FFDSHOW with all upscaling filter tricks vs HD DVD player ?

[jamieuk]

Hi I am using FFDSHOW to upscale my DVD`s to 720p. With all filter tricks like liitedsharpen and I am very happy with results.

Just wonderd how you think these results would compare to true HD DVD`s.

The reason I ask is >> I am that happy with what I am seing I am not to sure how much better the picture Quality could get, and would find it much cheaper and better just to buy standard DVD`s and upscale them.

At the end of the day these movie companies are only using some kind of fliter tricks them selves arnt they to upscale standard DVD`s to higher resolutions ? then just put them on larger DVD`s

your thoughts

[foxyshadis]

No. Film is, er, filmed in 35mm, which has a useful resolution of at least ten thousand dpi. For HD, the film stock is retransfered at a higher resolution than the dvd releases were made at.

Sometimes you can tell the difference, sometimes not; it depends on how sharp and how grainy the source is. With an overabundance of film grain HD may not be much better than SD; with clear and sharp pictures on a good screen the difference can blow your mind, like DVD vs VHS. Sadly that isn't the case often enough.

[shaolin95]

A few things to consider.
In a small display, it could be harder to notice the difference but I have been comparing IQ using my HTPC and Comcast HD and while the ffdshow + avisynth tweaks do miracles they are still not up to HD quality for obvoius reasons. The easiest way to tell is comparing far away panning shots like for instance when using Fifth Element's famous Milla escaping scene. Instead of comparing her face close up, use the shot were you can see the whole city and that is were HD's small detail will beat the DVD. Still, the difference is not enough to make me kill my DVD...just enough to make me think about getting a HD-DVD and thats with a 4805 projector which is not even HD to begin with!
Regards

[benwaggoner]

A few things to consider.
In a small display, it could be harder to notice the difference but I have been comparing IQ using my HTPC and Comcast HD and while the ffdshow + avisynth tweaks do miracles they are still not up to HD quality for obvoius reasons. The easiest way to tell is comparing far away panning shots like for instance when using Fifth Element's famous Milla escaping scene. Instead of comparing her face close up, use the shot were you can see the whole city and that is were HD's small detail will beat the DVD. Still, the difference is not enough to make me kill my DVD...just enough to make me think about getting a HD-DVD and thats with a 4805 projector which is not even HD to begin with!

Also note that the mean quality of HD DVD is a lot higher than digital cable. HD DVD titles use VC-1 at 12-20 VBR Mbps instead of MPEG-2, and are square pixel instead of anamorphically compressed. So, more pixels, and higher quality pixels.

DVD to HD DVD is 6x the pixels, and the average pixel is of higher quality on the average studio release.