Upscaler Not Expanding 480p image as expected. Any ideas?

Andrew_Mills

Edit history:

Andrew_Mills: 2014-08-14 11:25:41 am

Andrew_Mills: 2014-08-14 11:21:41 am

2014-08-14 11:21:07 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

So I just got a component hardware upscaler today. Here's a test using the NTSC copy of MP1 (as it outputs 480p therefore not fucking with the native AR - unlike PAL releases).

Spoilered for size:

720p

1080p

Videos:

720p

1080p

It's also weird how it has black borders across the whole of the screen (as it does when converted directly to HDMI at 480p), but when upscaled from composite it's stretched to fill the whole screen. :?

I've tried it with my PAL MP1 and, bizarrely, the vertical black bars remain but the horizontal ones (at the top and bottom) are both massively reduced (but still there).

Converting a 480p component signal to 480p HDMI also seems to generate the same results. Anyone got any idea why it wouldn't just fill the screen properly from 480p?

*edit* Just realised MP1 is a 4:3 ratio (and 720p is 16:9). That explains the vertical bars, but I'm still puzzled as to why there'd be horizontal ones on the top and bottom.

Thread title:

So I just got a component hardware upscaler today. Here's a test using the NTSC copy of MP1 (as it outputs 480p therefore not fucking with the native AR - unlike PAL releases).

Spoilered for size:
[spoiler][b]720p[/b]
[img]http://www.alphastrategyguides.com/mp1-480p-to-720p-hardware-upscale-test.png[/img]

[b]1080p[/b]
[img]http://www.alphastrategyguides.com/mp1-480p-to-1080p-hardware-upscale-test.png[/img][/spoiler]

Videos:

[b]720p[/b]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NPzVsuq7oA

[b]1080p[/b]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Y01bSBc04

It's also weird how it has black borders across the whole of the screen (as it does when converted directly to HDMI at 480p), but when upscaled from composite it's stretched to fill the whole screen. :?

I've tried it with my PAL MP1 and, bizarrely, the vertical black bars remain but the horizontal ones (at the top and bottom) are both massively reduced (but still there).

Converting a 480p component signal to 480p HDMI also seems to generate the same results. Anyone got any idea why it wouldn't just fill the screen properly from 480p?

*edit* Just realised MP1 is a 4:3 ratio (and 720p is 16:9). That explains the vertical bars, but I'm still puzzled as to why there'd be horizontal ones on the top and bottom.

blizzz

2014-08-14 11:29:34 am

The bars are for the overscan area. Analogue sources have to take the overscan area of old TVs into consideration. If there is no black border with composite sources that just means that your scaler enlarges the image to fill the whole screen.

Andrew_Mills

2014-08-14 11:50:14 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Quote from blizzz:

The bars are for the overscan area. Analogue sources have to take the overscan area of old TVs into consideration. If there is no black border with composite sources that just means that your scaler enlarges the image to fill the whole screen.

Ok, didn't know that. Cheers for the quick answer. At least it's keeping the right AR (instead of stretching it to 16:9 like the composite upscaler).

honorableJay

2014-08-14 09:38:24 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

I might be mistaken, but it doesn't look like the image is truly 4:3 ratio after the upscale. It looks slightly stretched. If it was keeping the true 4:3 AR then the black bars on the sides would be a lot bigger. It seems to be stretching it to 16:9 but still accounting for the overscan areas. I took a screenshot of from the 720p video and cropped out the black bars. Even though I'm running a 16:10 res (1680x1050) once I cropped out the black borders the final resolution I had was 1280x735, which is close enough to 720p to prove that the AR is being affected. Not that it's really a huge problem, just convert the AR to 4:3 and crop out the black borders during encode, but it's still not true 4:3 AR. The easiest way to see it is by looking at the standard crosshair (not the one you get by manually aiming) and you'll see it's a bit distorted from the AR change + upscale.

Andrew_Mills

2014-08-15 07:25:09 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Quote from honorableJay:

I might be mistaken, but it doesn't look like the image is truly 4:3 ratio after the upscale. It looks slightly stretched. If it was keeping the true 4:3 AR then the black bars on the sides would be a lot bigger. It seems to be stretching it to 16:9 but still accounting for the overscan areas. I took a screenshot of from the 720p video and cropped out the black bars. Even though I'm running a 16:10 res (1680x1050) once I cropped out the black borders the final resolution I had was 1280x735, which is close enough to 720p to prove that the AR is being affected. Not that it's really a huge problem, just convert the AR to 4:3 and crop out the black borders during encode, but it's still not true 4:3 AR. The easiest way to see it is by looking at the standard crosshair (not the one you get by manually aiming) and you'll see it's a bit distorted from the AR change + upscale.

Should have thought of checking a screenshot in Photoshop to see for sure *facepalm*

Oh well, for a £30/$50 device it's not a bad result overall, so it'll do as-is. Smiley

[quote="honorableJay"]I might be mistaken, but it doesn't look like the image is truly 4:3 ratio after the upscale. It looks slightly stretched. If it was keeping the true 4:3 AR then the black bars on the sides would be a lot bigger. It seems to be stretching it to 16:9 but still accounting for the overscan areas. I took a screenshot of from the 720p video and cropped out the black bars. Even though I'm running a 16:10 res (1680x1050) once I cropped out the black borders the final resolution I had was 1280x735, which is close enough to 720p to prove that the AR is being affected. Not that it's really a huge problem, just convert the AR to 4:3 and crop out the black borders during encode, but it's still not true 4:3 AR. The easiest way to see it is by looking at the standard crosshair (not the one you get by manually aiming) and you'll see it's a bit distorted from the AR change + upscale.[/quote]
Should have thought of checking a screenshot in Photoshop to see for sure *facepalm*

Oh well, for a £30/$50 device it's not a bad result overall, so it'll do as-is. :)