Solved! Upconversion and upscaling confusion

[bdwain]

i was looking at some yamaha recievers and their upscaling and conversion terminology is confusing me.

http/usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/aventage/?page=1&mode=compare&selected=158383_158382_161589_66026_66063

as far as i understand it, upconversion lets you take a signal from something like composite wires and send it up to the tv on hdmi, and upscaling takes that 480i signal or whatever it is and convert it to 1080p. But there seems to be a lot of variation in what yamaha is saying these recivers have. I think i'm right in guessing they can all convert from anything to HDMI, right? Does the lack of component upconversion just mean they can't convert to component from composite?

as for upscaling, some say (analog to HDMI) and (HDMI to HDMI 480 input to 720 or 1080 output)

while some just say (Analog to HDMI
and some say (Analog to HDMI / HDMI to HDMI)

what's the difference between these 3?

Thanks

 

[ssddx]

you can take pretty much any connection and translate it to hdmi. this doesnt mean you will make any gains in image quality though, besides what you might make from a shielded wire vs non-shielded.

video resolutions are fixed. you can not take a 480i signal and magically make it 720p or 1080p. the reason why upscaled video looks better than non upscaled video is twofold:

first, progressive scan (refreshing from top down) looks smoother than interlaced (top down, skipping every other line which is filled in on the next pass). if a feed is converted from interlaced to progressive scan it will look better visually but is still the same resolution picture.

second, lcd televisions display feeds in their native resolution best. the "upscaled" image plus any sharpening/other tweaks shows less distortion due to enlarging than the standard signal without any such processing effects. you aren't getting a true higher definition signal, things just appear to be "slightly" better looking.

i believe the terms upconversion and upscaling can be interchanged.

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if you want true high definition video you will have to use a high definition source such as blueray disks. even high definition cable isn't typically 1080p.

as far as what cables to use, personally i'd suggest sticking with hdmi cables if you can.