Looking to purchase a 4K 48-50" TV (min & max size) but need a decent upscaling capability. (even if it only goes up to 1080 with minimal artefacts and is quite watchable)
1.) Primary use will be Xbox Series X Gaming so need 120 Hz and other goodies associated with good gaming.
2.) Secondary use would be playing older Laser Discs (very low resolution) and DVD’s on the TV.
(this is where the main upscaling issues present a larger challenge)
3.) Next would be the Internet like youtube sound and video.
4.) Lastly would be Satellite TV and local Free to Air channels.
Main focus would be in the first two items above.
I see some reference to the Sony TV’s upscaling abilities with a light Google of the topic, but do not see much on say Panasonic. (my preference at the moment)
So with the thought of the three TV processors below, do you think there would be much difference
in they’re ability to handle the task above?
a.) Sony - XR 4K Upscaling Processor
b.) LG - A9 Gen5 AI Processor (thinking QLED48C2 TV’s)
c.) Panasonic - HCX Pro AI Processor (thinking TH48LZ980Z TV’s)
d.) Other… (TCL, though at 50" I think I loose the 120 Hz)
I suggest these processors as they are associated with mid-price range 48" to 50" TV’s
(looking for some value for the dollar spent while maintaining great gaming and lots of TV inputs)
Leaning away from Sony a bit due to lack of satellite input and certain features that others have at this size.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions or comments. This might prove useful for others interested in this topic.
For your DVDs and LDs why not digitize them? You could then apply whatever software upscaling you’d like in advance. Or you could use something like the Nvidia Shield which is supposedly good at upscaling (by their own advertising, I have no actual experience with it, despite owning one.)
Thank you for getting back to me.
Can you even imagine how long it would take to digitize 5,000+ LD’s? I think it would be years. Though that would be ok for a handful of titles, I think it would be unlikely as a whole.
Very interesting comment on nVidia. This is one I had never considered. I have never owned or seen an nVidia Shield Pro or the likes. I see that it boasts a good upscaler and has a good output function, but how would I connect to it for input? How would I connect a Laser Disc Player with an output of RCA patch cords out or S-Video out to an nVidia? (does it have a line in input)
This thought has given me a lot of hope. Now I just have to know if I can connect to it with a LD Player. Would love to know more if you can see a possibility.
My suggestion was predicated on you digitizing your content onto say a NAS, which you could then play (and upscale) the content through the Nvidia Shield.
I don’t know your media watching habits, but if you watch, say, a movie or two a week you could digitize as you go. Yes it will take a long time, but you don’t need to be present for the whole process, the machine can do most of the work for you, maybe with just a timer to remind you to check on it at the end. (I think, as I have never even used a LD, let along digitized one.)
The NAS/storage would be the most challenging, I suspect. Let’s assume 20G per movie, you can do the math on that to get to a pretty large number (100T by my math.) But, there are 18T+ NAS drives these days, so you could probably manage it. My 12 bay Synology with 12x18T drives in it would hold 180T (with 2 drives as RAID6 redundant.)
Thank you for the great suggestion. However, it seems like a major and long term undertaking so I might just look for a TV that might do a “reasonable” job of some sort of upscaling… if it exists. Which sort of takes me back to the processor options on the TV’s themselves. Here’s hoping that someone has visited this issue and can add a glimmer of hope.
Again, really appreciate the comments and suggestions.
Cheers,
Gordon
Plex is another good digital media streaming device, and you could run a Plex client on the Nvidia shield, but you still need a way to get the analog (I presume) LDs into the digital domain.
If you had some sort of a device that could digitize the content to a MP4 on the fly and stream it, you might could still use the Nvidia Shield as a middle device to present it on the TV. That is definitely in the “homebrew” sort of solution though. I suspect someone more media compression savvy than me could rig up something with FFMPEG running on a small PC (say an Apple M1 Mini or a Windows based NUC) that would be silent enough and still powerful enough to do the compression at faster than the 24fps playback speed of a movie. It does beg for some sort of “semi-custom” solution.
I’ll try and point Scott at this thread when next I am on the Discord… maybe he’ll know a good approach.
Thank you for that information and action Paul. It would be great to hear Scott’s input on the upscale processors. Hope he has the time to look at this.
Considering the Sony XR48A90K (2022) XR OLED Google TV as it boasts a lot of intelligent upscaling with it’s processors. Hope this might be a simple solution.
You should send a voice note or email over to Scott Wilkinson - htg@twit.tv. I’m sure he’d do a feature on your question on the Home Theater Geeks show.
Maybe similar, I had good results connecting a Wii via composite to an LG 4K TV a few weeks back. Looked perfectly usable, stable but obviously low res as it’s 480i.
Great to hear about the LG Jamze.
I’m guessing here, but thinking the Panasonic TH-48LZ980Z OLED might have a similar upscaling result with 480i/p. I am now leaning a little to the Panasonic due to price, 2x2.1 & 2x 2.0 HDMI ports, many HDR types, 3.5 composite out, out to powered sub-woofer and dual Sat/T2 type tuners. It’s just so featured with goodies. I just hope it’s a close second to the less featured but quality Sony.
There is a huge world of tape, dvd, LD, SD transmissions, streamed and archived content out there, that I’m quite surprised not to see a large testing of 200 to 720 rez upscaling comparisons against maybe 6-10 different modern 4K TV Processors. Heck, that was a long sentence…