Does prog scan help with poor non-anamorphic transfers? (1 Viewer)

[Frank@N]

I'm sure most readers of this board avoid letterbox transfers whenever possible.

Some LBX transfers are top notch (Strange Days), but most are found lacking due to visible shimmer and distracting line structure breakouts.

That brings me to my question: while prog scan might not dramatically improve already great (16x9) transfers, will it at least shore up the weaker (LBX) ones?

I'm thinking of great movies, like 'The Apostle' and 'Rambling Rose', which are saddled with lots of shimmer and jaggy images.

I posted awhile back about the 'benefits of prog scan', but I don't think I specifically asked about LBX transfers.

Everytime I cave-in and buy a few LBX oldies, I start to wonder if new technology can solve the problems created by old technology.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[greg_t]

progressive scan in and of itself will do nothing to improve resolution on non-anamaphoric transfers. It merely converts interlaced video to progressive. What can make a big difference is to buy a dvd player that scales non-anamaphoric images. The RP91 is considered to be about the best in this category. The 91's deinterlacer has the scaling feature built into it. It will scale non-anamaphoric dvd's to 16x9. This also allows you to keep your TV in it's full, or widescreen mode. In full mode there are more scan lines and they are closer together than in the sets zoom modes. Now the RP91's scaling won't make a non-anamaphoric dvd anamaphoric quality, but it will make it better than by just using the zoom modes on most TV's. Again, a player being progressive scan in and of itself will do nothing to help, but the 91 has the scaling feature built into the deinterlacer. Hope this helps.

 

[Frank@N]

Does this mean that the player bypasses the more typical progressive/3:2 pulldown operation, in favor of a scaler/deinterlacer operation?

Does it do this automatically for 4:3 encoded programs?

This is very interesting.

 

[Allan Jayne]

Non-anamorphic programs will also look better in progressive scan although the resolution is not increased over interlaced scan.

The player with scaling should have its own progressive 3-2 pulldown sensing operation in addition, but you will have to check the specs to be sure.

Everything is done for 4:3 encoded programs too, but the best results are still had by setting the player to 16:9.

The 3-2 pulldown sensing is not turned off just because scaling is turned on.

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