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So, 4k upscaling TV.
My Daughter wants to watch DVD's so Blu Ray or DVD player required.
To get the best images, do we need an upscaling Blu Ray or will any old DVD player be fine?
Thanks.
It'll look shit upscaled from DVD 1080p upgrading DVD looks bad enough.
The TV should upscale.
Yeah, both above are right. If you play normal DVD or Blu-Ray the TV should upscale it but it will look bad even if you try and upscale a 1080P image. You can't create content for things that weren't there already.
The upscaling on the current cheap bluray players is pretty good - I compared a cheap Panasonic (£60ish) that I bought the MIL a while ago with my Oppo bluray which I bought a few years ago and the Panasonic was about as good, which is pretty good going as the Oppo has quite a bit of sophisticated chipery in there.
It is hard to say which will upscale better, the TV or the bluray.
If you use a bluray player then the player might upscale to 1080P, and then the TV will upscale from there.
Whether than will be better than using a DVD player, or the bluray set to output PAL, and then letting theTV upscale all of it is anyones guess.
Make sure not to sit too close to the TV to watch it though.
To get 4x the resolution out of BD is not mean feat. It's about minimising scaling artefacts.
I would get over to AV forums and see which models produce the best scaling. It's never clear cut that a player or a TV will always be better unless you check individual models.
That said BD should be a lot better than DVD.
We work with 4K/5K a fair bit - it's a different league and even cinemas aren't there yet with mainly 2K on projection systems.
How old is your daughter? Is she going to care if the picture isn't super dooper extra sharp?
Given that most kids are happy to watch stuff on a phone I suspect she wouldn't give two hoots.
To get 4x the resolution out of BD is not mean feat. It's about minimising scaling artefacts.
He wants to upscale DVDs.
wobbliscott - Member
The TV should upscale.
Most TVs I've found are poor at upscaling SD to HD. A decent upscaling DVD or Blu Ray player (i.e. not too cheap) does a far better job.
Upscaling to 4K just in the TV alone, especially from SD, I wouldn't think is going to be that good.
Thing is the player can do more things to enhance the picture and convert for the relevant HD resolution whilst it's decoding the stream off the disc. A good player will have dedicated chips in there for upscaling.
Most TVs I've found are poor at upscaling SD to HD.
Especially if it says Samsung on the front...
Depends if you've got a cheap DVD/BR player and a good TV or vica versa as to where is best for the upscaling to occur.
I got a new telly last year and arranged a back to back comparison of a 4k TV upscaling a BR vs. an HD set playing the same BR and the HD set playing the native format was far far superior than the 4k TV upscaling an HD picture. However the UHD demo picture was in a whole other league. If you watch most of your content from HD or even SD sources then 4k is not going to give you the optimium picture quality.
Depends how quickly you think sufficinet native 4k content will be avaialbe to you. I personally am pessamistic as to how quickly native 4k content will be availalbe, I think 5 years down the line we'll still be mostly watching HD and even some SD source content, so personally i'm in no hurry to go 4k. Based on the quality of HD content streamed over the net i dont't think the net based 4k stuff will be any better.
He wants to upscale DVDs.
Ah, doesn't matter then as it will be pretty poor.
But at least blu-ray means you can play them.
Couple of idle musings,
I wouldn't have thought that there were many domestic "upscaling" DVD players which are even capable of upscaling to UHD. In the bulk of cases you're going to be relying on the TV to do it (because it's newer technology) unless you've bought a new model BD player which is specifically designed to do it.
Within the UHD TV arena, there will be upscalers and there will be upscalers. The high end models will have meaty CPUs and large texture databases to accurately interpolate a signal, but you'll be paying top whack for that. "Affordable" UHD sets are going to have cheaper processors and, well, cheaper lots of things.
I still think that for the moment, if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket then your best buy right now is almost certainly a high-end HD set rather than a bargain basement UHD.
Cougar - Moderator
large texture databases
Say what? Is that how they work? I always thought they just used algorithms like this:
http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~vision/SingleImageSR.html
If this looks OK to you then your DVD will look fine on your UHD TV.
[img] 
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Say what? Is that how they work? I always thought they just used algorithms like this:
Culled from the Internet,
[i]Rather than rely on linear scaling, top chips dynamically address image databases to interpolate data. The Panasonic TX-L65WT600, for example, employs a database of 120,000 textures used to guessitmate detail.[/i]
Depends how quickly you think sufficinet native 4k content will be avaialbe to you. I personally am pessamistic as to how quickly native 4k content will be available
Amazon, Netflix and BT are all doing 4k ( not had a look at them yet as no 4k tv in the disco household ), I imagine that Sky won't be long behind as they love to have the opportunity to bump up the cost of a subscription - once Sky Sports is out in 4k then I imagine it will really take off.
