USB/HDMI PC Hardware for upscaling (Recommendations)

DaveTheRaveUK

DaveTheRaveUK

DaveTheRaveUK

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8 Dec 2020
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Hi OC,
I have a Nvidia Geforce 1050 Ti 4GB GPU with HDMI output.
My OS is Arch Linux - 64 bit.

I would like to upscale various low-res and 720p/1080p videos to full hd and stream these via HDMI to my Sony Bravia EX403 (KDL-40EX403) model TV. I have looked on ebay uk and amazon uk for intermediary hardware that would sit between the graphics card and the TV - however, I have no idea of which hw upscaler to go for.

I have seen upscaling cables (which I am suspicious of) and small upscaling boxes (the branding on these boxes have no website homepage - again, making me suspicious).

I am hoping to do this on the fly, as software upscaling is far too slow.
Any advice would be greatly received.
Thanks, David.
 
This is not a facetious question; but why?

Your TV already upscales anything that isn't at the panel resolution. It has to. Even if you don't watch anything that isn't at 1080p (the max res that EX403 can accept), the TV is designed to cope with everything from 480i/60Hz to 576i/50Hz SD resolutions through to 720p@50/60Hz and 1080i@50/60Hz and 1080p@24/50/60Hz. It's already doing the scaling job because the tech is built in to the screen electronics.

720p, 1080i and 1080p are all defined as HD resolutions. It doesn't get any more "HDerer" than that.

Now here's the important bit: The chances are that the scaling engine inside the TV is waaaaaay better than any inexpensive upscaler that you can buy as an add-on from Ebay or Amazon.

By buying a cheap (poor) scaler, all you'll be doing is giving the TV a worse signal than if you'd just left the signal clean and let the TV do its thing. IOW, you'll be spending money to make the picture look bad because it has been badly upscaled by some inadequate outboard tech. The TV won't be able to undo that damage.

There are some things that upscaling won't fix. The main one is a lack of resolution in the source signal. Where you're watching something that originated as 720x576i or 640x480i, or at a low VGA resolution such as 800x600, then upscaling any of those images will make them fill some/all of the TV panel but it can't restore detail that wasn't ever in the signal in the first place.


Prior to Blu-ray becoming widespread, I used to do a lot with scalers to get SD from DVD and 1080i from Sky in to chip projectors with a native resolution of 1280x720 pixels and in to CRT projectors where resolution is a more complex question. I have to say, the scalers in the chip projectors weren't bad. DVD resolution on to a 100" diagonal screen needs decent scaling. But that's not to say that it couldn't be improved; and it could, but at a substantial cost. The Lumagen and DVDO scalers I sold and installed were rarely under £1000, and so I know about scalers.

Things have changed a lot now though. The average TV for a living room is much bigger than it was over a decade ago. There's also a lot more HD material around.

Some things don't change though. One of the key steps in getting a scaler to work with any display, particularly with TVs, is to get the TV to stop over-processing the signal. I'd always disable overscan, and then minimise the interference from any picture processing settings. You can do the same too with your PC to TV settings. This won't fix the missing resolution for low res files. But it will give your PC graphics card the best chance to shine with your Sony 40" TV.
 
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