480i & 576i output to 1080p or 4k TV's

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › 480i & 576i output to 1080p or 4k TV's

Dkeeper

132 posts

Master Geek

#248894 15-Apr-2019 13:16

Need advice on a simple low cost TV to give better picture from mainly Laser Disc’s (1,600 or more) and also some older DVD’s.

Thinking 43” might be preferable due to viewing distance. I will also likely (but casually) use it for reading while using the Google Chrome search engine from an attached PC.

My main concern is in having a good picture display of the LD’s and allowing for minimum artefact and upscaling distortion and such.

Not experienced here, but I am thinking that these LD’s are likely mostly putting out 480i & 576i (hope I have this right, correct me if wrong) and the TV will likely need

a good upscaler in order to look good on a 40” to 49” TV with either 1080p or 4K display.

Viewing distance is between 5.5 feet and 7 feet

LD player is a Pioneer CDL-D925 (Composite & S-Video output)

Home Theatre Amps (mostly old) come and go, sometimes I have them and other times they break. So this part is just a lucky add-on when times are good.

Thus I thought to put the questing in relation to the LD Player and the TV itself and have not discussed an amp.

At the moment I have been considering the Samsung TV’s models UA43N5500 or 43FX600 or UA43NU7100SX.

40” seems a tad too small and 43” is my preferred size, but if pressed I could go as high as a 50”, though I prefer to keep it smaller and at 43” if possible due to my normal 5.5-6.5 foot viewing distance with varied everyday FTA program content in addition to watching movies and Googling items.

Samsung say they are ‘not’ bringing in the 2019 Q60R series in 43” or 49” to NZ, though I wonder if they might appear from Australian suppliers later in the year. (Won’t hold my breath on this one though)

I mention this as I believe that the Q69R TV’s might do better on the upscaling due to the faster processor and a better AI. However, I have not been able to confirm this for my LD application.

Getting a straight or more informative answer from Samsung can be difficult, so I am likely looking at the above 3 models mentioned and Samsung did briefly suggest I buy the lower tech model of the 1080p UA43N5500 though they do not explain why the 4k model would not work just as well, as it too seemed to recognise 480i & 576i in its spec sheet. Hoping to find a simple and clearer answer here from the wealth of informed group at Geekzone, if I’m lucky.

Thank you in advance for any advice or input with this and I look forward to your thoughts.

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#2217414 15-Apr-2019 13:34

To be Honest, I suspect your best path is to talk to a dealer who actually has stock of the models you are interested in and drag your LD player down there and try them out...

I suspect that the upscaling is optimised for digital inputs (via HDMI) so how much love is given to the analog ones ...(composite/s video), will unlikely be specified in any of the info provided

The best way to get information on the results of interfacing niche equipment (LD players were pretty niche even in their hey day, let alone now :)...to modern screens is probably by actually doing it .....

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2217451 15-Apr-2019 14:23

At the moment I have been considering the Samsung TV’s models UA43N5500 or 43FX600 or UA43NU7100SX

Have a UA43NU7100SX as a bedroom TV. We don't have line of sight to DVB-s, and don't have Sky, so any TV (apart from streamed content) is from the inbuilt DVB-S tuner at 576i (IIRC).

From 7 feet viewing distance with DVB-S, there's nothing really wrong or objectionable with it, it's just not 1080p, at 10 feet (our normal viewing distance) it's quite good. I doubt I could tell the difference between 4k and 1080 at 10 feet, but whatever. I got the TV free with a Samsung phone, a 1080p TV would have been fine for how it's used.

In terms of creating artifacts from upscaling which wouldn't be good, I don't see anything objectionable at default settings, even looking closely. That goes for 576i and 1080p up-scaled to 4k.

There's a problem with comparing TVs in shops, even if you can turn off shop display mode setting which is possibly over sharpened and too much contrast/brightness/saturation, you'd still have to muck around with picture settings to get anything other than how the default settings look. For a $900 TV, I think life's too short for the time needed to investigate that.

