Bluray player better for upscaling?

Ev0 · 19 Dec 2009 at 10:45

Thiniing about getting my folks a bluray player for Christmas but not too sure and need a bit of advice.

They mostly watch DVDs on a 2 year old Panasonic plasma through a 2 or 3 year old panasonic dvd player connected up via scart.

Now would a bluray player be better at upscaling a dvd than just relying on the tvs own internal bumph to do it?

Obviously the plus points are they would also be able to play blurays

probedb · 19 Dec 2009 at 11:30

Yep. Most TVs upscalers aren't the greatest. I have a 3 year old Panny plasma and use my PS3 for upscaling

I'm assuming you're connecting via HDMI as you need to for upscaling.

Ev0 · 19 Dec 2009 at 12:44

yup would be via hdmi

Broken Hope · 19 Dec 2009 at 13:00

Panasonic TV's tend to have good scalers, I'd let the TV do it personally.

siege2 · 19 Dec 2009 at 14:09

I used to use a pioneer dvd dvix player , it has upscaling through hdmi , now I'am using a samsung 3600 , divx, youtube, blu ray player and have found the quality seams much better than the pioneer. also has network divx playablity.

Corasik · 20 Dec 2009 at 15:43

Have yet to see an upscaler that can beat the Panasonic plasmas so far, expecially if its not a trueHD 1920x1080 panel, as the Panny scaler will be active unless the TV is fed a 1024x768 native resolution (IE if your scaler outputs 720p, or 1080i/p the panny will have to rescale again anyway.

Best to feed it with DVD's native 576i resolution, and allow the TV to convert to its panel resolution.

If you have a 1920x1080 panasonic, then feeding a 1080p signal may be better, or mebee not, all depends on the quality of the scaler.. but beating the TV's scaler is going to be quite hard.

I disabled the scaler in my DVD player, the TV does a better job with a SD source, or a real unscaled HD source.

PS, the worst upscaler in any of my kit is my bluray player. Its fantastic at playing HD BluRays, but for DVD's my old non scaling Sony DVD player outperforms it.

Ev0 · 20 Dec 2009 at 19:11

Cheers, have decided ot get them one anyway as can't think of another present lol.

Wil get them onto HD stuff anyway, they can borrow the few I have and the others they rent I'll just tell them to get Bluray instead

Corasik · 20 Dec 2009 at 19:50

A bluray player is still the best source for HD, they just dont always make the best DVD players

. And for what its worth, if there TV is a 720p, or a 1080i or a 1080p set, HD on bluray still looks stunning compared to DVD

Ev0 · 20 Dec 2009 at 20:24

Yeah hopefully they will 'get' that they can watch HD stuff and it's better

TALON1973 · 20 Dec 2009 at 21:53

if you have a blu ray pc drive will a plasma tv auto scale it or do you have to fiddle with settings ?

i have a sony bdu-x20s and a panny tx-p37c10b

Doz007 · 20 Dec 2009 at 21:58

Yeah, get them a Blu Ray player; They will be amazed at the quality of DVDs.

Also treat them to a classic movie on Blu and see if you can convert them to TrueHD

ShakenNstirred · 21 Dec 2009 at 01:24

i got a blu ray player the other week and just going thought some of my DVD`s
i had a upscaling DVD player before and it was carp in comparison
just watched the film grand prix and it was amazing upscaled by the blu ray player

Ev0 · 21 Dec 2009 at 15:53

Well after being messed around on a Panasonic BD60 I've goen for one of those Philips ones for under £100.

It'll do them nicely and is simple to use.

Now to find them a film or 2 to go with it

Ev0 · 21 Dec 2009 at 19:52

Went to pickup the Philips tonight and next to all the other brands it just looked cheap (well, it is I guess)/huge so I'm being a girl about it and have got a Panasonic.