Upconversion of Standard Definition Material On Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

I recently read the following, regarding the SD-on-BD transfer the 1925 silent version of The Wizard of Oz, at http://www.silentera.com/video/wizardOfOzHV.html:


"The standard-definition video transfer has been lifted, without HD remastering, from the 2005 Warner Home Video DVD edition (noted below). While many viewers would not see anything wrong in this and will be happy with this edition on Blu-ray Disc, discerning viewers will see aliased ‘stairstepping’ to some diagonal edges and around intertitles type.


Most Blu-ray Disc players, when playing a DVD disc, will upconvert the standard-definition interlaced 480-line NTSC signal of a DVD to a progressive-scan signal and approximate image details between scan lines of picture information, filling in picture information where there is none. The results are not high-definition, but are much smoother and filmlike. A standard-definition video transfer is not upconverted when played back from a Blu-ray disc because the player assumes the content is an encoded HD signal."


Is the author's assertion correct? It makes sense but having tested it out with several different discs where I own both the DVD and its equivalent BD, I can discern no difference in image quality when projecting onto a 104" screen. Though I only own Oz on BD, I've just tried it again by pausing various frames of The Invisible Boy (1957), from the Forbidden Planet 50th Anniversary Edition DVD and the BD...

What assertion?

The fact they encoded 480i at 1080P with no upscale?

For most fixed panel displays it's going to get upscaled at some point -- the disc likely with a professional scaler, your player, or your Display. The better the scaler the better the result.


I find most good Displays upscale the DVD image about as well as an Upscaling DVD Player. Some bluray players and high end DVD players (OPPO) do better than the majority of displays

The only thing I've noticed with SD material on Blu-ray discs is that it is always 480i. DVD's more often than not are 480p, but never have I come across a single video encoded at 480p on Blu-ray.

The author's assertion can easily be demonstrated to be incorrect: if 480i (or 480p) material on Blu-ray wasn't upscaled on a 1080p display, the result would be a small letterboxed image in the middle of the screen.

Mark-P said:

The only thing I've noticed with SD material on Blu-ray discs is that it is always 480i. DVD's more often than not are 480p, but never have I come across a single video encoded at 480p on Blu-ray.

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The Blu-Ray spec doesn't officially allow 480p for primary SD video streams. Of course, there are "tricks" to get around this for those who are technically inclined.

Persianimmortal said:

The author's assertion can easily be demonstrated to be incorrect: if 480i (or 480p) material on Blu-ray wasn't upscaled on a 1080p display, the result would be a small letterboxed image in the middle of the screen.

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That's correct. Blu-ray players can be set to upconvert 480i/p regardless of whether or not it is on a Blu-ray disc or a DVD.

revgen said:

The Blu-Ray spec doesn't officially allow 480p for primary SD video streams. Of course, there are "tricks" to get around this for those who are technically inclined.

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Guess that's why I've never found a 480p stream on a Blu-ray. Yes you can use a "trick" by simply setting your output to 480p, and the Blu-ray player will deinterlace for you. However I always set my output to 1080p and everything gets upconverted and deinterlaced, and looks pretty good that way.

Thanks for the sensible (non-sarcastic) answers, guys. Although the claim had a kind of logic to it, I knew something must be skewed - I just wasn't sure how exactly!

Considering that I've just ordered THE WIZARD OF OZ 75TH ANNIVERSARY LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION set, it's a relief knowing the 480i Transfers can still be upconverted on Blu-ray Disc, though it's too bad that at least the silent films didn't get a fresh HD scan!


It appears to me it's that Blu-ray Players CAN be set to upscale, rather than it being automatic that started the urban legend (Presumably by those who assumed it couldn't be manually done!) that SD Media on Blu-ray can't be upconverted!


CHEERS!

If material was encoded onto the disk at 480p bumped up to 1080p without upscaling algorithms designed to smooth out stair steps, it wouldn't look as good as a DVD on my Oppo player upscaled to 1080p. Different upscaling technology yields different results.


I have no idea if that is the case with the silent Wizard of Oz because I don't have that disk

Brent Reid said:

I recently read the following, regarding the SD-on-BD transfer the 1925 silent version of The Wizard of Oz, at http://www.silentera.com/video/wizardOfOzHV.html:


"The standard-definition video transfer has been lifted, without HD remastering, from the 2005 Warner Home Video DVD edition (noted below). While many viewers would not see anything wrong in this and will be happy with this edition on Blu-ray Disc, discerning viewers will see aliased ‘stairstepping’ to some diagonal edges and around intertitles type.


