Best Monitor Size and Resolution for Watching DVD and Blu-ray?

I have a 20" monitor and thinking of upgrading to a 24" or 27" size monitor.

I was wondering: If you play DVD or Blu-ray movies on a larger monitor size with a higher resolution (e.g. 2560 x 1440), does the DVD or Blu-ray image get upscaled? If so, does that affect picture quality in any way?

The reason I ask is because I recently read this article and was confused (and worried) about what this meant:

Movie testing on larger, non-native 1080P monitors usually results in less than optimal viewing conditions as the picture is scaled up to a larger resolution. Movies are –at best – encoded at a 1920 x 1080 resolution and if you use DVD source material the quality is much, much lower. This is why we had such reservations on using such a large 2560 x 1440 as up-scaling can cause serious issues in some cases.

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http://www./forum/hardware-canucks-...ncmaster-27a850d-27-pls-monitor-review-8.html

What difference, if any, is there between watching a DVD or Blu-ray movie on a 21" 1920 x 1080 monitor vs a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor? What happens to the image size and quality? Are there upscaling issues to be concerend about like the article suggests?

Thanks.

Bluray movies doesn't look too bad on 2560X1600 monitors but DVD will appear a bit blurry and many fine details are lost. Its like trying to play a 640X480 clip on a 20 inch or above monitor.

Blurays will look best on a 1080P monitor because there is no upscaling involved but hey with a 27/30 inch monitor you get bigger picture and more desktop real estate.

Wouldnt suggest a Dell u2711 for movies, for everthing else its great. I setup mine yesterday, great monitor colours etc but its damn grainy and a movie that has grain will look extra extra grainy. Tried Meet Joe Black, possibly the grainiest movie I have all i see is grain. Its not unwatchable, actually it looks great but grain cant get a bit much. Even Avatar which is a pristine digital film had some grain.

Get a glass/glossy 27" screen like the Samsung's.

Full blu rays will look fine on a 2560 screen, DVDs will not at all (but im not upscaling or anythig like that), I'd get a 1080P 24/27" for movies. Or just buy a TV, dirt cheap these days.

Thanks. So it sounds like, Blu-rays and DVD movies will automatically upscale on a larger, higher res monitor.

Is there a way to make DVD or Blu-ray material NOT upscale? Would I want to? Or would the picture size be a lot smaler on a high res monitor?

Peat Moss said:

Thanks. So it sounds like, Blu-rays and DVD movies will automatically upscale on a larger, higher res monitor.

Is there a way to make DVD or Blu-ray material NOT upscale? Would I want to? Or would the picture size be a lot smaler on a high res monitor?

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Are you using a software DVD/Bluray player ie Total Media Theatre/Cyberlink etc? If so then the player will automatically scale the movie to your monitor resolution which is similar to upscaling.

If you do not want to upscale the video then you'll have to lower the monitor resolution to match that of the source file (1080P) but unless your monitor have a hardware scaler then you'll have worse image quality due to LCD interpolation.

wasserkool said:

Are you using a software DVD/Bluray player ie Total Media Theatre/Cyberlink etc? If so then the player will automatically scale the movie to your monitor resolution which is similar to upscaling.

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No, for DVDs I just use either the windows media player or VLC player. On my current 20" DVDs look fine, quite good in fact. I haven't tried playing Blu-rays as I don't have a Blu-ray drive or media player.

Would the image quality suffer (compared with my 20" monitor) if I played a DVD using the same media players, or the ones you mentioned, on a 27" monitor?

wasserkool said:

If you do not want to upscale the video then you'll have to lower the monitor resolution to match that of the source file (1080P) but unless your monitor have a hardware scaler then you'll have worse image quality due to LCD interpolation.

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I'm guessing monitors with hardware scalers are not very common?

Hi-Def content looks great on my 27" iMac. I don't notice any degradation of quality as a result of upscaling.

would playing 720p video on a 2560*1440 better than playing 1080p on the same monitor cause it's a perfect 2 to 1 ration

1280*2=2560
720*2=1440 So 2 to 1 pixel ratio it's like playing the video on a 720p screen that is 27 inch right?

Peat Moss said:

No, for DVDs I just use either the windows media player or VLC player. On my current 20" DVDs look fine, quite good in fact. I haven't tried playing Blu-rays as I don't have a Blu-ray drive or media player.

Would the image quality suffer (compared with my 20" monitor) if I played a DVD using the same media players, or the ones you mentioned, on a 27" monitor?



I'm guessing monitors with hardware scalers are not very common?

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DVDs will look okay on 27 inch but if you have the same movie on bluray you'll notice the big difference. You can try it out by downloading some clips on the web with 640X480 vs 1920X1080 resolution for approximate comparison.

Most 27 inch monitors and above should have a hardware scaler unless of course you are looking for super cheap budget monitors.

It sounds like from what I've read so far that Blu-ray shouldn't be much, if any, problem on a 27" monitor. Since image quality from source material is much better to begin with, and upscaling won't hurt picture quality to any noticable degree.

As for DVD, should I just keep my 20" and continue to watch DVDs on that, and use a 27" to watch Blu-ray? Or is there a way to upscale DVDs to minimize any issues.

This is the monitor I'm thinking of getting:
http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1325717605

Well my monitors have a bit higher resolution than that Samsung (2560X1600) and DVDs don't look too horrible so I'll say that samsung 27 inch should be okay. If I were you I rather get the NEC PA271W instead of that SAmsung unless of course you really need the stylish looking package.

The PA271W is one of the worst monitors (along with any other matte display using an LG panel) for movies thanks to their grainy AG coating. Any movie with film grain/noise will look far more grainy/noisey and clean blu-rays will be grainy (when they shouldn't be) like masscrazy mentioned.

@PeatMoss

I have a 23" 1080p glossy display next to the 1440p Samsung 850D and have had no issues with image degradation when displaying blu-rays or 720p content. The glossy display is clearer due to the lack of any surface treatment, at the price of reflections though. SD Netflix and sub-hd consoles games (Call of Duty) look horrible but they will on any display unless you sit far enough away.

Still buying a 800$+ 1440p for movies is a waste when you could buy a plasma TV which will destroy the image quality of any IPS/PLS display.