Topic: So called up scaling DVD players....are they any good?

[Tony]

I have a full HD TV, and tomorrow will have Freesat HD.Now as I was doing the M-in-L's shopping in Morrisons, I noticed they had some £35 upscaling DVD players  with a HDMI socket.

Now I was thinking of nipping down with a HDMI lead and asking them to play the DVD which is currently playing on a 42" telly connected via a scart cable, trying it via an HDMI cable. but fortunately Morrissons ain't got a Full HD set in the building, so that would be a pointless comparison.

So what I'm really asking is, are they any good or is the difference hardly noticeable. I just thought at that money I might give them a go if any body reckons they are worth it. Nope not that bothered that I would pay out for blue-ray, or the price of blue-ray movies for that matter.

Any comments ?

[sam]

I just don't see how this could improve anything... the DVD has a finite resolution, surely you can't improve on that - of course that is assuming that the old video connectors actually display all the data on a DVD, which I'm sure they must do. If you really care, get blu-ray. I've got that on my laptop but I've no intention of buying any blu-ray discs.

[Simon]

I don't have a full HD TV, as mine only goes up to 720 resolution, so I can only comment on my own experience, Tony, but I have to say, having used three different upscaling DVD players, the difference is barely noticeable.

[Tony]

I don't have a full HD TV, as mine only goes up to 720 resolution, so I can only comment on my own experience, Tony, but I have to say, having used three different upscaling DVD players, the difference is barely noticeable.

I hear what your saying Simon, but the upscaling DVD players you tried could not up scale to 1080p on your TV could they. So we are still no nearer to knowing if they make a difference, that makes them worth investing in if used in conjunction with full HD TV's.

Sam, I admit I'm clueless in these matters, hence I'm looking for advice.

I mean aren't all these TV's sold as "HD ready" sold in a way I would argue is "intentionally misleading" HD ready is it, meaning what exactly? The vast majority buying these TV's will no doubt interpret "HD ready" as being ready to show true HD pictures. When I suspect the reality is [though I could be totally wrong here] these sets will down scale true HD content to suit the non HD resolutions of these "HD Ready" sets.

[Simon]

I think that's about right, Tony.  My TV accepts a 1080p input, but downscales it to it's native resolution.  I also have no idea what "HD Ready" is intended to mean.  720 is an HD resolution, but I guess, it's a low HD resolution, hence why the sets are now cheaper than the Full HD ones.  When I bought mine, about 3½ years ago, the price of the full HD sets was too prohibitive.

[sam]

yeah that sounds right...

[Tony]

oh well, I might just nip to the co op and see if I can conduct a test on one of their HD sets. I see these sales guys looking totally bored wishing the day away. Now I just know they would also like a definitive answer to that kind of question, I mean it's all grist to the mill in'it   

[Sandra]

My experience of upscaling DVDs is limited Tony but I think they are essential for plasmas and LCD TVs.
The only ones I have seen in action have been on 720p/1080i sets.
As an experiment I recorded a programme that was showing fish swimming around the coral on my HD satellite box in 1080i. The colours and clarity on my TV made it look almost 3D like and you felt you could touch the fish. I downloaded the file to my pc and burned it to a DVD, it had to be done as SD so dropped in quality.
I played it back on my satellite box's inbuilt DVD, even though its a HD box, Linux doesnt support Blu Ray yet so its only an SD DVD writer/player. It does however upscale SD sources to 1080i. It was still a very good picture with only a slightly poorer picture. Having said that my TV is only 32 inches and is excellent for SD as well as HD as its CRT.
I then took that DVD around to a friends with a new 42 inch Plasma TV. She has an old panasonic DVD recorder thats connected via scart and an upscaling cheapie DVD player from Asda (about £25) that connects via HDMI.
The panasonic picture was terrible, dull colours, blurred edges on the fish and the coral etc.
Playing it on the cheap upscaling DVD player it was almost as good as playing it through my DVD player on my TV, nowhere near as good as the original 1080i played back from the satellite box hard drive though but it was probably the best picture that her plasma has ever had so far.

The problem with some plasma and lcd TVs is that they do apparently scale up and down themselves somehow. This can possibly negate the benefits of upscaling something before it gets to the TV as the TV may actually downscale it then upscale it again.

The only real way to see if you can see a difference with your TV is to try it but for £25 to £30 or so, plus an HDMI cable its not going to cost you a lot of money, even if its not a big improvement.

[Tony]

Thanks for that very insight full post Sandra. I might have known you would have tested something like this out already. Now regards some HD sets doing the up scaling themselves, yes I'm sure I've read that somewhere, possibly in my Toshiba manual  But I have not been able to find that passage [if I did read it in there] this time round.

But as you say, at £35'ish even if it don't do miracles , your not a great deal of money out.

[Tony]

I think I've found what I'm looking for a Toshiba XDE600 £59.95 delivered. looks a decent bit of kit Video And it scores well in THIS Pro review, scoring 9/10 where it counts. It should go nicely with my Toshiba REGZA 37X3030DB TV

Asda are doing it @ £95 supposedly a Star Offer  

Bugger just checked stock levels @ Superfi and they are zero....reminds me of the old joke ..when we are out of stock they are well cheap.

Edit: Never heard of this company, but they have quite a few stores as well as the web. Read some good testimonials, and actually rang the web operation up to enquire about the out of stock and lead time indicated on line as end of November.

The guy who sounded very genuine on the phone, checked for me and said they had 120 on order from Toshiba, and yes they did expect them in by the end November. Besides he said [and I noticed it on the website] there is a cancel web order facility if you get fed up of waiting for the stock to arrive.

So I've pre ordered one 

[Rik]

FWIW, Tony, I've compared upscaling to 'plain' playback on my 1080i Panny. The upscaling does look better, but it's more to do, I believe, with the image processing than adding detail, which obviously it can't. The same disc in Bluray is noticeably better, btw.

[Simon]

Did you think to try Amazon, Tony?  I found a Tosh DVD on there the other day, for a similar price, but not sure if it was the same model. It was reduced to £59.95 from £99.95. 

[Tony]

cheers Rik, well I might as well have it, and it being a Tosh like my telly I'd  rather have that for the extra £25 than the Morrisons offering, it was called a Lowery and it looked cheap.

Decided not to go down the Blue-ray route for reasons given earlier. And if I buy this Tosh up scaling DVD player, I'll have spent £403 in total on the Freesat setup+DVD player and leads. Mind you, minimum first year with Sky+ HD would have cost with install £372, then £342 every year there after until it went up again, so not bad really.

But seeing as the dish install guy has not turned up yet, 20 minutes late, and if he fails to turn up today at all. I'll  blow him out and get the gear from Amazon, and do my own install. As the dish will only be just above the patio doors leading onto our balcony left hand side. With the TV sighted backing onto the patio doors right hand side, about a six meter run of cable x 2 around the patio door casing, and couple of foot on the skirting board. That will save me another £38, if I do it myself.....not a big saving but that's cozI did push the installer for a good price 

Been and had a look on Amazon Simon, its £76.46 but you know what it's only region 2 with no hacks to be found as yet mmmmmmmm   never mind I can think about it till the end of November.

Thanks lads, I always  appreciate your input, talking of input has Mrs C forgot to take Mr C his morning cupper?

[Simon]

Must be a different one, Tony, as the one I saw was multi region out of the box.

[Sandra]

Dont forget when buying a DVD player Tony, that the big brand names often arent multiregion and cant be made so as easily as the unknown brands often can. Also for versatility get one that does MPEG 4 as well for your DivX and Xvid DVDs