Upscaling video from PC to HDTV

[oddball]

There are DVD players out that upscale the video to output to HDTV's. Is there a way of doing similar on PC's to TV out? I presume it would require a DVI to HDMI cable to start with. Then what software? Or is there none yet?

[jmac698]

Think of your computer monitor right now: even though it's 1280x1024 (or whatever), you can play DVDs etc., right? Now if you connect your TV as a monitor, nothing has changed. Everything on your desktop is automatically "upscaled" all the time. No special programs needed.

Upscaling provides no benefit to movies.
If you took an old 35mm slide from the 60's and shine it on a 50' screen, do you suddenly get super hidef? It's the same crappy old slide spread over a larger area.

The only difference between a normal DVD player and an upscaling one is that in the first case, the TV does the upscaling internally, in the next case, the DVD player does the upscaling. Same result either way, a standard def picture spread over a larger pixel area.

Note: without getting too technical, the above only applies to plasma, lcd, dlp, both direct and projection technologies. Some tube TVs may react differently.

There are mathematical techniques called "super resolution", but you're not going to find that in any consumer DVD player.

Btw, most displays are *downscaling* because they can't show the full detail of HDTV! A typical LCD HDTV only has 1366x1024 pixels, which is less than the 1920x180 of hidef. A tube TV I measured always downgraded to 960x540, and plasma is often 1024x852 (IIRC).