Especially if it says Samsung on the front...
I keep reading this on here. My ageing 40" Samsung has one of the best SD & HD screens I've seen
Amazon, Netflix and BT are all doing 4k
And you're going to need at least 20Mbps of spare bandwidth (on top of what you're already using) to be able to stream UHD. We're getting there slowly, but that's a lot of people for whom it'll be a non-starter.
I keep reading this on here. My ageing 40" Samsung has one of the best SD & HD screens I've seen
Because there are high-end and low-end models, and because quality varies over time.
Which is why the comment is such an inaccurate sweeping generalisation Cougar
4K is not particular new in the pro domain. We've been shooting for 5 years in 4K , and it was available much before too.
It will come - no stopping it now. Given Netflix will only let new content be delivered in 4K...
Consumer wise it's a long haul. But I think the net will drive this.
From production pov we are shooting 6K and that's becoming fairly entrenched now, with the next stop 8K.
Which is why the comment is such an inaccurate sweeping generalisation Cougar
Aye, precisely my point.
Which is why the comment is such an inaccurate sweeping generalisation Cougar
TunerGuy hates Samsung TVs.
our 4k panasonic TX )casnt remember model but 55 inch upscales all bluray really well.
tried using upscaling on yamaha amo to the 4K input on tv and its aweful by comparison
Which Yam amp upscales to 4K? Didn't notice they'd started doing that.
TunerGuy hates Samsung TVs.
I had noticed 😉
TunerGuy hates Samsung TVs.
no, I just thing they upscale badly - I have never seen a good one whereas I have seen Sony, Sharps and Panasonics do pretty good jobs.
I also don't thing Samsungs reliability is great - my sisters one screwed up just over a year old and my 27inch monitor at home keeps acting funny and needing power toggling. My 24s at work seem OK though.
Judging by the quality of streamed HD content from the various providers I wouldn't hold my breath that all 4k is of equal quality. None of the streaming services (Netflix etc.) HD is a patch on BR and BBC HD seems to be of superior quality to any other HD satellite channel. So not all 4k sources are equal just as not all HD sources are equal.
Hence my pessamism that we'll see true 4k content of the quality you see of the demo's in the shops for 10 or more years - there will only be UHD BR, whenver that comes out and prices drop to somewhere near affordale. There is't the bandwidth in the distribution networks yet. Even Sky HD is not proper HD as it is Interlaced and not Progressive scan to save bandwidth. Just think how many corners the internet streamers are cutting.
Even Sky HD is not proper HD as it is Interlaced and not Progressive scan to save bandwidth.
More or less, aye. It's just not 1080p, there is a 720p option if you don't want an interlaced image. (I've spent a while switching between 720p and 1080i and there's no discernible difference to my eye.)
This is a Sky HD pic taken from less than 3ft away on my Samsung - not the greatest source material and not the greatest pic, but under the circumstances, I don't think it's doing a bad job....
[url= https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5725/22172708818_26021649da_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5725/22172708818_26021649da_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/zMjVR5 ]tv[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/85252658@N05/ ]davetheblade[/url], on Flickr
HD on BBC seems to be worse than it used to be - all the stuff about decreasing bitrates because of better encoding and there being no difference seems to be tosh.
What will happen is that HD bitrates and picture quality will gradually go down as they compress it more and more but keep the numbers so it qualifies as HD, and then they will bring in 4K in as compressed format as they can get away with and we will think it is a great improvement over HD, because we haven't noticed HD getting gradually worse.
That's pretty much what happened with SD, SD picture quality went badly down hill when Freeview came in and so we now think 720P HD is great.
This is a Sky HD pic taken from less than 3ft away on my Samsung
so not having to upscale much at all as you are feeding it an HD signal - what are you trying to show?
Give it an SD source with some movement and see how well it does then. I know none of them are that great but Samsungs always seem particularly dodgy.
Told ya.
Told ya.
maybe I should love them in spite of thinking they are flawed - maybe it would improve my Karma ?
so not having to upscale much at all as you are feeding it an HD signal - what are you trying to show?
That Samsung TV's aren't as shit as you make out. I'll take an SD pic later if I get chance. Bear in mind,this TV is 8/9 years old.
