are free to keep telling yourself that if it justifies your cash outlay, but that does not make it factual. Also, just because technology trickles down and becomes widespread and inexpensive in no way implies that it is inferior to older technology that is expensive and elitist. It may actually be the same technology, and in the case of scaling algorithms, it typically is. If not, newer technology, even if it might be cheaper and more available to the great unwashed, might even be better.

If anything, that is what is implied by progress, not that the technology is any less special simply because Joe Sixpack can now get possibly the exact same technology automagically in the Bravia that he picked up at BestBuy last week. Joe doesn't know the difference, and it's not really a matter of knowing the difference. Now, he doesn't have to. The snob factor has been eliminated from the equation.

And that was exactly my point, that "good algorithmic interpolation", as you refer to it, is no longer exclusively within the province of outboard scalers. It used to be, yes, only that was then and this is now. But hey, whatever gets you through the night.

...Why do you think television networks and content distributors continue to use products like the Snell & Wilcox Alechmist instead of a cheap standards converter? ...Or monitor their signals on Sony LMD monitors instead of a Hitachi plasma? While some inexperienced people cannot tell the difference, most everyone else can, especially those with the horrible job of watching entertainment (gossip) TV all day. Is it really about who can tell the difference and who can't? It really is not, and you might want to consider not implying that, especially to a broadcast maintenance engineer who gets paid well to know the difference and has been dealing intimately with such issues on a daily basis for decades.

And speaking precisely from that point of view I don't have to wonder why we use the products we do, I already know the answer. But I also understand that the high price does not always imply better quality in certain aspects, or at least in every aspect, than is available to consumers, which is one of the real beauties of digital processing.

The S&W Alchemist (or "Alechmist", as you call it) is pricey for many other reasons. It's significant development cost is amortized over hundreds of users, not hundreds of thousands such as a Panny plasma might be. It needs to be exceptionably reliable and maintenance-free and operate within tolerances that won't drift over its lifespan. It is not a "one-size-fits-all" application. It needs to be flexible and able to cover multiple configurations simultaneously, and it needs to handle not just simple rescaling, but processing of 8 to 16 channels of either embedded AES or PCM pro audio, Dolby E, gamut legalization, multiple GPI/GPO control, simultaneous cross-conversion to other formats, lipsync error control, SNMP monitoring over LAN, timecode, genlock, on-board diagnostics within its own special-purpose GUI, and on and on and on. It is among the finest multi-purpose boxes available, yet simple rescaling is not really done differently there from how it's done in Joe's Bravia. The math is the same, and the proc power to do that is now, thankfully, just as available to Joe as it is to S&W.

I think it is wonderful news that such technology has trickled down. It's possible your opinion might be otherwise. But like it or not, about the only ones really smarting from that truth are those who take perverse pleasure in being able to afford toys that not just everybody can have. It's sort of like the guy who stood in line for hours last year for the privilege of buying a slow iPhone for $600, who's sort of starting to look like a class-A chump right about now to those who just bought a faster one for $199. Regardless where you come down on the issue, that particular playing field (mature scaling technology) has also been leveled, whether you are happy about it or not. It's now available to anyone in the market for a quality HDTV. I just hope you're still not making the payments.