Linescaler Or Line Doubler (1 Viewer)

[Craig Aguiar]

Hello all. I have a 65 inch RPTV. Toshiba. I have a progresive scan DVD, DBS, and a VCR. I want to improve the resolution of everything to take advantage of the 1080i or 720p that my TV can do. So here is my question.

What would be better to add, a line scaler or a line doubler. I have heard different things about these items.

a. doubler increases resolution and scaler only makes low res images viewable on high res displays

b. doubler doubles resolution and scaler increases resolution up to native rate of display. (making the scaler the obvious choice)

Please tell me which (if either) is correct and which one would give me the best performance on my TV.

Thanks, craig.

 

[Bill Slack]

Neither of them 'increase resolution' what's there, is what's there. You won't get a smidgen of extra detail out of it. Your TV should already be line-doubling and scalling the image too, to 540p.

An external scaler might scale a source to either 540p or 1080i a little better, but not much. AFAIK, your tv converts 720p to 1080i internally.

I use a DVDO I-Scan de-interlacter (aka 'line doubler') to increase the quality of my laserdiscs and VCR -- but your set already provides similiar features to what my I-Scan does (i.e., 3:2 pull down for film-based sources.)

A HD DBS receiver will scale regular channels to 1080i, but the quality isn't very exciting. Channels look slightly better when display at 480p in my setup. Some newer boxes have better scalers (like the latest Sony, for instance) but in the end it's garbage in, garbage out.

And...

b. is closer to correct. A 'doubler' is really just a de-interlacer which doubles the amount of VISIBLE scan lines, but does not increase resolution. It makes an interlaced signal a progressive signal. A scaler takes an input at one resolution and outputs it at another (which is presumably the optial scan-rate of your display.)

 

[Craig Aguiar]

Thanks for your reply. I don't have any HD equipment yet as HDTV in Canada is more of an urban lehend right now.

Anyway, so as I understand it a line doubler or scaler will do nothing for me with my current TV. I was thinking of upgrading to a DLP or LCD front projector in the future. Would I neeed one then or are they also built into the projectors. Or would it improve the picture?

Also here is another thought. When I upgraded from my old DVD to my new one which is progressive scan, I noticed an improvment in the picture. Asuming all I did was get a DVD player that deinterlaces the signal, as in the case of a line doubler, would my other sources not bebifit from being deinterlaced as well.

One last thing, just confirming that with a line scaler, by bumping the res of signal upto the native res of the TV/projector, I am not going to see an improvment in picture quality because it started out as a low quality signal. I thought the scalers filled in the spaces between the scan lines or some jazz like that.

Once again, thanks for all pof your help with this matter.