Are Upconverting DVD Players "Standard Def" or "High Def"?

Written by Clearly Resolved
Sunday, 20 May 2007

[ Q ] I recently purchased an "upconverting" DVD player that takes a standard definition DVD and outputs the video as 720p, 1080i or 1080p. So, why should I care about HD DVD or Blu-ray, when I'm already getting "high def" movies from my new DVD player?

[ A ] There's a real difference in picture quality between a standard-definition DVD disc that is "upconverted" to one of the HD formats and the picture quality that can be natively produced by an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.

During the film-to-digital mastering process, images for standard-definition DVD are captured at a vertical resolution of 480 lines and a horizontal resolution of just over 700 lines (480x704), which is equivalent to approximately 338,000 pixels. On the other hand, when Blu-ray or HD DVD mastering is conducted, images are captured at 720x1280 (more than 920,000 pixels) or 1080x1920 (more than 2 million pixels).

While it's true that upconverting DVD players are converting the standard-definition images to one of these "high-definition" formats, the picture quality that can be delivered by that conversion process is ultimately limited to the underlying picture resolution on the disc. In other words, "upconversion" can't create resolution that doesn't exist on the DVD -- the conversion process is simply reconstituting the 480x704 images into either the 720x1280 or the 1080x1920 format -- but the underlying level of resolution remains unchanged.

As a result, HD DVD and Blu-ray discs that have been properly mastered will be capable of providing more detailed, higher-resolution images. While upconverting DVD players provide some useful benefits over non-converting players, they're no picture-quality substitute for either a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player.

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