Solved! Blurry picture on Samsung Smart TV from DVD

[Flori2015]

I have a Samsung smart TV and a dvd device to play DVDs on my TV.
I recently purchased a DVD rom
documentary from 2000. I wasted 2 hours on chat with a Samsung rep troubleshooting why the picture quality of the disc is so poor. No problem with the audio. Is it because the discs came out in 2000 before HD and 4k TV? The documentary means a lot to me but the visual quality is so poor I am seriously considering returning it and getting a refund. My Tv and DVD work fine.
The problem is the disc. I saw the same documentary on my pc on youtube and it was much sharper
and clear. I don’t know what the resolution of the disc is. The Samsung rep said it would be on the box or DVD. I couldn’t find it.
Can someone please help me before I have to return it. And I’d rather not return it.

 

[hang-the-9]

Yes it's because of the recording. You can't really expect 20 year old technology to look good on resolutions multiples of what it was recorded on. When you are watching YouTube on the computer your resolution and how the recording was done is different. You are not comparing things properly. A DVD is recorded at 720, but that does not mean that the movie files on it were that, they may be at 480, or something else. Basically a DVD at 720 played on a 4k TV expands to 9 times the original resolution. Blow up a low resolution image 9 times and you will see why it's blurry.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/720p-vs-1080p-vs-4k/

Also how is the DVD connected to the TV, it's it HDMI? Is it a good quality DVD player? There are many players that do pretty well to upscale lower resolution video so it looks nicer on newer TVs, but there are limits. It will probably look better on a 1080 TV or just play the disk on your computer, which I would guess has a 1080 screen on it.

 

[Flori2015]

Yes it's because of the recording. You can't really expect 20 year old technology to look good on resolutions multiples of what it was recorded on. When you are watching YouTube on the computer your resolution and how the recording was done is different. You are not comparing things properly. A DVD is recorded at 720, but that does not mean that the movie files on it were that, they may be at 480, or something else. Basically a DVD at 720 played on a 4k TV expands to 9 times the original resolution. Blow up a low resolution image 9 times and you will see why it's blurry.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/720p-vs-1080p-vs-4k/

Also how is the DVD connected to the TV, it's it HDMI? Is it a good quality DVD player? There are many players that do pretty well to upscale lower resolution video so it looks nicer on newer TVs, but there are limits. It will probably look better on a 1080 TV or just play the disk on your computer, which I would guess has a 1080 screen on it.

Hi and thank you very much.
I have a sony DVD
It’s hooked up to HDMI
Can you adjust the resolution
on my tv settings? It’s a smart TV
Thank you

 

[hang-the-9]

Hi and thank you very much.
I have a sony DVD
It’s hooked up to HDMI
Can you adjust the resolution
on my tv settings? It’s a smart TV
Thank you

The DVD player may have an option to set things like upscaling or resolution. The TV may have some options also for image quality or presets you can play with. You can't set a 4k TV to be a 1080 TV, it has a fixed amount of pixels on it.

 

[Flori2015]

The DVD player may have an option to set things like upscaling or resolution. The TV may have some options also for image quality or presets you can play with. You can't set a 4k TV to be a 1080 TV, it has a fixed amount of pixels on it.

Hi and thank you.
My sony DVD player is meant for Blue Ray. Does that mean even if I adjust the settings it won’t work
since the DVD is 20 years old???
And what do you mean by upscaling?
Please explain it in simple terms.
I am not tech savvy.

Thanks a lot!!!

 

[hang-the-9]

BlueRay players can play DVDs just fine.

Upscaling is when the player tries to make the output of a lower resolution video look better on a high resolution display.

You will not make a bad or old recording not look blurry on modern equipment. If you play the DVD on your computer it will probably look better than on a larger 4k TV.