I did try connecting a 4k/60p capable Intel Nuc to the TV, it wouldn't recognise it. I think that was probably just the HDMI cable I used, first I could grab out of a box. I'm not going to use it with a PC, so didn't try another cable.

I think for what it is, it's a good enough TV - better than I expected. Minimal edge light bleed, very bright screen if you need that, it's very thin and slim bezels, some slightly uneven backlighting but not noticeable in normal viewing, black levels typical for LED backlit LCDs. Inbuilt Netfix /Lightbox / Youtube etc apps work fine, it starts quite quickly and minimal delay when changing inputs etc.

cshwone

1070 posts

Uber Geek

#2217500 15-Apr-2019 15:49

I am not sure modern TV’s would even upscale an s-video or composite signal. So definitively worth taking the LD Player to get a demo.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2217741 15-Apr-2019 22:49

cshwone: I am not sure modern TV’s would even upscale an s-video or composite signal. So definitively worth taking the LD Player to get a demo.

Well it's going to have to be upscaled and interpolated/resampled - because 1080 or 2160 isn't divisible by 576 and an integer.

I'd be staggered if any recent TV that still bothered to have an S video or composite inputs wouldn't upscale it to fill the screen by default (4:3 ratio margins excluded), then there's always the zoom/aspect options.

Whether they claim to upscale a lower resolution image to higher, using magic pixie dust is another matter.

Masterpiece

247 posts

Master Geek

#2217745 15-Apr-2019 23:11

There is nothing wrong with choosing a display that is affordable, however the main problem is that you looking at mid to low level displays whilst asking for best quality up-scaling. The better processors tend to be in the upper models, hence why some comment that PAL 576i based material still looks fine on a 2160p display. You will find a tendency of those passing this comment have a higher spec display.

If I was choosing a display in the range offered, I'd be looking at the displays ability in general to process a range of challenging material. Not just up-scaling but motion artifacts, noise and other brand differences.
With differences in the way a brand designs their processors, I have found people tend to prefer one brand over another because they like what they see and feel from the image. Consider this, if you always prefer one brand over another, there is a feel to a brand that you are used too, if there are problems with an image you will be more tolerant to something for which you are used to.

Not withstanding up-scaling, in PAL/NTSC days there was quite large differences in source quality which is highlighted dramatically when displaying on a modern display. This brings up a problem that for the modern viewers have largely forgotten about or didn't know was a problem, dealing with colour problems, specifically if your library contains NTSC source material. The modern display is a lot less forgiving to colour oddities.

Distance.
Generally for most house holds even today with 4k displays, viewing is done 2x~5x the distance that the image is designed for, viewers tended to be up to 10x the distance for 25/29 inch CRTs, for this reason material such as VHS at 240 lines was tolerable.

I think you are right to be looking at 40~46inch displays of 1080p types if you wish to keep to a modestly priced panel. The smaller pixels will be more tolerant of up-scaling problems, especially if you view from moderate distance.

If you went larger on a display you might need to consider a better model which will have a higher spec processor, but then you might have problems with input choices. Another option is an external video processor that does the heavy lifting up to 1080p with a HDMI output which intern opens up choices of panels because the hard work is done by the video processor.

I still use a 1080p projector, a modest Panasonic AE4000E and 106in screen and have a large collection of PAL576i material. I have a Lumagen radiance 2143 video processor which up-scales and has a powerful colour correction 17*17*17 LUT built in as well. This is a $4000~$6000 device, still sold new, although now being replaced by 4k units at almost double the cost I might add.

I also have an older video processor collecting dust not being used which is looking for a home!, the Lumagen radiance XS-3D, which is a video processor that was specifically designed for PAL/NTSC upscaled to 1080p. It has S-Video, component and HDMI1.4 inputs and HDMI1.4 outputs. This unit has older greyscale and CMS colour correction as well as a 5*5*5 LUT colour correction.
Here is the details of this device.
http://www.lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=radianceXS_details

Although these types of video processors are less required in modern displays, specifically the higher spec models, they can solve video routing, up-scaling problems when dealing with multiple source types and technologies, specifically, HDMI1.4, s-video and component in this case.