Most Blu-ray Disc players, when playing a DVD disc, will upconvert the standard-definition interlaced 480-line NTSC signal of a DVD to a progressive-scan signal and approximate image details between scan lines of picture information, filling in picture information where there is none. The results are not high-definition, but are much smoother and filmlike. A standard-definition video transfer is not upconverted when played back from a Blu-ray disc because the player assumes the content is an encoded HD signal."


Is the author's assertion correct? It makes sense but having tested it out with several different discs where I own both the DVD and its equivalent BD, I can discern no difference in image quality when projecting onto a 104" screen. Though I only own Oz on BD, I've just tried it again by pausing various frames of The Invisible Boy (1957), from the Forbidden Planet 50th Anniversary Edition DVD and the BD...

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Hi Brent!


Wow, that review of the 1925 version of THE WIZARD OF OZ by Carl Bennett is about as scathing as it gets! The first paragraph alone seems to run counter to Silent Era's philosophy of preservation, but then perhaps, it is just that kind of Film?


CHEERS!


Tony

It seems to me the decision to not do 1080p scans for the silents may have been influenced by the desire to fit these and the DREAMER OF OZ on one Blu-ray Disc.


As much as I enjoyed the 3 part Documentary MGM: WHEN THE LION ROARS when I viewed it on TCM a few years back, since it's already available on a dual layered 2 DVD set, I would have preferred an extra Blu-ray Disc to space out the Oz related Features and shorts with HD 1080p Transfers, instead!


In my opinion, it's also too bad that Warner couldn't have used the VHS print (Or any better Transfer!) of THE DREAMER OF OZ that an HTF Guest member said was superior to the one that's appeared in WIZARD OF OZ sets since 2009!


CHEERS!

I keep the DVDs for SD material (previously purchased) rather than watch it from the BD (when it's ported). I do use an Oppo for this DVD upscaling, it's far superior to what my display can do. A couple of my "BDPs" won't even upscale SD material on BD, so it's up to the display (Pio) for them = yuck!


[OT: I was watching some R2 (PAL) DVD yesterday, and thought to myself: this looks so good, I wouldn't re-buy it on BD should it become available. I have some DVDs that when upscaled, make me think: if all DVDs looked this good, BD would be a very small niche of SACD/DVD-A proportions. (I do appreciate the BD benefits though, I am speaking of the general public/market, not "us".) I am kind of thinking that UHD could be like this, as an upscaled (good) BD looks pretty fine on a typical current 4K display, and I'm guessing it'll look even better when a "good" player does the upscaling rather than the display. There'll be other benefits of UHD, if if if the studios implement them, rather than just dangle the possibility. Now that I think of it, I have not seen a DVD upscaled on a 4K display yet.]

CraigF said:

I keep the DVDs for SD material (previously purchased) rather than watch it from the BD (when it's ported). I do use an Oppo for this DVD upscaling, it's far superior to what my display can do. A couple of my "BDPs" won't even upscale SD material on BD, so it's up to the display (Pio) for them = yuck!


[OT: I was watching some R2 (PAL) DVD yesterday, and thought to myself: this looks so good, I wouldn't re-buy it on BD should it become available. I have some DVDs that when upscaled, make me think: if all DVDs looked this good, BD would be a very small niche of SACD/DVD-A proportions. (I do appreciate the BD benefits though, I am speaking of the general public/market, not "us".) I am kind of thinking that UHD could be like this, as an upscaled (good) BD looks pretty fine on a typical current 4K display, and I'm guessing it'll look even better when a "good" player does the upscaling rather than the display. There'll be other benefits of UHD, if if if the studios implement them, rather than just dangle the possibility. Now that I think of it, I have not seen a DVD upscaled on a 4K display yet.]

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I have said this in many posts on different sites.

Mark-P said:

Guess that's why I've never found a 480p stream on a Blu-ray. Yes you can use a "trick" by simply setting your output to 480p, and the Blu-ray player will deinterlace for you. However I always set my output to 1080p and everything gets upconverted and deinterlaced, and looks pretty good that way.

