DVD software upconversions to 16:9 and modern TVs

[kweldood]

I know for a fact that performing a software upconversion on a 4:3 letterboxed DVD to re-encode it to 16:9 (anamorphic), if done right (e.g. TMPGEnc Xpress with the right deinterlace and resize settings), can produce a final result which looks better on a CRT TV than just using the same 4:3 DVD and relying on the TV's zoom modes - because I've done a few with satisfactory results.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for this is that the average zoom/resize capabilities of CRT TVs are, in my experience... limited in their output quality.

HOWEVER, since I don't own a "modern" i.e. LCD/plasma TV, I have no idea if this would apply to them (and since I've read about different modern TVs having different upscaling results, for the sake of this topic let's consider that modern TV a decent brand one - Panasonic, etc).

What I need to know, therefore, is what looks better on average on a LCD/plasma TV: a 4:3 letterboxed DVD zoomed/upscaled by the TV itself, or a software-upconverted 16:9 (anamorphic) DVD ?

Thank you.

[manono]

You don't have any friends with widescreen Hi-Def TV sets? Go test your DVDs on one of theirs and judge for yourself.

[TheSkiller]

It depends. You have to consider that you need to fully re-encode the video to upscale it from 4:3 letterboxed to 16:9 anamorphic. This will always introduce an additional quality loss (well, maybe if the bitrate is extremely high then it's negligible).
Edit: It also highly depends on the quality of the TV's zoom mode.



Perhaps one of the main reasons for this is that the average zoom/resize capabilities of CRT TVs are, in my experience... limited in their output quality.

Not sure what you're trying to say, but CRTs don't "resize" at all because they don't need to. The electron guns can "draw" the lines at any size that is needed. For a 4:3 CRT TV in 16:9 mode the lines are drawn closer to each other (vertically) compared to 4:3 mode. Other display types always have to resize the incoming picture to their panel resolution (huge drawback actually).

[2Bdecided]

IME you can do better in AVIsynth than most TVs. Whether the difference is worth the effort is your call.

Similarly most people (not all) believe their STBs upscales SD to HD better than their TV, and I think AVIsynth does far better than either.

Cheers,
David.

[kweldood]

Thanks 2Bdecided, that's EXACTLY the kind of feedback I'm looking for.

Have you tested some of your own software-upconverted 16:9 DVDs on your (LCD ?) TV ? They definitely look better than letting the TV upscale the original 4:3 letterboxed DVD, even if by a small margin ?

I can do the upconversions easily and in a small time frame, thanks to modern PC software and hardware. I typically add a slight sharpening filter to make up for the blow-up loss of resolution, and I'm very happy with the results on my CRT TV.

My main concern here is that I'd upconvert a number of 4:3 letterboxed DVDs to 16:9, only to get to a point in the near future, when I inevitably make the move from a CRT TV to an LCD one, and find that it looks worse and that I should have kept the original 4:3 letterboxed DVDs instead. If that's not the case, then I'll be a happy software upconverter :p

[TheSkiller]

I can do the upconversions easily and in a small time frame, thanks to modern PC software and hardware.
Well, but if the footage is interlaced then it has to run through a hopefully good bob-deinterlacer before you can scale the center 432 (PAL) or 360 (NTSC) lines to 576/480. High quality bob-deinterlacing is not something that is "fast", although that depends on what you call fast.



They definitely look better than letting the TV upscale the original 4:3 letterboxed DVD, even if by a small margin ?
There is no definitive answer to that, sorry. Like I've said it depends on quite some variables, and I'm no fortune teller.

The upscaling WILL introduce additional MPEG artefacts and it WILL need a higher bitrate than the source (how will you fit that on a DVD?) and just because of that, even if you use the highest quality scaling possible, the result could look worse than the source. It's not that easy.

[2Bdecided]

The biggest problem that you face (IMO!) is that what looks nice and sharp and arefact-free on a CRT can look oversharpened with halos and artefacts on an LCD.

So, yes, you can do better than a typical LCD in AVIsynth. BUT unless you check the results on an LCD, you might actually be making it worse.

If your PC's monitor is an LCD and you can watch at a reasonably high resolution, that's probably a good enough check. It won't look exactly like an LCD TV (unless it is one and you feed it through TV rather than PC inputs!), but it will reveal artefacts (especially if you enable a little sharpening in your software player - which most LCD TVs apply by default), and it will reveal halos in the source.

IMO (and this really is just my opinion - different people may think the opposite!) if the source was interlaced, I wouldn't be too sure that a re-scaled DVD would be better. I know how to do this very well (e.g. tgmc for deinterlacing, nnedi for upscaling, HCenc for encoding) but still the results can be disappointing. Sometimes the MPEG-2 encoding isn't quite good enough (and there are two lots of artefacts!) - sometimes the upscaling looks artificial - sometimes the deinterlacing isn't quite right.

To solve the MPEG-2 DVD (re)-encoding quality problems, you could encode it to H.264 at high bitrate (and keep it full-rate progressive) - but you'd probably need something different to play it on then.

Cheers,
David.

