360 to offer DVD upscaling to 720p

[Tahir2]

The Toshiba 350E player allows playback in 720p and 1080i without HDCP from what I know.

 

[ERP]

One of my DVD players upscales to a variety of resolutions through none HDCP connections, so I guess it isn't a legal issue.

There may however be some "agreement" in place between the various manufacturers.

 

[London Geezer]

See. I'm always right

 

[Guden Oden]

Either the player upscales the video or the TV does; in any case the end result is the same, and for the DVD pirate the plain un-upscaled version would be preferred as it results in a smaller datastream to capture and a smaller transcoded end result as well.

With that in mind, every DVD player ought to upscale as a prerequisite with no option to disable! (Of course, assuming DVD pirates do their dastardly deed by capturing analog video, which they do not, thus rendering this whole issue completely moot...)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

See. I'm always right

Is that so... What are the UK national lottery numbers going to be drawn tomorrow then?

 

[expletive]

Well, Denon and others are not third world countries bogus manufacturers and provide 625p over Component and 720p over HDMI/DVI, whatever the legalities are. Not sure about VGA.
I always thought the distinction was because of some limitation with the upscaler with analog outputs, but if you guys say it's because of HDCP, cool. Not one of the many upscaling DVD players mention HDCP as a requirement - so using DVI without HDCP (many sets are like that) is fine.

From a U.S. standpoint it is not legal for a stand-alone DVD player to output upconverted HD resolutions over component. The last mainstream player i knew of that could do this was the Zenith 318 and they have since changed the firmware to only allow it over DVI.

It is a stupid law because youre not getting TRUE HD content, only a digital representation.

As far as HTPCs go, i'm not 100% sure on this but you wont be able to send a non HDCP signal out over DVI to an HDCP enabled display. So while you can spit out that signal non-hdcp devices wont accept it.

EDIT: Actually i think one of the earlier players from V Inc was also able to out HD resolutions out of component and HDCP but did not have hdcp enabled.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

HDCP is something that's encoded on the disc.

I don't think there is anything encoded on the disc, but I'm not 100% sure...
Isn't HDCP basically just encryption sended by source and the display must be compliant in order to get the picture.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

As far as HTPCs go, i'm not 100% sure on this but you wont be able to send a non HDCP signal out over DVI to an HDCP enabled display. So while you can spit out that signal non-hdcp devices wont accept it.

The display won't look for HDCP if it's not being sent, so it should work just fine.

 

[Titanio]

One of my DVD players upscales to a variety of resolutions through none HDCP connections, so I guess it isn't a legal issue.

There may however be some "agreement" in place between the various manufacturers.

Sime time ago, a couple of manufacturers put out DVD players that upscaled over component inputs, but IIRC that didn't last long, and was before all of this came to the fore. I don't think any manufacturers have recently brought out players that can do so?

 

[expletive]

I don't think there is anything encoded on the disc, but I'm not 100% sure...
Isn't HDCP basically just encryption sended by source and the display must be compliant in order to get the picture.

Definitely not on the disc.

After i thought about it though youre right about the HDCP encryption on either side. The source looks to check if the display is. If the source is not nothing else has to be.

 

[Guden Oden]

From a U.S. standpoint it is not legal for a stand-alone DVD player to output upconverted HD resolutions over component.

Oh really? And which law would be violated from doing that?

 

[ninelven]

I don't know if its a law or not, but I do know this: to my knowledge, only a handful of these players have actually existed for sale in the U.S. and all of them have been replaced by revised models which only allow upscaling through an HDCP connection. I think that speaks for itself.

 

[pakotlar]

I'm not sure why there is so much interest in this issue. Upscaling is in no way illegal without HDCP. To the poster that said that upscaling was disallowed via component inputs but enabled for DVI input, what sense would that make? The whole point of HDCP is to restrict the viewing of HD content on non-HDCP devices. DVI has no protocol for HDCP. Yes there are DVI-HDCP enabled connections, but they are not one and the same. FYI, my OPPO upconverts to 720p via DVI, component, whatever. No HDCP to speak of. End of discussion

edit: Seems I was wrong about the component upconverting, but this article seems to indicate it is a limit of the hardware and not any protocols (which would make sense, as non HDCP DVI will receive the same restriction as component legally): http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/oppoDV971Hdvdplayer1.php

PS: It should come as no surprise that the Xbox360 will upconvert. The scalers required are very cheap. I have a Toshiba upconverting dvd player downstairs that does 720p/1080i and costs $100. Maybe cheaper units are out there. Imo the question isn't whether the Xbox360 will upconvert, but rather how good its scaler will be. The Toshiba scaler is weak sauce, but if the xbox360 mpeg-2 playback is Xenox-assisted, it should be pretty good.

PPS: Just in case the OPPO gets the label of a "3rd world bootleg America Pw3nz0rz you" manufacturer, check out some reviews of them online: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3132.html
http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/oppoDV971Hdvdplayer1.php
I really recommend the player to anyone in the market. For $200 a pretty damn good DVI-HDMI cable is included.

 

[Tap In]

first of all upscaling over component for DVDs is out there now, although not widely.

secondly, what's the difference if my CRT HDTV upconverts all 480p signals to 1080i for me (besides the quality of the scalers)?

 

[kyleb]

edit: Seems I was wrong about the component upconverting, but this article seems to indicate it is a limit of the hardware and not any protocols (which would make sense, as non HDCP DVI will receive the same restriction as component legally): http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/oppoDV971Hdvdplayer1.php

Man, I already pointed out that a few of the many that don't support the feature can be hacked to support it. I don't mean hardware hacked either, but simply by the serivce menu or flashing the firmware. Check around if you like, the vast majorty of upconverting DVD players don't let you use the feature over component. You will find people on forums all over the net bitching about this fact.

 

[Ty]

Imo the question isn't whether the Xbox360 will upconvert, but rather how good its scaler will be. The Toshiba scaler is weak sauce, but if the xbox360 mpeg-2 playback is Xenox-assisted, it should be pretty good.

This is pretty much where I stand on the issue. Upconverting is really only useful imo, if it's replacing a poorer quality scaler some where else in your HT chain.

That is, if the XBox360 scaler is better than the one in your TV, then great. But if it's not (and many quality flat TV panels have good scalers nowadays) then it's pretty useless.

 

[Mmmkay]

For what it's worth, just throwing it out there... xbox.com is operated and maintained by a third party company which often gets information wrong.

 

[expletive]

This is pretty much where I stand on the issue. Upconverting is really only useful imo, if it's replacing a poorer quality scaler some where else in your HT chain.

That is, if the XBox360 scaler is better than the one in your TV, then great. But if it's not (and many quality flat TV panels have good scalers nowadays) then it's pretty useless.

There's also a chance the scaling will be done in software on the xenon. Really doesnt matter though becuase then it only becomes a question about how good is the software scaling.

I think we will find, in the end, that the 360 will output DVDs at 480p.

 

[Inane_Dork]

As a consumer, why should I care whether it upconverts the signal or not? Is anything gained by that?

 

[kyleb]

Yes, a well upconverted image will be filtered to provided better image quality on anything better than an SDTV than what you would get compared to running the lower resolution source directly to the display. Granted, the 360 might do a crappy job at scaling, in which case you would be better off letting the display do the work. However, the 360 does have more than enough power to do a great job, and if they make use of that then it could be a very nice feature for the console.