Recode DVD or use DVD player to upscale? For Best picture on HDTV

[hellbringer]

Ok im using Nero for my collection, and im just wondering what is best overall to do for picture quality.

1. I could just use the DVD as is, which im not sure but i think gives me a bit rate of 5.55Mbps and a resoultion of 720 x 480 and then my dvd player (PS3) would then upscale it.

or

2. I could recode the DVD using Nero Digital and select High Definition Profile and it will scale my movie to 1920 x 1080 but it will drop my bit rate to 3.94


So i was hoping someone could tell me which one of these options would be best for a 60in tv

Im just having a hard time figuering out which is supposed to be better and what the pro's con's are

thanks

P.S. I would also like to add one last question, if i upgraded to DL-DVD and got the bitrate up higher on the recoded DVD would that make it look better than the PS3 upscaled?

[manono]

So i was hoping someone could tell me which one of these options would be best for a 60in tv

Leave it alone. Play the original DVD.

if i upgraded to DL-DVD and got the bitrate up higher on the recoded DVD would that make it look better than the PS3 upscaled?

No.

[hellbringer]

weird i thought software upscaleing would have been superior to hardware...you sure?

[guns1inger]

Absolutely. The PS3 has a very good upscaling function that is far superior to anything you can do with software, especially with Nero.

[jman98]

guns1inger is, of course, right, but if you doubt, try it yourself in software and you'll see that why your PS3 or TV upscaling is better than what you can do in software.

Even 720p video, let alone 1080i/p video, is going to look pretty rough at a bit rate of 3.94 Mbps. That's a marginal bit rate for DVD which is a much lower resolution.

[jagabo]

I disagree about software upscaling looking worse than hardware upscaling. In digital signal processing there's nothing that can be done in hardware that can't be done in software (with the exception of execution speed). In fact, all hardware algorithms are prototyped and tested in software first.

The real issue is this: if you use software to do the upscaling you may find that you can do a better job than your current DVD player or HDTV. But you are stuck with what you've done forever. As upscaling DVD players and TVs get better each year, you may eventually get a new player or TV that does a better job than you can in software now. Your software upscaled files will then look worse.

So there's no point in upscaling in software unless you plan to upscale and encode again every few years. Just keep and play your DVDs.

As jman98 points out, if you are going to upscale in software, you'll need to allocate sufficient bitrate for the material.

[manono]

But that's all academic, given the limitations he imposed on the upscaled reencode:

2. I could recode the DVD using Nero Digital and select High Definition Profile and it will scale my movie to 1920 x 1080 but it will drop my bit rate to 3.94

And that's why I gave the answer I did. He wants to use Nero and he wants to increase the resolution dramatically but at the same time lower the bitrate dramatically. To me, the answer is so obvious that I can't understand why the question was even asked. Sure, without those bitrate restrictions I could put out a decent hi-res video from a DVD. But I sure as heck wouldn't use Nero for the job.

I purposely didn't answer the part in the P.S., but if forced to, I'd say "Maybe, if you know what you're doing". I don't have a PS3 but will take guns1inger's word that it does an excellent job of upconverting. Then the question becomes one of whether or not the time and effort required to produce this Hi-Def video is worth it for little to no gain in visual quality.

[hellbringer]

you can't understand why it was asked? I asked because i didn't know, i think i made that pretty clear, see quote below and reread my first post. Your attitude is not welcome.

Im just having a hard time figuering out which is supposed to be better and what the pro's con's are

Oh and you did answer my P.S. question with a flat out NO and you made no mention of anything to do with limitations....which is very misleading and misinforming to me. You can't say you didn't reply to my P.S. question when you quoted it.... so if you want to help me then do it, otherwise I would prefer no answer over a misleading one. I needed a answer that helps me understand it, otherwise I'm just left with more questions than before and rightfully so.

As it turns out, I checked and DL would actually boast me to 7.28 Mbps which is a bit more than the dvd plus the increased resolution, which i already knew it would get me past the DVD bitrate, and thats why i mentioned it.

As i said before i really don't know the benifites of either. I think bitrate is how much info, and resolution is how much space the info fills. But the thing that never made sense is how you take a dvd and increase any of that to make a better picture, i always figuered you could never get better than the source until i heard about upscaling with the ps3.

I've heard a couple times people mention not to use nero....why doesn't someone mention what i should be using then? I'm not here for small talk and post counts...

I'll have to think about the point brought up about future upscaling dvd players tho, that certainly gives me something to consider. how much better could upscalers, software or hardware get? It seems like it would level off soon as there really won't be much need for them in the near future as it will be all blueray.

[manono]

You can't say you didn't reply to my P.S. question when you quoted it....

You're right, and I apologize. Would you rather I had qualified my answer with "No, since you don't know what you're doing"? Look, use some common sense here. Standard DVD resolution is 720x480 and you want to increase it to 1920x1080. That's a factor of 6. Six times as many pixels to encode. If done in MPEG-2 (I don't know what Nero Recode uses and Hi-Def can be in several formats, some of which compress better than MPEG-2) it just doesn't make any sense. Yet, in the first part of the original question you're cutting the bitrate by 29%, by your own figures. In your most recent post you say you can increase it by 31% if put on a DVD9. And yet you are encoding 6 times as many pixels. I gave the straight answer. Others came along later and filled in the details. Did the answer change?

you can't understand why it was asked?

I can't then and I still can't. All of my posts have been perfectly civil. I don't understand why you're getting so snippy about it, either.

[jagabo]

But the thing that never made sense is how you take a dvd and increase any of that to make a better picture, i always figuered you could never get better than the source

Well, that's the question. You can't really improve the picture. The issue is how to best upscale the picture without introducing artifacts.

Here's the basic problem with scaling digital video:

Take four consecutive pixels with intensities 0, 100, 0, 100 (0 is black, 100 is white). How can we upscale that to 5 consecutive pixels and retain two valleys at 0, two peaks at 100, all of equal width, and not add a border? It doesn't take long to realize -- it can not be done. Conversely, how could you downscale that to three pixels and retain all the detail (2 black valleys, 2 white peaks). Of course, this also can not be done.

So scaling digital video is all about compromises, analyzing the image and "guessing" what might be missing (when upscaling) and deciding how best to remove information (when downscaling).

Were are we now along the path of total crap to the best possible upscaling? For 2D (intra frame only) I would guess around 75 percent. For super-resolution scaling (using information from frames before and after the current frame to gain more information about the missing data -- which no DVD players or HDTVs do at this point) probably around 25 percent.

[manono]

That pic isn't Hi-Def. And you joined just today so you could spam us with some crummy commercial product?