[radicalvolume]

Would there be a significant difference in picture quality between regular DVDs on an up-converting player and 1080P media on an HD/BR player if both were connected to a 720P LCD panel?

[Enjoymms]

Undoubtedly, the 1080p content would look much better.

[envenonearo]

Upconverting is always going to look worse than media running at the same or higher resolutions then the display. Granted it won't look bad at all, just not as good as downscaled 1080p content.

[GillTeepbew]

night and day difference!

[Loovikeillilen]

Significant, yes. [yes]

[tomsmuidh]

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare...pare1_DVD.html

Bit of a comparison there.
HD DVD/Blu-Ray are endoed at much higher bitrates, at a HD resolution with a much more advanced encoder than DVD. There is a big difference.

[haittiweerved]

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare...pare1_DVD.html

Bit of a comparison there.
HD DVD/Blu-Ray are endoed at much higher bitrates, at a HD resolution with a much more advanced encoder than DVD. There is a big difference.

Fantastic link, thanks.

[tomsmuidh]

Fantastic link, thanks.

One thing that should be noted about those comparisons, LotR has not had a BD/HD release yet so those shots have probably come from a HD download service. If that is the case then the bitrate is quite a bit less than what you would find on a blu-ray or HD DVD release. But it gives you a good starting point on what to expect.

[haittiweerved]

One thing that should be noted about those comparisons, LotR has not had a BD/HD release yet so those shots have probably come from a HD download service. If that is the case then the bitrate is quite a bit less than what you would find on a blu-ray or HD DVD release. But it gives you a good starting point on what to expect.

So on my 16:10 1680X1080 it would look much better right? My monitor is not true 1080?

[levitratestimon]

One thing that should be noted about those comparisons, LotR has not had a BD/HD release yet so those shots have probably come from a HD download service. If that is the case then the bitrate is quite a bit less than what you would find on a blu-ray or HD DVD release. But it gives you a good starting point on what to expect.

not necesarily... you see the hd broadcasts were usually taken from the same master copy that hddvd/bluray uses... some of the newer h264 broadcasts in europe are identical to the hddvd/bluray versions

[TorryJens]

Heres another comparison:

http://alteredbeast.i8.com/480vs720.html


Note the link to check the 1080p comparison on that page, that shows a big difference between itself and 480p.

[MinisuipGaicai]

I don't think anyone has actually answered the question - so far those screen shots have both been 1080p, so what about 1080p being downscaled to 720p vs dvd (480p?) being upped to 780p?

The difference IMO would be simply the 1080p downscalled would be better, but by how much?

[TorryJens]

I don't think anyone has actually answered the question - so far those screen shots have both been 1080p, so what about 1080p being downscaled to 720p vs dvd (480p?) being upped to 780p?

The difference IMO would be simply the 1080p downscalled would be better, but by how much?

Because downscaling is better than upscaling, also HD content on HD/BD discs have better colour reproduction & sound amongst other things.

[wp6Eg2Fm]

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare...pare1_DVD.html

Bit of a comparison there.
HD DVD/Blu-Ray are endoed at much higher bitrates, at a HD resolution with a much more advanced encoder than DVD. There is a big difference.

I'd consider it old news since it just said that the DVD video was captured with WinDVD 6. I just tried WinDVD 8 recently and its like night and day compared to windvd 6 that i was using before. (grainy background is the most noticeable) and Win DVD 8 really cleaned up the picture a bit so i liked it lot. Just that the interface is different now. I have Dell 2407 WFP btw.


Im just holding off those blu-rays til they get more movies out.

[Loovikeillilen]

I'd consider it old news since it just said that the DVD video was captured with WinDVD 6. I just tried WinDVD 8 recently and its like night and day compared to windvd 6 that i was using before. (grainy background is the most noticeable) and Win DVD 8 really cleaned up the picture a bit so i liked it lot. Just that the interface is different now. I have Dell 2407 WFP btw.


Im just holding off those blu-rays til they get more movies out.

I am sure it does look better but it still doesn't make up for those thousands of pixels HD adds to the image.

[Enjoymms]

I don't think anyone has actually answered the question - so far those screen shots have both been 1080p, so what about 1080p being downscaled to 720p vs dvd (480p?) being upped to 780p?

If you take a look at the index page of the site sionyboy linked to, the comparisons are actually at 480p.
http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html

What you see there is essentially the DVD being up-scaled from 480i to 480p (presumably it's an NTSC source), and a 1080p HD source being down-scaled to 480p. And yes, even there the HD looks quite a bit better.

Meaning that even on an EDTV you're going to notice a reasonable difference, so you'd definitely see a difference on a 720p LCD.

[tomsmuidh]

I don't think that on smaller screen sizes you will really get the benefit of a 1080 source. I think looking at the downscaled 1080 -> 480 images on that site you'll see you can't really get a grasp of how much detail is in those pictures. It looks better yes, but it looks a lot better when you can see the image at its native resolution.

I'm also pretty sure that watching a 1080p movie on a 720p set won't result in any better picture quality.

ptaaty, kinggroin and mutelight are pretty hot on av issues, they'll be able to give more informed answers.

[MinisuipGaicai]

If you take a look at the index page of the site sionyboy linked to, the comparisons are actually at 480p.
http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html

What you see there is essentially the DVD being up-scaled from 480i to 480p (presumably it's an NTSC source), and a 1080p HD source being down-scaled to 480p. And yes, even there the HD looks quite a bit better.

Meaning that even on an EDTV you're going to notice a reasonable difference, so you'd definitely see a difference on a 720p LCD.

It's better, but I'm still not sold on HD just yet. On massive screens I can understand the need, but for me atleast I think HD would be quite wasted. Sitting here looking at those images I can clearly see a difference, but it's very small (atleast on that comparision) and once you throw in movement it's going to be even harder to tell. I'll be waiting for cheaper prices, certainly not paying a premuim for.

[Enjoymms]

I don't think that on smaller screen sizes you will really get the benefit of a 1080 source. I think looking at the downscaled 1080 -> 480 images on that site you'll see you can't really get a grasp of how much detail is in those pictures. It looks better yes, but it looks a lot better when you can see the image at its native resolution.

Well no doubt about that. I think for the price of admission, it's probably not worth getting HD content onto an SD or EDTV. You'd be better off spending that same money on making the move to HD. But there would definitely be a noticeable improvement in image quality over an SD feed.

I'm also pretty sure that watching a 1080p movie on a 720p set won't result in any better picture quality.

Any better picture quality than what? It's definitely going to look better than anything that has to be up-scaled to the 720p, but you mean compared to something at 720p? That's debatable. I think 1080p playing on a 720p screen could actually look slightly worse than a 720p source, seeing as it has to do some scaling. Whereas the best possible display is going to be 1:1. I'd imagine the difference is negligible though.

[tomsmuidh]

Well no doubt about that. I think for the price of admission, it's probably not worth getting HD content onto an SD or EDTV. You'd be better off spending that same money on making the move to HD. But there would definitely be a noticeable improvement in image quality over an SD feed.

Well I was thinking more about the size of the HD screen really, I'm only going on what I've read at av forums around the net, but something like a 26" HD TV really won't show off how good the picture quality is on BD/HD compared to a DVD player with a good upscaler. I'm not saying there would be no difference between the two, but is it a difference that is necessarily worth £500.

I'm not going to get into the issue of "1080 only works on