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[irfan]

i see that a few dvd players will upconvert 480i dvds to 1080i and supposedly it looks pretty good.  i was wondering if anyone had any experience with the xbox playing dvds at 1080i instead of 480i/p, or is it completely impossible? im not sure if those dvd players have special hardware or if ts a processing thing, i jsut think 1080i playback would be much better than 480p.  checkin here before i spend a couple hundred on a player that does it.

[Mr Ed]

QUOTE (irfan @ Jul 26 2004, 10:52 PM)

i jsut think 1080i playback would be much better than 480p.  checkin here before i spend a couple hundred on a player that does it.

Not really.  A DVD is recorded in 480p so any extra resolution is just fake.  There is no more picture information on the DVD than what you see in 480p, so it won't add any detail.

[irfan]

i know that the dvds will still be in 480i form but from reviews ive read about 1080i players the results are better pictures with the player upconverting and doing some processing... id assume this could eliminate jagged edges and such and make the picture look better than it normally is in 480i/p.

[Foe-hammer]

It does look better upscaned 720p/1080i.  I use xbmc, and watch movies on my computer montitor, via the x2vga, in 720p.  There is a definite improvment.

[irfan]

so xbmc can upscan the dvds? or is that a feature of x2vga.  i will be running component cables into my front projector, i wont be using x2vga

[Foe-hammer]

Yes, xbmc is what uscales 480p to 720p or 1080i.  You must have a modded xbox to use xbmc, though.

[ChrisF]

If you visit any major videophile website you won't see anyone going crazy over upscaling nor many people using it.  The people that get the best mileage are home theater PC users as they can create customized filters and processing to tweak each individual movie to perfection (and save those settings).  

XBMC supposedly does a better job with 720p upscaling.  I haven't tried it but I have messed with 1080i upscaling directly from a retail DVD in the drive.  The results are less than stellar and I've experienced some significant stability issues if I don't let the film play straight through - very buggy.  I just haven't been impressed by what I've seen on screen and you should certainly keep in mind Mr. Ed's comments.  You can double, triple, or quadruple the lines in the movie.  It's still the same thing and possibly may even get a bit worse from the aspect of introducing artifacts.

[Foe-hammer]

What Mr. Ed and ChrisF have said are all correct.  IMO, upscaled 720p does look noticabley better on my computer monitor then 480p does; not as grainy.  In truth though, i could not tell much of an improvment on my friends 36" HDTV when playing a movie in upscaled 1080i.  I just wish it were possible to upscale 480p xbox games to 720p, for the same reason.

[Alkaline]

[irfan]

hmm thanks for the tips, i'll try out the xbmc and see what it looks like.. yes the xbox is chipped... and i'll be testing it on a front projector with component inputs, its has HDTV support