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Question about video scalers

I recently purchased a Sony Bravia 40" lcd television and am less than thrilled at the quality of some standard definition material. Our previous CRT display, a 32" hdtv Hitachi Ultravision, actually looked better to me than the Sony and looked great on all programming, hdtv or standard. The Sony looked better than anything else in the store on hdtv, but the inhome experience lacks a bit on standard def. I'm sure a big part of it is that the larger screen magnifies source quality discrepancies. So, my question is, how well do video upscalers work and how much does one have to spend to get acceptable quality? I see everything from $300 units to $5k or more Runcos. Any tips or where to purchase and what to look for? FWIW, cable service delivered through an Atlanta Scientific Explorer 8300hd box/dvr connected via component inputs. I've got a HDMI cable on the way.
photon46
holenneck
127 posts
 
i was also very unhappy with SD material on my new HDTV, but it really isnt the TV's fault. A scaler may not be able to help much, what may help is a call to your local cable provider to request some assistance. This may mean adding a signal booster or it could mean having a technican come out and clean the local fiber node.
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
LCD's tend to look soft overall. Sony is one of the nicer pictures out there however. You might find some improvement with a scaler, but your display might be the final limitation. I would try avsforums.

CRT black level and phosphore speed is much better than most LCD displays so this is what you may be seeing. Ultravisions were pretty good, especially if they were set up right. Yeah, it's not flat, but the picture is better.
ngjockey
1,042 posts
 
You could run the signal through a coumputer and TV card (I'm not sure if Hauppage PVR has ouputs back to TV) along with a shareware program called DScaler. There might be sound sync problems due to computing time, so a very fast computer is needed.
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rysa4
266 posts
 
Well. Whats happening is that Standard def material is being upscaled to fit a higher resolution fixed pixel display. Upscaling is technically difficult and a quality scaler DOES make a difference; however, you cannot create a picture better than the original source resolution.

Bottom line- The scaler in the Sony LCD is not the best. If you intend to watch a fair amount of SD material, try a video scaler; I belive your result will improve. It IS the scaler in the display that makes a difference.

Also, your box will likely have resolution options--in theory it should be set to the resolution of the display. Try all options though and combinations and see what happpens.
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