P.S. Another problem you face is that display technology is improving all the time. You might find it's good enough soon. So you'd be wasting your time. You might also find the content is re-released as full height anamorphic 16x9, or on BluRay, meaning again you've wasted your time. I guess for progressive sources the processing is fast, and you don't have to sit there watching it. But you might spend a while tweaking the denoising and sharpening settings for each source, which can take forever!

[kweldood]

I do test everything on the PC's LCD monitor to ensure the best possible results, no worries there. And I make it a point for the final result to look better than the original source... on the PC's LCD, to give you an idea (perhaps if £1000 TVs could zoom as well as the average lame freeware software player on a PC, we wouldn't need to have this discussion and I wouldn't need to waste my time, as you say - here's hopes for that technology improvement).

Re-releases on either DVD or boo-ray are VERY unlikely, I'm afraid, given the rarity and limited commercial nature of the films I'm dealing with.

What you're all obviously spot on is that there's nothing like just testing the stuff on a LCD TV and compare it myself. Unfortunately, that's not an easy possibility for me at this point, if at all... hence my topic.

Surely there's at least one or two other crazy people on this forum who's been through this in practice ?

[Ghitulescu]

The solution I'm thinking of is the purchase of "real" upscalers (like DVDO & Co.) if this is for viewing only, or use a very good (and expensive) AVR with all kind of Faroudja & Co filters. Otherwise, it could be only wasted work. In addition to what 2Bdecided said, one needs more than an LCD TV/Monitor (like eg a studio HDTV monitor and/or a vectorscope) if the result is intended to be kept over years. Otherwise, this work should be repeated each time for each new viewing device. Remember, sharpness is also dependent on the screen size, and these grow and grow everyday (I mean it's feasable for Average Joe to buy one of them).

Unless these movies originate from a TV camera (live) or a camcorder, but not from film, and they are commercially made (as opposed to personal movies), they will almost certainly rereleased as BDs. I've seen a lot of "lost" movies rereleased on DVDs, you know, just to grab another $/€ or two, before BD. Not tomorrow, but one day.

[Groucho2004]

The solution I'm thinking of is the purchase of "real" upscalers (like DVDO & Co.)

Have to agree. I've been using an Oppo DV-983H DVD player for a long time for SD material and the de-interlacing and upscaling performance of the Anchor Bay chips (also used in the DVDO) still blows my mind.

[Lyris]

The actual scaling algorithm of the Anchor Bay solution is nothing special. AVISynth's scaling is crisper and less ringy.

One the other hand, the cadence detection, and the "no-tweak" nature of it, is impressive.

[Ghitulescu]

Since the original is digital, I would keep it the way it is. If I would have time, I would try to do a soft upscaling, then compare the both (SW vs HW), on my setups. I'll decide then, which way to go: spending hours (even days, because each setting must be carefully balanced against the source) for a marginal improvement, or let do this in real-time, hardware-way.

[2Bdecided]

Well, that's the thing isn't it. I often spend hours or days agonising over deinterlacing, sharpening, and encoding settings for my own home movies - only to find myself completely ignoring the video quality when I actually watch the result because I get "into" the content itself. Sometimes. Most home movies aren't that interesting TBH, but commercial releases should be!

Cheers,
David.

[GodofaGap]

Well, that's the thing isn't it. I often spend hours or days agonising over deinterlacing, sharpening, and encoding settings for my own home movies - only to find myself completely ignoring the video quality when I actually watch the result because I get "into" the content itself. Sometimes. Most home movies aren't that interesting TBH, but commercial releases should be!
This is also my problem with Blu-ray. :)

If the video needs to be 1920x1080 (and 3D) to be interesting, it probably isn't.

[six13]

I had the same question some time ago. I have a HD Panasonic 4:3 CRT TV (I bought 1 year too soon). Quality is really good, but the large black bars drive me crazy. I use Procoder 3 to change the input to 16:9, 4:3, or leave it in the original ratio. For real wide wide screen I would select 16:9 and let the software do the change so I didn't have to with my DVD player.

Now I prefer to leave it in the aspect ratio the movie studio intended, I am used to it, but I belive the software I used did a great job.

[MilesAhead]

I had the same question some time ago. I have a HD Panasonic 4:3 CRT TV (I bought 1 year too soon). Quality is really good, but the large black bars drive me crazy. I use Procoder 3 to change the input to 16:9, 4:3, or leave it in the original ratio. For real wide wide screen I would select 16:9 and let the software do the change so I didn't have to with my DVD player.

Now I prefer to leave it in the aspect ratio the movie studio intended, I am used to it, but I belive the software I used did a great job.

My first upconverting DVD player was an OPPO. It's the only one I've seen that had a 1.2 zoom. It was great because 4:3 video shown with the pillars if zoomed to 1.2 looked almost like 16x9. It filled the 16x9 area of my CRT HDTV with very little of the video clipped and in correct proportions(no squished people or people with fat heads and too wide shoulders.) I don't understand why no other players or TVs that I've seen have 1.2 zoom. It's much more sensible than 2x zoom that I never use.
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