A couple Bluray and audio questions

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hunter33

Limp Gawd
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Mar 8, 2007
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We just got a new Sharp Aquos LCD52D85U 52" for the greatroom last week. The Sharp Aquos BDHP21U Bluray player arrived last night and it's connected via HDMI. I also have an Onkyo surround receiver connected to the tv with an optical cable. The receiver will do just about any format except THX.

This is my first Bluray player and I was under the impression that it would automatically upconvert DVDs and approach Bluray/HD quality. Last night I did some testing with some conventional DVDs ... Planet Earth, Return Of the King, and Ironman. They looked good and completely filled the screen but didn't look anywhere near HD quality to me. Any way I can tell if the upconversion is working? There seems to be nothing about it in the Bluray player manual. The fact that there are no "bars" around the picture makes me think the player probably is upconverting to 1080 resolution, but the picture quality of the DVDs played in it is obviously not as good as HDTV.

I'm a little confused about the sound choices too. The TV gives me choices of Dolby Digital or PCM. But when I choose Dolby Digital all my sound modes on the receiver are disabled except Dolby Digital or 2 channel stereo. If I switch it to PCM I get all the other modes like "Stadium", "Orchestra", "5 channel stereo", etc. I know Dolby Digital should sound more realistic than the other modes but there is an "echo" or boomy quality to the sound that I'm not liking when it's in Dolby Digital mode. Any insight into what is causing this echo? Surround Sound emulation on the TV is disabled, and I never got this boomy or echo like quality on Dolby Digital DVDs playing on the old TV and DVD player.
 
new sound formats: dts hd and dolby truehd cannot travel via optical, they need hdmi. pcm is confusing these days. it used to mean your media was not playing in full experience. now it means your player has done the decoding for you and your receiver simply needs to replay the info.

*added: which blu ray player are you using? it matters, sometimes a lot.
 
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hunter33 said:
This is my first Bluray player and I was under the impression that it would automatically upconvert DVDs and approach Bluray/HD quality. Last night I did some testing with some conventional DVDs ... Planet Earth, Return Of the King, and Ironman. They looked good and completely filled the screen but didn't look anywhere near HD quality to me.
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Some players upscale better than others and upscaling will never look as good as Blu-ray. I'm not particularly surprised you find upscaled DVD not on par with HD as it is not really possible.
 
hunter33 said:
1. Where did you get that impression?

2. If that impression was true, why did you even by anything with Blu-Ray in it?

I'm just trying to understand how you could think that something with 1/6th the data could look as good as blu-ray.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the info. The Bluray player is a Sharp Aquos BDHP210U, it's not a high end player but is profile 2.0. I had a little more time to test last night. Apparently the DVD I was complaining about the upscaling on was a backup. I tested with the original and a couple of others and it looks quite good. Not Bluray or OTA HD quality but more than adequate and better than standard DVD resolution.

That makes a lot of sense about PCM. The tv actually "warns" me when I switch from Dolby Digital to PCM, and I didn't realize an HDMI connection was needed for the new formats.
 
Trepidati0n said:
1. Where did you get that impression?

2. If that impression was true, why did you even by anything with Blu-Ray in it?

I'm just trying to understand how you could think that something with 1/6th the data could look as good as blu-ray.
Click to expand...

1) From the thousands of articles online that say it does
2) Obviously because an upscaled DVD might look better than one that isn't. And I can't play Bluray discs in a DVD player.
 
hunter33 said:
1) From the thousands of articles online that say it does
2) Obviously because an upscaled DVD might look better than one that isn't. And I can't play Bluray discs in a DVD player.
Click to expand...

1. I think you were reading what you wanted to read. I highly doubt any credible site would say that an up-converted DVD is near as good as blu-ray. While I do not dispute that a good chip can make the DVD source appear better (as long as the source is good), there is no reasonable or rational way that can be true especially when you probably have a blu-ray video to comapre it too. The reason a lot of us pushed up-convert at first is because blu-ray was stupidly expensvie for what you got. It just didn't make a ton of sense. Now that prices are much more reasonable, the only reason to up-convert anymore is because you are playing material you already have, not material you are buying.

2) Your upscaled DVD does look better. Force the output of your BD player to be 480i or 480p then let it upscale. You WILL notice a difference. If you are still buying DVD's because you haven't swapped out your other players but own a good HD set and a Blu-Ray player, then I really don't know what to tell you. Makes me wonder what people did before they had DVD player in every room but still had VHS tapes and players.
 
You're preaching to the choir brother. This is my first HDTV and Bluray player, and I don't stay on top of the newest technology except when getting ready to buy. I didn't have much to go on besides what friends & family said and the advice of people in places like [H]. We don't have cable and almost never watch TV, I would rather use my free time for more active pursuits. Our only reasons for having an HT setup are DVD movies, a couple old tv shows on DVD, & catching a game here and there. It didn't make sense to spend money upgrading until recently, and even now it's mostly just for a larger screen and maybe some improvement in picture quality on old DVDs. I won't buy many Bluray movies. Maybe upconverted DVD is not all that close to Bluray quality, but there should still be an improvement for our old movies & tv shows on DVD.

The old DVD player does not upconvert, plus it's moving to another room. Since we already have a couple dual Bluray/DVD movies and a new HDTV, it made sense to get a Bluray player that cost barely more than an upconverting DVD player.
 
Up-conversion is more marketing than reality. If it looked as good as blu-ray, they never would have made blu-rays.
 
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