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The next big deal is the "up-scaling" or "up-converting" (a misused marketing term) DVD players. The idea is to get people to buy new DVD players for their new HDTV-ready TVs by doing the same trick they did with the Progressive players. I.e., let's put the scaler in the player!

Now remember the TV still needs its own scaler for standard def TV. And fixed pixel displays need a scaler for HDTV as well because HDTV comes in different broadcast resolutions which need to be converted to the "native" resolution of the display.

But heck, if you are going to buy an HDTV-ready TV and "high definition" DVD discs, then you certainly don't want to screw up the vibe by playing them on an old "progressive" player. You want a high-tech, high definition, "up-scaling" player! Just in case you've lost track here, the content on the DVDs is *STILL* only 480i in all this.

The drooling from the hardware guys was so great that it took them a while to hear the screams from the content guys. The folks who make their money selling DVD discs don't want high-res content coming out of the players because folks will just make copies of movies and not buy their discs! The HDTV broadcast networks face the same dilemma but they are already resigned to a business model that makes money by selling commercial time and subscriptions. The DVD guys need to schlep discs.

So the boys in building "A" got together with the boys in building "B" and came up with a solution. We'll allow up-scaling DVD players but only if the high res output is limited to digital connections that we can control with a copy protection scheme. The bosses in building "C" got big grins.

Well it turns out there was a digital cabling standard already in place called DVI. It was used to connect computers to monitors and since HDTV-ready TVs now were built to the high bandwidth and sync-rates needed by computers, many already had DVI inputs so that folks could use them as computer monitors as well.

All that was needed was to clamp a copy protection boot on that DVI input. This rejoices in the name of "HDCP".

An HDCP-compliant source device will refuse to make a digital connection to a display or intervening device which is not also HDCP-compliant. Analog connections will work regardless -- but only at conventional, lower resolutions.

So voila you now had TVs with digital inputs and DVD players with fancy new, up-scaling, high-definition digital outputs. Of course there were some older TVs out there with DVI that was NOT HDCP compliant, but the industry had an answer to that. Buy a new TV. Or use your fancy new up-scaling DVD player just as if it were a previous generation Progressive player by connecting it via analog cables at 480p resolution. Since it said "up-scaling" on the box the image must be better, right?

DVI had other problems as well due to it's computer-based heritage. It didn't carry audio for example. So new HDMI cabling was invented to deal with that and to remove some other confusions inherent in DVI. HDMI is, more or less, DVI plus digital audio plus HDCP and with connection standards and protocols more or less attuned to the home theater market.

But all that techy, geeky stuff aside, the big news was that these players could put out glorious 720p or 1080i signals from a DVD disc via those HDMI or DVI connections! "Glorious" here being a marketing term of art. The important thing to remember, the thing I have to keep stressing because I see that buying frenzy gleam coming into your eye again, is that THE CONTENT ON THE DVDs IS ONLY 480i AND NO SCHEME CAN INVENT DATA THAT ISN'T THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

The 480i data decoded from the DVD first gets de-interlaced to 480p. Then it gets scaled up either to 720p or to 1080p. If the desired output signal is 720p then you are done. If the desired output signal is 1080i then the signal gets RE-interlaced to 1080i. The TV receives a digital 720p or 1080i signal from the player and SCALES IT AGAIN to match the native resolution of the display.

Urrh why are we doing this?

As the character says in "Shakespeare in Love", strangely enough it all works out.

In fact some, by no means all but some, of these new generation "up-scaling" DVD players produce a significantly better image than the previous generation of "progressive scan" players. Why this is so is due to several factors.

First the scaler in the player may be better than the scaler in the TV. The closer the player can get the data to the native resolution of the TV the less work the TV's scaler has to do.

Second, engineering continues to advance. Other factors than scaling are likely to be better in a good "up-scaling" player than in the previous generation players.

But the most important reasons why folks get good results from some of these new players is that the data stays entirely in the digital domain.

A player connected by analog cabling, such as S-video or component cabling, has to convert the digital data present on the DVD into analog TV signals. It usually does this as the very last thing it does -- in the video output stage -- because it is so useful to keep the signal in digital form for any other processing it needs to do first. The TV set receiving that analog signal ALSO wants to do processing of various forms -- which are done more cheaply, and for the most part better, with a digital signal. So the FIRST thing the TV does is convert the analog signal BACK to digital form.

Now these dual conversions introduce their own problems, but on top of that the conversions usually involve filtering of one form or another so that the signals work well across the widest range of source content -- some of which can be pretty crappy.

But an up-scaling player sends a digital signal to the TV which just leaves it in digital form. Thus no conversion noise and no filtering.

Given all that, it would seem natural that the best arrangement would be to use a digital connection for a *480* signal, and just leave it to the TV to do whatever scaling is needed -- once. Curiously, that is not often the best way to hook things up. HDTV-ready TV's are optimized for 1080i broadcast signals because that's how they are often judged in stores. That, plus any advantage that comes from having a better scaler in the player suggests that having the player upscale the DVD data and then feed that to the TV will give a better result even though a second scaling pass may be needed. There are additional advantages if you watch movies filmed in older 4:3 shape in that the player can put pillar boxes around the movie content without loss of movie resolution because the player is sending a higher resolution signal.

The bottom line is that despite the best efforts of the marketing guys to pull a fast one here, many of the better up-scaling players DO INDEED produce a significantly better image on many HDTV-ready TVs. Some of that is due to the digital connection, but some is also due to the combination of de-interlacing and scaling technologies working well to produce a signal the TV happens to be optimized to display. Combine that with other improvements naturally occurring with each product cycle and you get a better player.

But just as with the Progressive players, there are some up-scaling players out there which are nothing but hype. Engineered by the school of shoddy, they are just not worth the money. And there are undoubtedly folks who will buy up-scaling players and find they end up preferring the signal they get hooking the thing up via S-video at 480 resolution, simply because their TV does a better job doing what they paid to have the DVD player do.

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