7 replies to this topic

[Rickhunter7]

Hello.

 

Reading many posts related to graphics I've noticed that some people have trouble grasping the concept of native resolution and upscaling. Because of this I want to propose an experiment that can make these concepts clear to anyone. This experiment can easily be done if you gather all the elements, hell you don't even need to gather the elements, you just need to do the steps in order. Without further ado, here it is:

 

Elements you need to get:

 

* A high definition TV, preferably full HD (1080p)

* A DVD player (a normal one, not the newer ones that come with an hdmi port)

* A Blu Ray player

* A movie in DVD and a movie in Blu Ray, preferably the movies should be the computer animation kind like Shrek or Cars, it is also better if both movies are the same.

 

Step 1: Hook up the DVD player and play the DVD movie. Notice how there is an important amount of "jaggedness" around the edges of objects, for example, in the Lion King movie you can see that the whiskers of the lions don't look completely curved but they have "steps" instead. This is because the DVD has a native resolution of 480p, the same definition that the original Xbox, the Ps2 and the Wii have.

 

Step2: Hook up the Blu Ray player and put the DVD movie in. Notice a difference? this time there is still some "jaggedness" but it may look blurry or softened. It should look a bit better in general. This is because the Blu Ray player is upscaling the movie's native resolution of 480p to 1080p. This is done by using all those extra pixels to "fill in" and soften those "steps" that you would otherwise see from a normal DVD player.

 

Step 3: Finally put the Blu Ray movie in the Blu Ray player (where else?) and marvel at the difference. If you are actually playing the same movie in both DVD and Blu Ray you will immediately notice how the Blu Ray looks much sharper and the image is much clearer and crisp. This is because the movie in the Blu Ray disc is in native 1080p, there is no upscaling involved!

 

I hope this is useful to illustrate what exactly "native" and "upscaling" mean.

Edited by Rickhunter7, 19 October 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[Xiombarg]

I don't have a 1080p TV or a blu ray player, I am a full time student right now...

 

But I have spent enough time with watching stuff on my computer to tell the difference between native resolutions and upscales.

[xile6]

Simple zoom vs non zoom.

 

But yea I down scale some blu rays to DVD and you can tell the difference in that vs DVD upscaled.

[RETROBLAST]

great, nice job your words did it for me, I dont even need to run the test.

[Mahmoodinho98]

thank you so much for the great info

[Dr Wario]

Upscaling often makes the output looks worse, depending on the source.  Generally, upscaling algorithms will never be good enough to make up for lost information when blown up to a bigger screen size.  

 

That's why I am against 4K.  We will go through the same pains with Blu-Rays on 4K TVs, not to mention how horrible DVDs will look on them. 

[stevenk]

thanks man  this makes stuff makes it clear

[Rickhunter7]

Upscaling often makes the output looks worse, depending on the source.  Generally, upscaling algorithms will never be good enough to make up for lost information when blown up to a bigger screen size.  

 

That's why I am against 4K.  We will go through the same pains with Blu-Rays on 4K TVs, not to mention how horrible DVDs will look on them. 

You are absolutely right. That's why I'm going to express my oposition to 4K the best way I can: Not buying one. Easy, right?