upconverting vhs etc

[victoriabears]

Some of my question is perhaps theory,some maybe already fact, opinions please.

The upconverting combos that are around Panasonic ES45 for instance,does this upconvert the vhs as well and if so has anyone seen what its like?

What benefits are possibilly ahead of waiting to convert our treasured VHS to HD DVD etc?,, may be using a combo vhs /HD (Blu ray) DVD recorder, will all this become easier over the next two years?

Thanks

[Anakin]

You've been here 3 years and you want to convert VHS to HD? You're crazy lol.

[victoriabears]

i was posing a question/scenario thats all. Explain your point

[Soopafresh]

In a less than diplomatic way, he's saying "You can't polish a turd". I just watched the 1968 Stones Rock&Roll Circus on PBS HD - they upscaled it to 1920x1080 with some very expensive equipment, yet take a look at a portion of a frame - it isn't any clearer or sharper. In fact, it looks worse than the DVD.

[victoriabears]

Take your point, interesting isn;t it how the studios are spending so much of the money we pay them in stopping us backing up our easilly damaged discs, also some of the greatest footage will never look good on HD?
I saw recently that there is a big drop in TV watching, anyone tell the executitves its because of the crap programming and adverts every 10 minutes.
Its the one thing I miss about the UK, quality TV,although I understand even that has dropped off.

Rant and rave over and thanks, all opinions are interesting here.

[Soopafresh]

I hear that. I love the BBC documentaries especially.

There are a lot of things that a studio can do to enhance the audio quality of older material, but video isn't as easy. They obviously have the advantage of having the masters, or low gen copies. And that's what makes the difference. Even this terrible transfer to Youtube of an RFK speech demonstrates that if the source is good enough (and whoever posted it must have had access to a master tape) that the target file is going to look good.

Incorrect letterboxing and no de-interlacing, yet you can tell the source is pristine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae7H0aWFWNY

Here's a frame from the recently frame-by-frame re-mastered Bond series. Took almost 500 computers to process it. The whole project took months, but the end result was amazing.

[theewizard]

where did you read 500 computers ?

and how many hrs, you can do that on one PC, just don't do any thing else for a few weeks

was it 500 rack mounted processors ( super computer ) or 500 cpu hrs

[edDV]

Basic rule is high quality in gets a high quality result. Most movies and TV series were shot on film and film restoration is an advanced art. Old TV series shot in video are more difficult to restore to DVD let alone an HD version.

"Upscale" by itself does nothing but divide big pixels into smaller pixels. The same as using "full screen" on a computer desktop to make your 640x480 or so video fill a 1280x1024 pixel screen. The picture quality is the same.

[Soopafresh]

http://www.popjournalism.ca/pop/features/2006/00136bondDVD.shtml

[edDV]

640x480 will contain every possible detail present in a VHS tape. That corresponds to about a 12MHz sample rate. Direct record composite video formats like 2" Quadruplex, 1" Type C and D2 use 4x subcarrier or ~14.4 MHz sample rates but this is done to better decode color rather than preserve luminance.

[trhouse]

This article says the ES45V has subpar upscaling ability.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Panasonic_DMR_ES45V/4505-6463_7-31850677.html

Most HDTV's have internal upscaling anyway so having the recorder do it is not that important unless the recorder can do it better.