Riz Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 Suprise suprise..... [ QUOTE ] Toshiba has given us some face time with its newest TV technologies, and among the super-slim screens, USB and Bluetooth-equipped TVs and picture-frame plasmas is this: the world's first TV with upscaling built in. The screen is powered by a Cell processor - the same one found inside Sony's PlayStation 3 console. But here, it's upscaling standard definition video to near HD quality, rather processing Blu-Ray films or playing games. Its inclusion inside a TV means there's no need for an expensive upscaling DVD player to enjoy an existing disc collection, and should make signals from Freeview look akin to those from Sky HD. What's more, the Cell processor is designed to handle multiple video streams, and we understand it should mean the TV can preview up to six HD streams at once, before letting you watch one full-screen. The TV itself is still in development, but the technology clearly works. Toshiba says it hopes to announce availability of upscaling screens in the second half of the year. Stay tuned, and check out our video below for a closer look. [/ QUOTE ] Riz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 Toshiba announced at the very start of the Cell chip design that they'd use the chips in TVs, so not actually anything to do with the recent loss of HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 I'm stunned Sony of all people didn't think of doing upscaling in the Bravia range of TVs using the Cell processor - you'd have thought it would be a natural move for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 They are doing that with their TVs. You'll just have to wait a little longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 Every digital display upscales, and to be honest some of the processors in the latest Fujis, Samsungs, Panasonics and Pioneers have overtaken the Cell already for upscaling quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 But it's not just the Cell that's doing the work. They'll upgrade the software/firmware too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisT Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 [ QUOTE ] I'm stunned Sony of all people didn't think of doing upscaling in the Bravia range of TVs using the Cell processor - you'd have thought it would be a natural move for them. [/ QUOTE ] Upscaling is actually done with a relatively small piece of custom hardware on most digital TV chips. The Cell is a processing monster and is completely wasted on something like that. A better use for the cell is something like this . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 [ QUOTE ] Upscaling is actually done with a relatively small piece of custom hardware on most digital TV chips. [/ QUOTE ] Well, naturally there's some kind of upscaling happening, otherwise SD would only appear in a small area of the middle of the screen on an HD TV. But the on-TV stuff is pretty rubbish IMHO, a regular DVD player on an HD TV looks worse than an upscaling DVD player on an HD TV. The upscaling on a decent 'HD upscaling' DVD player has to be better, otherise there' sbe no difference. I'm just amazed that Sony don't seem ot be first to do it with Cell, despite having prior experience of using it. Different departments, different mindset? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 From what I read Sony let Tosh release their TVs first but both brands will release something Cell based. Tosh was a joint partner in the development of the Cell so they've as much right to be first to market I guess. I guess Sony wanted to concentrate on the PS3 first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 You dont need a cell to upscale at HD. Problem is crap programmers and TV manufacturers being stingy bastards. Ask Faroudja. In the science world, they've been using graphic GPUs for a while now - they have very simple, highly parallel special purpose CPUs. An Intel chip is limited in its speed due to complexity of supporting a huge number of instructions/variations. Graphics GPUs dont have such worries....they write pixels/compute values in simple, specific ways. Cell is expensive per unit. Plenty of alternatives also. Upscaling is a highly parallel-compatible operation. Motion detection isn't to such a large degree, for things such as pixel modulation to reduce effect of screen flicker - which becomes less of a problem as newer screens have lower pixel on/off latencies etc. Really, upscaling/video reformatting/compensation would have been one of the strongest selling points for people using PCs as home media systems in their homes.... the PC can play the DVDs and access the images to manipulate them in real time. Not a lot of stuff seems to be happening on that front as 95% of users are too dumb to hook up a PC to a tv. (harsh but true) Anyway, i'll stop waffling... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] I'm stunned Sony of all people didn't think of doing upscaling in the Bravia range of TVs using the Cell processor - you'd have thought it would be a natural move for them. [/ QUOTE ] Upscaling is actually done with a relatively small piece of custom hardware on most digital TV chips. The Cell is a processing monster and is completely wasted on something like that. A better use for the cell is something like this . [/ QUOTE ] Can use nvidia/ati GPUs for similar benefits also... