Blurry DVD Play Back

[Steve2103]

I have a Sony Bravia 55" smart TV - 1 year old.

Really nice TV, but DVD playback is blurry - especially on newer DVD's. Worst when there is movement, but it's all bad. 

DVD player is a Sony HXD890, connected by HDMI cable. Apparently it does upscaling to 1080

It worked fine on my 12 year old Sony Bravia which was not a smart TV

Any ideas how to stop blurring from happening? Do I juest need a new player? Will that make a difference?

I have played with setting in TV and DVD player and got nowhere

[Marino.Manolo]

The problem II think is that, maybe you need a Player that performs a 4K upscaling because I imagine your new Sony TV is 4K, so you're considering that, the resolution of the new TV is 4 times higher than FullHD 1080 and this probably justifies the Blur effect.

Manolo

[IamNic]

Hello @Marino.Manolo,

why do you think that would be necessary? A 1080p signal (upscaled or not) wouldn't per se look blurry stretched to a 4K screen.

- Nic

[Marino.Manolo]

I'll be honest is what I deduced from "Blur", on many occasions it is the most used word to define the effect of the lack of resolution, but I could be wrong -)

Manolo

[IamNic]

Hello @Marino.Manolo,

I would rather assume that one of the many picture effects may causes this issue, mostly because @Steve2103 mentioned it is especially bad when there are fast moving subjects on the screen.

I would try to deactivate "Motion Flow" or even turn on the so called "game mode" to deactivate all the performed "enhancements" the TV applies to the signal.

- Nic

[royabrown2]

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@IamNic wrote:

Hello @Marino.Manolo,

I would rather assume that one of the many picture effects may causes this issue, mostly because @Steve2103 mentioned it is especially bad when there are fast moving subjects on the screen.

I would try to deactivate "Motion Flow" or even turn on the so called "game mode" to deactivate all the performed "enhancements" the TV applies to the signal.

- Nic

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Beyond that, there will be two sets of upscaling going on, one from the 576i of DVDs to 1080p, inventing about three pixels for every one actually on the DVD, and then another from 1080p to 4K, inventing another three pixels for every one in the 1080p stream, including the three out of four that have already been invented.

Naturally, this will look awful.

@Steve2103 should look and see if he can turn off the upscaling on the DVD player, so that the 576i stream can be sent to the TV unaltered. The TV will still have to invent 15 out of every 16 pixels when upscaling to 4K, but its algorithm will work much better when it knows which is the real pixel in each haystack, not to mention probably being a newer and better algorithm than the DVD player has.

Me, even if I only had DVDs, I would get an up to date Sony HD BluRay player for use here, though. For around £70, this will probably extract a better picture off the DVDs than the DVD player can, and will certainly know to step back and let the TV handle all the upscaling. Or, to push the boat out even further, get the £130 UHD player and give yourself the option of buying and playing UHD discs; just don’t get the £100 HD player that upscales, or you are merely throwing away £30 on something the TV does anyway.

But do note that point about UHD discs, or at least HD ones; with the best will in the world, the 15 out of 16 pixels the TV has to invent for DVDs will likely not be the ones on the UHD disc of the same movie; though it has a much better chance of getting most of the 3 out of 4 it has to invent for HD Blurays correct 

[Steve2103]

Hi,

I have tried truning upscaling off (not sure if I succeded entirely). Cant' seemn to make any difference.

The player is 12 years old.

Is this ths sort of UHD player you mean?

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Sony-UBP-X500-Ultra-Blu-Ray-Player-Black/dp/B07GC2ZXGB/ref=sr_1_4?keyword...

Will it make a difference? Will I not still get double upscaling going on? (UHD player and TV)

[royabrown2]

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@Steve2103 wrote:

Hi,

I have tried truning upscaling off (not sure if I succeded entirely). Cant' seemn to make any difference.

The player is 12 years old.

Is this ths sort of UHD player you mean?

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Sony-UBP-X500-Ultra-Blu-Ray-Player-Black/dp/B07GC2ZXGB/ref=sr_1_4?keyword...

Will it make a difference? Will I not still get double upscaling going on? (UHD player and TV)

---

Yes, that is the sort of player (£129 at Richer Sounds) and yes it will make a difference. Even one of today’s Sony DVD players, let alone their HD or UHD BluRay Players, should knock your 12-year-old player into a cocked hat.

And as regards double upscaling, Sony’s upscaling choices these days are Auto1 and Auto 2. Where Auto1 asks the TV if it is a Sony, and if so, lets it upscale if upscaling is needed, but if it isn’t a Sony, then it upscales itself. While with Auto2, the player always does the upscaling, even on a Sony  TV.

But one way or the other, only one device does the upscaling.

With the BDP-3700, it only upscales material in less than SD (DVD) quality to that level, so everything, including DVDs, is in practice passed over to the TV to upscale from its native resolution.