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Dkeeper

132 posts

Master Geek

#2219486 16-Apr-2019 22:35

Thank you so much to you all for the great comments and advice. It's a tricky one, holding onto technology gone by. We invest in these things and it's great to protect the medium and enjoy what we have loved and shared.

I'm sure with this I will find a solution in near future.

Cheers and again thank you.

toejam316

1466 posts

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#2219487 16-Apr-2019 22:45

You might find a bit of useful info in places like avclub, and also there may be a bit of crossover from retro gaming forums, but from everything I've seen, there's no ideal way to handle this stuff.

A suggestion I've seen is to just backup the video from the laserdiscs, with either a capture card or DVD Recorder. That way you can capture the video in its original resolution, pop your laserdiscs away somewhere safe, and play the media off of a DVD or as networked media.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

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Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2219629 17-Apr-2019 09:18

toejam316:

A suggestion I've seen is to just backup the video from the laserdiscs, with either a capture card or DVD Recorder.

I think that's a very good idea, I've had a few optical drives kick the bucket over the years, mechanical failure or the laser diode (which have an expected finite life anyway) dying. It'll be a problem if the LD player diode etc fails. If for nostalgic reasons you want to keep the LD player functional, using it only occasionally might be the way to go.

Rikkitic

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#2219674 17-Apr-2019 09:57

For what it's worth, I was on an old Sky decoder for awhile, which had an s-video output. I had a Panasonic DVR with s-video in that upscaled to 1080p. I'm sure they can still be found second-hand for little money. The Panny HDMI out was fed into a Sony TV and the low-res Sky signal upscaled that way. The picture quality wasn't 'great' (depends on what you compare it to), but it was okay.

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Dkeeper

132 posts

Master Geek

#2222674 23-Apr-2019 13:06

Hi & thank you for all the great suggestions.

Backing up onto hard drive or other would be too big a job due to the 1,600+ LD titles involving over 2,000 discs.. Also many of the LD's have additional audio tracks containing director and producer commentary which can be switched on while watching the movie.

I've decided to go with an in-line upscaler for now and I'm confident that this will assist greatly. Who knows, maybe the TV's coming out in the next 1-3 three years will have the AI smarts to do this along with improving a variety of lower resolution inputs.

Cheers, and thanks again.

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#2222677 23-Apr-2019 13:19

Dkeeper:

Hi & thank you for all the great suggestions.

Backing up onto hard drive or other would be too big a job due to the 1,600+ LD titles involving over 2,000 discs.. Also many of the LD's have additional audio tracks containing director and producer commentary which can be switched on while watching the movie.

Cheers, and thanks again.

Glad to hear you have a solution you are happy with,

Just as an aside, and if in the future you do want to climb the mountain of digitising your LD collection to a HDD,

Multiple audio tracks are not a problem for a number of file formats, both the MP4 and MKV containers support this, so you can keep all your LD director/producer added feature goodness if/when you migrate from physical media....

Dkeeper

132 posts

Master Geek

#2225029 25-Apr-2019 22:08

Thanks for that Wellygary..

That is good news, as I have not done this before. Maybe in 3-4 months time I might look into trying it on a few of my favorite choices, as I know some are very special. Thank you for the encouragement..

ilovemusic

1439 posts

Uber Geek

#2225467 26-Apr-2019 12:46

i have the same ldp, a pioneer 925 (into a panasonic 65vt50 via marantz sr7012 avr) and frankly i don't know why anyone would want to use one regularly in 2019.

picture and sound quality have long exceeded the best by date.

pq is better than vhs but far below dvd, let alone bd or 4k.

granted some movies may not be available on dvd, bd or streaming but that list is getting shorter by the day.

ilovemusic

1439 posts

Uber Geek

#2227022 28-Apr-2019 21:01

and being old school analogue video, laserdisc gets nowhere near the 480/576 resolution of dvd. the best you can get is 425 on ntsc/ 440 pal.