Upscaling by tv, not by zidoo

Hi, I have read modern tv like high-end LG/Sony/Panasonic etc have the best upscaling possibile (https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/92knym43) ...is there a way to make zidoo box let the video upscaling to the tv and not to the box? What setting I should use for this? Thanks...

 

Playback/Automatic frame rate/Frame rate mode: Switch frame rate and resolution

 

That does not seem right - or at least does not work on each video formats, I just tried this.

If your Zidoo Resolution is set to 4K/3840 x 2160 then:

1) 720p content is displayed as 1080p
2) <720p (DVD) content is displayed as 2160p
3) 4:3 aspect ratio (even 1080p) is displayed as 2160p

Take The Great Dictator for example for 3). The Blu-ray comes in 1440x1080p but my Z9X upscales it to 2160p.

If I limit my Zidoo resolution to 1080p, then of course the Zidoo only upscales it to 1080p.

 

No, it's correct but it depends on framerate and legal HDMI modes.

For example, 720p is only a valid HDMI mode at 50/60p so if the content is at 23.976 the Zidoo will correctly upscale to the GUI resolution. Similarly with 480/576.

This is why if you limit the resolution to 1080, any material that doesn't fit a legal HDMI mode is scaled to 1080.

 

I see, this makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

 

No worries - it's one of those things that still catches me out!

In the good old days you would always lean on your expensive AVR to upscale - you certainly wouldn't rely on the display.

But these days, upscaling on these sorts of devices has got so good that unless you have a dedicated VP, you might as well scale everything to the native resolution of the display and forget about it.

 

So adaptive resolution & framerate is better to leave on, let the tv to handle upscale and picture enhancing?

 

Personally I would set it to "Frame Rate Only" and let the Zidoo upscale.

You always want the framerate to match, but the Zidoo is very good at upscaling and usually better than a display.

 

BTW nobody has mentioned Samsungs in this context. They are absolutely superb at Upscaling, probably better than the rest due to their QED properties. The article that was mentioned earlier (Whirlpool?) did quote Samsungs but the OP didn't mention them - thought I'd add some balance

 

Tested on Samsung 43" 2019 TV and I must say that I didn't notice any difference visually (I think there is little bit of ghosting when animation is upscaled but it could be me wanting to see some difference). I guess TV is too small to notice. Flicker when TV screen resolution is readjusting is bit annoying. My projectors are XGA and 720p so there is no point in testing.

 

Thanks for that Mark!
I've spend tedious and exhausting hours trying in vain to decide whether upscaling by my UHD3000 or my LG C1 OLED looks better, and I still have zero idea, so where my eyes failed I'm gonna trust your suggestion to go with the Zidoo. And as a nice bonus, I might even avoid a resync sometimes that way.

I guess this explained why I saw a bunch of 480p/720p content getting upscaled with or without Match=Resolution to 1080p (another reason to leave the upscaling to the Zidoo to avoid two upscale operations, by both the Ziddo and the TV) or even 2160p.

 

I'd totally forgotten about this thread - my TV can display up to 8K and so wonder what people think? I haven't tried setting to "Frame Rate AND Resolution" yet, preferring the limited syncing. I guess the Zidoo is limited to 4K upscaling so my plan is to see what my TV can do soon in this respect but wonder if anyone has tried with my series of Samsung TV? Thanks

 

I would think that the owner of an 8K TV would want to Match Resolution, because I would think that one 8K upscaling operation would beat would beat a upscaling (to 4K on the Zidoo) plus another upscaling operation (to 8K on the TV). Upscaling is a lossy operation, so the second one would start with imperfect data.

I hate to suggest you compare though, since comparing is driving me half-crazy; it seems that my upscaling options are both so good that I'm not good enough to tell the difference. Though there must be some difference, and my perfectionism yearns to make the right choice.

I wish I could find a video made for doing a comparison, maybe that would help me do it.

 

The only way to do it objectively is to use (for example) a multiburst test pattern designed to highlight scaling artifacts but in all honestly it's not really a rabbit hole you want to go down - that way madness lies

 

But what's your experienced view in my case? Is it worth prattling around with - most TV's upscale to 4K so what do you think up scaling to 8K?

 

I very much doubt that you'd see any benefit from either mode, but it just seems to sit a bit better with such a TV that you let the TV do all the upscaling (ie Frame Rate Mode set to Frame Rate and Resolution).

However, I would temper that with the HDMI resync time that the Samsung has - if HDMI resyncs bother you then stick to Frame Rate Only to reduce them. That's absolutely my strategy because my PJ takes about 15s to resync which is bonkers.

At the end of the day, your TV is upscaling pretty much everything to 8K anyway and there's absolutely no harm in letting the Zidoo do some of the work.

 

Thank you Mark - I thought it was one or the other doing the up scaling but then what do I know lol! I'll prattle around a bit over the weekend to see if there's any difference.

 

One more factor in Zidoo doing upscaling and fresh rate changes is when your TV EDID's don't list the resolution / refresh rate the movie is in.
When you set Zidoo to auto resolution and refresh rate it will still change that on occasion if your TV does not support it from EDID list. It will also try to upscale first before changing refresh rate eg. 720p at 25 fps to 4K at 25 fps before going 1080p at 60Hz.

 

The words "multiburst test pattern" led me to almost infinitely less madness in comparing upscaling. A million thanks, Mark!

I read some threads, including one where a Spears who made a well-known calibration disc with Muncil posted. I tried to get YouTube on the Zidoo to play some test patterns.

What I ended up doing was downloading the two 1080 zip files full of photos of test patterns on this webpage. (Apparently motion is better, but it was motion that made me crazy yesterday.) I had my eyes inches from the TV examining individual pixels. It was incredibly efficient to do so rather than trying to compare moving images. Now I feel completely confident that I still see absolutely zero difference between whether I call on my UHD3000, or my LG C1 OLED, to upscale from 1080 to 2160.

Now I feel confident in leaving the Zidoo to do the upscaling. (And enjoying aforementioned benefits of that.) Maybe if I dove into the rabbit hole and tried long enough to find a difference I could have eventually found one, but that way did seem to promise madness. As someone on one of the threads I read wrote, I think it's time for me to just move on to other things 'and enjoy my Zidoo and my TV'.