Is 4K UPSCALING pointless?

[Chigurh]

I just want to know if anyone can put forward an argument in favour of 4K upscaling with a bluray player. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't a 4K TV upscale the image anyway, and do a better job of it than a bluray player could? 

[betty boop]

yes if have a 4k tv it does by default....

 

only thing upscaling in the player would do is present in a format that doesnt need upscaling in the TV.

probably easier thing would be to upscale either way and see which works best in your arrangement... likely see no difference is my guess hehe

[Nada]

Depends.  I have a HD recorder that upsamples much better then the TV can. It probably has a more powerful CPU and better software.

[davewantsmoore]

depends on the quality of the upscaler....  if you have a good TV, then that is probably the better bet - but hard to generalise

[Jliang70]

I am not even sure if a 4K TV can even perform better video processing than  a 2K dedicated scaler.  I recently put a Lumagen XS scaler into the loop of my brother in Law's 4K Samsung TV.  There is not contest 3 years old Lumagen easily beat out the new Samsung when it comes to video processing department.  Compare to a standalone video processor and a good video source video processing on TV or projector are just HDMI switches,  they are definitely not the leader when it comes to video processing.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Jliang70

[Keith_W]

I am thinking of running a HDMI cable from my brand new audio PC to the TV to make it do double duty as a Blu-Ray / Netflix player. The catch is, I don't have a graphics card. I am using motherboard graphics. 

 

So here's my question - is it better to: 

 

1. Rely on motherboard graphics to do the upscaling, 

2. Buy a graphics card and let that do the upscaling, or 

3. Let the 4K TV do the upscaling? 

 

TV not bought yet. It will either be an LG OLED or Sony ZD9. 

[davewantsmoore]

That's kinda what I was getting at J.   Both (in the player and the TV) are toys compared to something more powerful, but given the choice of TV vs player, I'd probably bet on the TV

[Jliang70]

People in DTV have been able to obtain great result with mid range graphic cards.  I am not sure onboard graphic card will get the job done with 4k processing/upscaling, they may do well with 2K

[Satanica]

19 hours ago, Keith_W said:

I am thinking of running a HDMI cable from my brand new audio PC to the TV to make it do double duty as a Blu-Ray / Netflix player. The catch is, I don't have a graphics card. I am using motherboard graphics. 

 

So here's my question - is it better to: 

 

1. Rely on motherboard graphics to do the upscaling, 

2. Buy a graphics card and let that do the upscaling, or 

3. Let the 4K TV do the upscaling? 

 

TV not bought yet. It will either be an LG OLED or Sony ZD9. 

 

If you want the best upscaling you need a top quality video renderer like MadVR which numerous software players can and do utilise like JRiver. Then it all depends how far you want to take it. The most advanced scaling, doubling and quadrupling algorithms will make on board graphics **** themselves and most low and medium class dedicated graphics cards for that matter. 

[Keith_W]

Thank you Satanica! 

[agisthos]

In the early days of blu-ray, I found the players upscaling capabilities were better than the TV. But by about 2012 most TV's could upscale as good as or even better than even the latest Oppo.

The fact a TV turned into a full multi media machine required them to put higher performance CPU's inside, which made the general upscaling better.

 

I suspect it will be the same this time. Apparently upscaling to 4k within the TV itself now wildly differs in quality depending on the brand. So for now the new 4k Oppo may be best.

Edited September 28, 2016 by agisthos

[Owen]

The CPU's in smart TV's are there to run the not so smart app's. Video is processed by application specific (ASIC) chips not those CPU's refereed to in TV spec sheets.

Good scaling is not complicated or expensive to implement and hasn't been for years. Any decent TV will have no issues with up scaling, and that was the case when TV's had no "CPU's". The differences in visual performance almost always come down to other factors like filtering of the internal TV tunes output and sharpening systems which can vary in performance markedly, but thats another story.

[Guest Muon N']

I read somewhere that unless you are a meter away from the screen the difference between 2k and 4k is negligible visually?

 

Don't recall where I read it so no idea how true that is?

[betty boop]

37 minutes ago, Noum said:

I read somewhere that unless you are a meter away from the screen the difference between 2k and 4k is negligible visually?

 

Don't recall where I read it so no idea how true that is?

 

it depends on your screen size. 4k is beyond imax. and you need between 1-1.5x screen heights to fully resolve. so yeah if have a 1m heigh screen then yeah would sit 1-1.5m away to fully resolve. the problem sitting that close is when watching anything of lesser resolution e.g. blu-ray/fta TV/DVD is going to look pretty average as typically rules f thumb of 2.5-3x screen heights work better for that stuff.

 

does it mean will get no benefit sitting further ? no thats not the case e.g. if over resolving HD sitting at 2.5x screen heights then likely see *some* benefit of 4k. keeping in mind resolution is only one benefit of say formats like uhd there are other benefits such as WCG and HDR that will see from any distance. 

 

[Guest Muon N']

@:) al

 

Thanks, Al