Video Scalers and HDTV.

[Bob W]

Any suggestions for a good video scaler? I want to input my DVD, VHS, and standard TV to a scaler then up-scale to 1080i for display to the HDTV. I was thinking of buying this scaler http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/DVDO-iscan-hd-plus.htm

Anyone here have one of these scalers?

[gshelley61]

Doesn't your HDTV have a built-in scaler? Most of them do. Samsung DLP's use an excellent Faroudja scaler, for example. As far as DVD goes, there are a number of upscaling players out there that do the 720p/1080i upconversion while the signal is still digital, and output an upscaled digital video signal via HDMI or DVI. That's far less expensive and provides better results than a standalone scaler.

The Panasonic DVD-S97 is supposed to be a very good upscaling DVD player. I have a two year old Bravo D1, which has been buggy and less than reliable but produces an excellent picture.

[Bob W]

I believe a high end video scaler is going to do a better job than the built in scalers on DVD players. Also an external scaler will up-scale standard TV or cable inputs plus old VHS and more.

[gshelley61]

I believe a high end video scaler is going to do a better job than the built in scalers on DVD players. Also an external scaler will up-scale standard TV or cable inputs plus old VHS and more.

Not true. The scalers in upscaling DVD players perform that function completely within the digital data space (no digital to analog, then analog to digital conversion). No deinterlacing is necessary, either. Because of this, the scaled image you get from an upscaling DVD player remains digital all the way through the process and into your HDTV's DVI or HDMI input. You wind up with a much sharper picture with very few scaling artifacts.

The scaler in the TV will do a very good to excellent job with analog sources like the TV tuner and VCR's. Of course, upscaled VHS and analog TV looks like crap on a large fixed pixel display no matter what scaler you use. Direct view CRT's (tube TV's) are much more forgiving with these sources.