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 [ QUOTE ] Really, upscaling/video reformatting/compensation would have been one of the strongest selling points for people using PCs as home media systems in their homes... [/ QUOTE ] One of the things I want to do at some point is build a media PC in a cube case (so it fits alongside my subwoofer on the bottom shelf of my cabinet, and it's easier than a VCR-size case to work on!). I figured that a VGA connection to the TV in it's native resolution of 1920x1080 and a Blu-Ray drive and some half-decent software wuld be quite a nice way to get HD from Blu-Ray movies, plus upscaling of DVDs and pretty much any other sort of content, be it streamed or ripped, and it would make a good music library, and web browing on a big old screen as a bonus! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 A very good idea..............as long as you have a display that can take a 1:1 signal? Most displays will only accept native resolution over vga at 60hz, so us poor sods in 50hz land are buggered, we get frame rate conversion which is horrible. But you are right, all the high end video processors are all PCs and do exactly what you are suggesting but with a nice easy user interface, and usually running off Linux rather than windows. There is no point running a home theater pc to a display that can't accept its native resolution, otherwise all you are doing is scaling once in the pc and then the display will be scaling again, and you start to loose detail. Same with upscaling dvd players, a DVD is stored at 480/576i, so you are best to send the display 480/576i (or progressive as this is just a case of piecing the frames back together), sending it 720p or 1080i means you are doing the following.converting in the player and then the screen has to convert it back to 1024x768, 1365x768, 1920x1080p etc. etc. You may think that having a 1920x1080 screen gets round this, but because tvs have overscan this isn't the case, unless the TV has a THRU setting or similar just feed it the signal direct. This was the reason I always bought the monitor version of a screen, so the Panasonic commercial screen, it will take a 1:1 mapped signal, however the latest screens and projectors etc. have such good scaling that spending a load more money on processing seems a bit of a waste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 [ QUOTE ] A very good idea..............as long as you have a display that can take a 1:1 signal? Most displays will only accept native resolution over vga at 60hz, so us poor sods in 50hz land are buggered, we get frame rate conversion which is horrible. [/ QUOTE ] Hmm, not sure TBH - it's a Bravia X-series 40". The laternative is to use a motherboard with HDMI output and just plug in that way - somethign like an Inno3D SL7N73UM-HDMI. £800 builds a quad-core box with 2GB, 500GB of disc space, Blu-Ray reader, Vista Ultimate and a Logitech Dinovo Bluetooth keyboard for surfing from your armchair. Seems like a potentially better bet than £600 on a Blu-Ray player that only plays Blu-Ray discs. Try web browsing, or listening to your iTunes collection on a Sony BDP-S500... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riz Posted February 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 Gizze, Does my screen do 1:1 pixel mapping and how do I get it to work? Riz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted February 29, 2008 Report Share Posted February 29, 2008 Yeah it does Riz. You need to feed the screen its native resolution, in your case 1024x768, over vga and then adjust the v and h size until you get it to snap in (you use a test pattern to do this). I am not sure if the Bravia does have this feature Chris, maybe in pc mode? Still worth putting a HTPC together though, I think it makes more sense being able to show photos, use itunes, browse the web and play films etc. and it will be as good as any standalone player, just being able to pixel map makes it even better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simkna Posted March 1, 2008 Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 I run my PH9 panel from an HTPC via DVI - found it to be vastly superior to VGA. (I do use the VGA for component, though). I actually found 1024x768 pixel mapped annoying for general PC use, due to recangular pixels making everything seem stretched. I am far happier running 1366x768, making everything look normal (although small text is 5% harder to read). Making the panel scale the horizontal axis isn't even noticable on video. Best thing is to have a play and see what suits you best. All I can say is that SD DVD or HD material is stunning using NVidia chipset into this panel. Si. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riz Posted March 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 Oh dear... dont have a HTPC. Just run my PlayStation3 via the VGA connector via HDFury running the PS3 settings at 1080p. Riz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorburn Posted March 1, 2008 Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 Hmm, not sure TBH - it's a Bravia X-series 40". The laternative is to use a motherboard with HDMI output and just plug in that way - somethign like an Inno3D SL7N73UM-HDMI. £800 builds a quad-core box with 2GB, 500GB of disc space, Blu-Ray reader, Vista Ultimate and a Logitech Dinovo Bluetooth keyboard for surfing from your armchair. Seems like a potentially better bet than £600 on a Blu-Ray player that only plays Blu-Ray discs. Try web browsing, or listening to your iTunes collection on a Sony BDP-S500... [/ QUOTE ] You can't play protected content (Blu-ray, HD DVD) over VGA, has to be HDMI/DVI with