'upscaling' in MPlayer?

[bmok]

Hi, I'm a newbie to MPlayer. I heard MPlayer has scaling capability that can improve DVD and other video playback picture quality. I'm thinking to use my pc to play all DVDs and vidoes on my projector (max res. is 1024x768, I think). I should be able to use VGA cable to hook them up. Can somebody teach me how to maximize MPlayer in my configuration? Thanks.

-bmok

[LoRd_MuldeR]

At first: You cannot improve the quality by scaling, as scaling cannot magically add new details. Nevertheless good software scaling can still perform better than the default hardware scaling, for example if you need to scale to fullscreen resolution.

Try it like this:
mplayer -sws 9 -vf-add scale=1024:-2 "C:\Some Folder\Video.avi"

This will use "lanczos" scaler and will resize to "1024 x ?", where ? is what ever fits the original aspect ratio...

[bmok]

i think i misused the word 'scaling'. Maybe upscaling should be the more correct term. I actually already tried using MPlayer to play back DVDs on my projector. I got a significant improvement on picture sharpness over my Philips DVD player (hardware, standalone type). I connect them with a VGA cable. I have deinterlace turned on. I'm greedy and wonder if I can get further improvement on sharpness and smoothness. Thanks.

-bmok

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well, did you try like this ???
mplayer -sws 9 -vf-add scale=1024:-2 "C:\Some Folder\Video.avi"

[Blue_MiSfit]

I would suggest messing with ffdshow and AviSynth - assuming you have access to a Windows install.

If you've got the CPU for it, running SeeSaw / LimitedSharpenFaster in realtime is possible. Combine that with spline / lanczos scaling, and some noise to hide artifacts, and you've got a killer diller setup :)

Also, don't underestimate the importance of calibration.

~MiSfit