COUGAR
my rx v675 (think it is) upscales but rubbish
The other thing to consider when comparing sets of course is, in homes many people cannot set up a TV picture efficiently and in shops it's an artificial environment.
For example, a manufacturer might ship a set with settings designed to look brighter than its rival neighbour in a side-by-side store display, so it looks better when it really isn't (and may still have those hyper-real demo settings when it makes it into someone's home). A shop could tweak the settings to favour stock they want to get rid of. The sources could be coming from god knows where, your four-figure 4K supertelly might be running a demo from a high end 4K source (or its own built-in demo mode) and the regular HD TV next to it some shitty composite feed that's piped halfway round the building. Etc etc.
Point is, as reliable as you think your eyes may be, you could be looking at lies. There are dozens of factors to take into account and the badge on the front isn't the be-all and end-all.
That Samsung TV's aren't as shit as you make out
I am not saying that they are shit, just that their SD upscaling leaves something to be desired in my book, or rather that other makes seems to do a better job of it. Not an issue if you don't feed much SD content to your TV anyway.
I have not really done much of a comparison of how they compare on an HD picture.
I've got a Sony TV - I am also not totally sure on Sonys reliability either based on earlier stuff I had - I always make sure I have a long warranty even though nothing Sony has messed up on me recently.
Something else that's just occurred to me:
The UHD demos I've seen shows images split in two, one half in 4K and the other in HD, to highlight the difference. What's that actually saying? It's saying, "here's how shit I am at upscaling." (-:
my rx v675 (think it is) upscales but rubbish
Gosh, so it does. Who knew.
Surely you'd have to be sitting uncomfortably close to a massive TV to be able to notice either way?
That's one of the disadvantages with a massive TV you don't need to be that close.
TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR - Member
I keep reading this on here. My ageing 40" Samsung has one of the best SD & HD screens I've seen
The panels are fine, and they're found in many other brands. Sony even did or still have them.
The software in Sammys can be a bit iffy. I'm currently on a Samsung though (after moving from Sony fan boy to hater) and it's doing a great job in terms of picture. The Smart TV bit is bit pants though, and upscaling is poor. I use my old HD DVD player for upscaling (which does a better job than my more expensive all singing does all formats inc SACD/DVD-A *except HD DVD* Blu Ray player).
disco_stu - Member
Amazon, Netflix and BT are all doing 4k ( not had a look at them yet as no 4k tv in the disco household ), I imagine that Sky won't be long behind as they love to have the opportunity to bump up the cost of a subscription - once Sky Sports is out in 4k then I imagine it will really take off.
Meh - 3D channels. BBC gave up. Sky probably will follow. 3D TV was supposed to be the future, everything in 3D. No one cares.
I also give you SACD/DVD-A. Irony here of my above post having bought a player for these format! 😀 - but I do have a couple of discs. Point though is the vast majority of people couldn't give a stuff and are happy with badly compressed MP3s and even listening to music from their phone speaker (I see loads of people doing this).
And Blu Ray itself is barely selling. DVD is still way more popular.
High quality is not a priority for people. Netflix and the like will carry niche stuff though but mainstream it's not happening.
ok so got tv model wrong earlier bad memory these days. ts a 58ax800 series. just watching apprentice on freeview hd and quality very good. tv doing all upscaling etc. have done few tweaks to settings ec with munsell dvd.
but would really like a pro setup done on it with spectro etc. i do actually have a i1 pro2 at work but software to calibrate tv is 400 plus and i dnt know enought about settings etc to understand it. dont spose anyone can recommend a company etc in croydon area who do tv calibrations?
Don't bother.
Everything I've read about the decent Panasonic screens is that they're pretty close to calibration, unless you want it optimised for something specific. Certainly their Plasma's are.
oh wow sweet as drac. i have seen some settings for mine but not that in depth. will give that a go when have time
oh wow sweet as drac. i have seen some settings for mine but not that in depth. will give that a go when have time
No problem. There'll be other sites too I used one for my TV and they worked a treat.
again have read that wobbliscott. went for panasonic as reckoned to be very natural to real colour while the samsungs are punchy but maybe unrealistic and as i work with colour images in print i can be bit fussy when things look a bit fake for want of better description
Setting up a new TV and finding out how much better you can make it from the standard settings is part of the fun for me - search your tv on AV Forums and look at some of the suggested settings. You'll probably settle somewhere in between a few user recommendations to suit your own personal taste, but it's surprising what a difference it will make
those settings made a massive difference
Yup it's surprising just what getting it right makes.