HDCP encoding. I'd recommend a discrete graphics card such as a passively cooled Radeon HD3450 as it'll add £30 to the price and offload decoding from the CPU. Image quality should be better too. Just watch out for cheap NVIDIA cards which don't have HDCP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riz Posted March 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 [ QUOTE ] You can't play protected content (Blu-ray, HD DVD) over VGA, has to be HDMI/DVI with HDCP encoding. [/ QUOTE ] Yes you can.... Ive got my PlayStation3 playing all my Blu-ray movies, games, clips and upscaled DVD movies playing thru my VGA connector on my PH9. Riz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted March 1, 2008 Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 [ QUOTE ] I run my PH9 panel from an HTPC via DVI - found it to be vastly superior to VGA. (I do use the VGA for component, though). I actually found 1024x768 pixel mapped annoying for general PC use, due to recangular pixels making everything seem stretched. I am far happier running 1366x768, making everything look normal (although small text is 5% harder to read). Making the panel scale the horizontal axis isn't even noticable on video. Best thing is to have a play and see what suits you best. All I can say is that SD DVD or HD material is stunning using NVidia chipset into this panel. Si. [/ QUOTE ] I find the RGBHV input on the Panasonics to be far superior, if however the vga out on the device is poorer than the dvi out then the end result may be different of course. But generally the vga input is cleaner and has less noise in the sub 10ire region than the digital boards. I also disagree that getting teh screen pixel mapped makes little difference. I think the difference between 1024x768 pixel mapped and not is pretty impressive, download the Nokia test pattern and then go into the service menu and get the display to snap into 1:1 mapping and I think you may be surprised. Sorry if you have already done that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorburn Posted March 1, 2008 Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] You can't play protected content (Blu-ray, HD DVD) over VGA, has to be HDMI/DVI with HDCP encoding. [/ QUOTE ] Yes you can.... Ive got my PlayStation3 playing all my Blu-ray movies, games, clips and upscaled DVD movies playing thru my VGA connector on my PH9. [/ QUOTE ] Or use AnyDVD HD on the PC side, but this assume no fixes to the copy protection (revoked keys on discs etc). What I meant was you can't do it legitimately Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riz Posted March 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2008 [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] You can't play protected content (Blu-ray, HD DVD) over VGA, has to be HDMI/DVI with HDCP encoding. [/ QUOTE ] Yes you can.... Ive got my PlayStation3 playing all my Blu-ray movies, games, clips and upscaled DVD movies playing thru my VGA connector on my PH9. [/ QUOTE ] Or use AnyDVD HD on the PC side, but this assume no fixes to the copy protection (revoked keys on discs etc). What I meant was you can't do it legitimately [/ QUOTE ]I think it is legitimate... otherwise the HDMI Group might have stop them selling them... see HERE Ive got one and it works without any problems, although my aim was to get my PH9 to accept 24fps which it doesnt so I still get the judder on Blu-ray movies I posted about it very indepth on the AV Forums and didnt really get it working. I think its down to the screen not supporting it properly. Riz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted March 2, 2008 Report Share Posted March 2, 2008 [ QUOTE ] You can't play protected content (Blu-ray, HD DVD) over VGA, has to be HDMI/DVI with HDCP encoding. I'd recommend a discrete graphics card such as a passively cooled Radeon HD3450 as it'll add £30 to the price and offload decoding from the CPU. Image quality should be better too. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks you once more Sir, you are indeed a star of the highest order! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted March 2, 2008 Report Share Posted March 2, 2008 [ QUOTE ] All I can say is that SD DVD or HD material is stunning using NVidia chipset into this panel. [/ QUOTE ] Now, there's a thought - if a PC is better at upscaling than the in-TV chipset, or an upscaling DVD player, how about putting a Freeview tuner card and a capture card in the HTPC, and using it to upscale Freeview and say Sky or camcorder or whatever you wanted to plug into the PC? One last thing somebody clever on here might be able to help with - I have a Sony DAV830 surround sound system, which connects to the TV via HDMI. If I had an HDMI output on a PC, and that also went into the TV, how would i get Dolby Dig/DTS into the DAV unit? Would the TV 'bounce' it down it's other HDMI port to the DAV, or would I have to link the PC to the DAV directly? The DAV has a single optical in, so I guess I'd link that to the PC and do any other sound processing via the PC. I wish I'd recognised this route before buying the DAv, to be honest - a PC with a decent 7.1 sound card and a PC 7.1 speaker set would probably sound as good as the Sony (at the sort of volumes I'd use anyway) and wouldn't have cost any more than a surround system and Blu-Ray player. Hmm, this may be something I have to do when I've move and can wire 7.1 speakers up before decorating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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