XPost: alt.video.digital-tv 
 From: stephen.neal@nospam.as-directed.com 
  
 "Doug McDonald"  wrote in message 
 news:ccq0fp$h5l$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu... 
 > Stephen Neal wrote: 
 > 
 > > 
 > > I wonder if US HDTVs are using similar digital processing when 
 displaying 
 > > 480i material at 1080i or 720p? 
 > 
 > Some sets do marvelous upconversions. Mine does, realistically 
 > speaking it is excellent. 
  
 Glad to hear it. Intellectually it struck me as easier to do a 480/50i to 
 1080/50i scale without mangling the picture - whereas 576/50i to 576/100i 
 involves interpolation of intermediate fields and lots of guestimating in 
 the temporal domain (which can go quite badly wrong) 
  
 I guess what your set is doing is similar to the DRC50/1250 settings on 
 high-end DRC sets sold by Sony in the UK - which must be close to a 576/50i 
 to 1152/50i scale - and this has always (to my eyes) looked better than the 
 same set in DRC100 mode (which is 576/50i to 576/100i) with far fewer 
 processing artefacts. 
  
 > Currently Fox is 
 > doing a 480i -> 720p at the station and it is very very 
 > marvelous ... 
  
 Yep - if you have the bandwith much better to let the broadcaster do the 
 upconversion : 
  
 1. They have an uncompressed (or lightly compressed) 480/60i source feed so 
 will only be scaling/frame rate converting the video and not the artefacts 
 introduced with broadcast compression (as would be the case if you 
 upconverted an off-air signal) 
 2. They will be using a broadcast quality upconverter rather than a couple 
 of dollars worth of in-TV DSP.  Should be better quality. 
  
 > far better than DVD. 
  
 Yep - if it is sourced from a broadcast quality 480i feed, and the 720p 
 signal is broadcast at a decent data rate, then it should outperform DVD, 
 but is probably using 1.5-4 times the data rate of an average DVD master? 
  
 > In the fall they are going 
 > to go to real 720p. 
  
 Good news. 
  
 Looks like we'll be waiting another year or two for HD services for the UK - 
 though this may mean we get an MPEG4 or similar based system instead of 
 MPEG2 - though AIUI no decision has yet been made. (Sky have announced their 
 move to HD - I suspect for movies and their main entertainment channel which 
 is mainly US imports, many of which are produced in HD?  The BBC have 
 suggested they are considering it, and have announced a wish for all 
 non-soap drama to be produced in HD by 2006, and I guess most flagship 
 productions will be HD, though the Beeb current policy is that extra costs 
 for HD production should be met by coproduction not the UK viewer/licence 
 fee payer who can't watch in HD yet) 
  
 Steve 
  
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