Upscaling performance to 1080i/720p

[alexh110]

The latest blu-ray players all claim to have great upscaling to 1080p; but I was wondering whether I can assume from this that they have equally good performance when upscaling to 1080i or 720p? Or has the upscaling been optimised to 1080p at the expense of 1080i?
Since my TV is not capable of 1080p, it's kind of important to know!

Would all current models be capable of 1080i upscaling; or would some of them only upscale to 1080p?

[jagabo]

With progressive sources the upscaling to 1920x1080 is probably identical for both 1080p and 1080i output. That is, the 720x480 frame is upscaled to 1920x1080 then sent to the TV as either 1920x1080p or 1920x1080i. For interlaced and hard telecined sources the quality may vary more depending on how the source is handled -- whether it's deinterlaced or IVTC'd first, whether single fields are upscaled, etc.

I doubt there are any players that can upscale to 1080p but not to 1080i. The difference isn't in the scaling, only on how the final image is transferred from the player to the TV.

[alexh110]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm guessing that recordings made on my domestic DVD recorder from PAL sources would always be interlaced? Am I right?

And presumably movies and TV shows bought on DVD-Video are always progressive? Or would TV shows sometimes be interlaced if the original master tapes were PAL/NTSC?

[jagabo]

I'm guessing that recordings made on my domestic DVD recorder from PAL sources would always be interlaced? Am I right?

They'll be encoded interlaced. The actual frames may be progressive.

And presumably movies and TV shows bought on DVD-Video are always progressive?

No. PAL DVDs may be encoded interlaced or progressive (and again, progressive frames are often encoded interlaced).

[alexh110]

Thanks.
So if I have a DVD recording where the original source footage was 576i, would some blu-ray players produce good quality upscaling to 1080p; but inferior quality upscaling to 1080i?

[jagabo]

So if I have a DVD recording where the original source footage was 576i, would some blu-ray players produce good quality upscaling to 1080p; but inferior quality upscaling to 1080i?

In my experience players do the same upscaling for 1080i and 1080p output.