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I never knew that SD material on blu-ray is always interlaced. It's interesting and ironic that SD material can look better upconverted from DVD (the vast majority of which are already progressively encoded at 24fps for film based material) than from blu-ray. I guess I never noticed. I personally use "Auto" resolution for DVD material (something about using the blanket 1080p setting on both my old Samsung and new Sony doesn't look quite right for some reason and gives me a slightly "muted" look to the picture although I admit it may be all in my head) which coverts 24p material to 1080 and "original" resolution (which touches nothing and plays the disc "as is") for blu-ray.

Brent Reid said:

Most Blu-ray Disc players, when playing a DVD disc, will upconvert the standard-definition interlaced 480-line NTSC signal of a DVD to a progressive-scan signal and approximate image details between scan lines of picture information, filling in picture information where there is none. The results are not high-definition, but are much smoother and filmlike. A standard-definition video transfer is not upconverted when played back from a Blu-ray disc because the player assumes the content is an encoded HD signal."

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Just to be clear, despite what the author of the article states, the VAST majority of DVD's (other than those taken from ancient video or TV masters) do NOT contain interlaced images. Progressive scan transfers are stored at 24fps on disc and leave the added pulldown (interlacing) for the player to perform. Quality aside, it's just good economics as it would be a waste of disc space to encode at 60i frames when it isn't necessary. The 24p material contains a flag that tells the player in regular mode to add 2:3 pulldown to the material before sending it to the display. Since most displays are also progressive displays now and don't require interlaced frames, newer model blu-ray players have an option of playing 24fps DVD material progressively. In that mode the player simply ignores any flags on the material and plays it "as is" with no "de-interlacing" required.

Will Krupp said:

Just to be clear, despite what the author of the article states, the VAST majority of DVD's (other than those taken from ancient video or TV masters) do NOT contain interlaced images. Progressive scan transfers are stored at 24fps on disc and leave the added pulldown (interlacing) for the player to perform. Quality aside, it's just good economics as it would be a waste of disc space to encode at 60i frames when it isn't necessary. The 24p material contains a flag that tells the player in regular mode to add 2:3 pulldown to the material before sending it to the display. Since most displays are also progressive displays now and don't require interlaced frames, newer model blu-ray players have an option of playing 24fps DVD material progressively. In that mode the player simply ignores any flags on the material and plays it "as is" with no "de-interlacing" required.

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This doesn't sound right to me. Closed captions require interlaced video. The conversion from interlaced to progressive scan discards the CC information.


SInce I have been using CC on DVDs for years, interlaced scans must be the majority.

Or am I misunderstanding you (and this)?

DVDs are most often interlaced. Not that it matters. The contrast levels, sharpness and colors are MUCH more important.

dvdclon said:

This doesn't sound right to me. Closed captions require interlaced video. The conversion from interlaced to progressive scan discards the CC information.


SInce I have been using CC on DVDs for years, interlaced scans must be the majority.

Or am I misunderstanding you (and this)?

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bigshot said:

DVDs are most often interlaced.

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Hmmmmm....now I'm confused because that runs counter to everything I've ever read.


I don't presume to know ANYTHING about captions but, since they are display generated, I guess I would assume that, rather than be encoded on interlaced frames in real time at the source, they would be sent as a separate packet along with the video feed and could be decoded on the back end once it passed through an interlaced signal. Again, I don't claim any definite knowledge of exactly how captions are decoded.


In addition to everything I've read, it doesn't make logical sense to me that most DVD's are interlaced because, if that's the case, then 24fps DVD capable BDP's would have to perform a reverse telecine to recover the 24 frames (which sounds, by the way, like a nightmare) and would do so on all discs. 24fps ISN'T available on every single DVD though.


Take, as an out of the air example, the DVD sets of THE LUCY SHOW. Even with 24fps engaged (in Auto mode) it will still play Season 1 (the black & white episodes) at 30/60fps (my assumption being that they were from older, interlaced video masters and were hard encoded that way) and play all of the other seasons at 24p. If most DVD's are interlaced and the player is actually having to do the work, what is the difference between the seasons? It's a rare DVD that WON'T play a feature film back at 24p, but logos and video based material on the same disc are often still 30/60.

All DVDs are interlaced. This is the only way they can be encoded. Many discs were "flagged" for progressive display (and several were flagged incorrectly, creating a royal bloody mess), in which case, the player would discard the extra fields generated to be compatible with the majority of displays in existence when the DVD format was developed (interlaced) when connected to a progressive display.