Considerations

• Manufacturers of upconverting DVD players claim that they can take a standard DVD and project an image on a high-definition TV screen that has the quality of HD. However, on a large TV screen, an upconverting DVD player won't be able to provide the same resolution and brilliant colors as Blu-ray HD discs. A standard DVD plays at a resolution of 720x480 pixels (480i). This means that the picture on screen has 480 horizontal scan lines of resolution. By comparison, HDTVs play at a resolution of either 1024x768, 1366x768, or at a maximum of 1920x1080 pixels (1080p), which means 1,080 lines of horizontal resolution. The more horizontal lines, the higher the picture quality.
  
  

De-interlacing

• Upconverting DVD players perform two functions: de-interlace the picture from the DVD player and scale up the picture so it will look better on an HD television. The "i" in the 480i DVD picture resolution stands for interlaced, which means that there are odd and even lines of pixels, scanned in an alternating fashion, on a screen. However, most HDTVs are based on progressive scan technology, which means that the pixel lines are in sequence, and an interlaced DVD may appear with jagged edges and other imperfections on the screen.
  
  

Upscaling

• The upconverting DVD player uses a video scaler to convert the 720x480 resolution to a 1920x1080 picture by essentially blowing up or expanding the image. However, it doesn't create any additional video content during this process. CNET conducted a test in which they played a DVD on an upconverting DVD player connected to a large HDTV. The result was an image that often appeared "soft and fuzzy." The effect, according to CNET, was similar to what would happen if you took a photo shot by a 4-megapixel camera and scaled it to print it in an 8-inch by 10-inch format, which would make the image looked stretched, and lacking in sharpness.
  
  

Other Factors

• HDTVs have their own video processing chips and scaling capabilities. A major consideration for getting the best picture out of an upconverting DVD player is making sure that either the HDTV or the player itself has effective video processing capabilities. In addition, you can only perform upconverting if you have a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection between the HDTV and the player.