I'm confused

[enfield250]

Hello! again,
I'm getting very confused with screen resolution etc. Firstly at present I have a Q321, I'm very pleased with it. Would I notice a big difference in picture quality if I bought a Panasonic LX-32LMD70 or LX-32LXD70. The resolution of the screens is the same 1366x768. The brochure says the Panny will reprocess all signals to 1080p, but, what does the Q321 process signals at. I have read that it is better to downscale than upscale, so if I output to the Q321 at 576p what would the tv upscale that to. Would the panny actually downscale pictures to display them, if I view the Q321 from it's own DVB-T tuner, what resolution is that set to. Then again, if only large plasma's are fully HD, and the best size for my room is 32", then I cannot possibly get proper HD. I don't want to spend £600 on a new TV, if it will give no improvement. What resolution is RGB via Fscart set to on the Q321.
Help!!!!!

[Coops]

What do you mean by proper HD i am somewhat confused?

The HD specification is for a unit that can display either 720P or 1080i.
If you unit can display these resolutions then it is an HDTV.

1080P is the next step in the technology. Its new and for those people who are buying premium market TV's today they might get this option. But it does not have to have 1080P to be an HDTV. On top of that getting items that can output 1080P is another thing, there are not many.

The Q321 does not have any scaling technology in it. Upscalers are an additional feature found in some DVD drives and TV's. Upscalers are not a standard feature. You buy this specially. For example you might want to buy an upscaling DVD player.
Q321 will only display what signal you send to it. ie. If you send a 720P signal to the Q321 Via its DVI, It will display 720P. If you send 1080i signal via its DVI it will display 1080i.

I would assume that the Panasonic TV would work in the same way as an upscaling DVD player if it has upscaling technology. You could send a 576P signal to the TV, it would then upscale this to your choice of resolution say 720P or 1080i or even 1080P if it supports this and display at this resolution. This being in much the same way an upscaling DVD drive would work but the TV doing the job rather than the DVD drive doing it. However i have never actually seen a TV do this before so hopefully someone who has one that can do this can add extra comment to this.

FSCART is standard TV interface and not HD type so only standard resolution signals would go through this fitting. I would doubt any TV would make an adjustment to a signal on this interface. Its a standard thats been around a long time.
Standard TV resolution is something like 350x576 for PAL signal which is interlaced. Therefore devices connected VIA scart for example Set top box etc would not display HD picture connected this way. For example to get HD quality broadcast from SKY or VM, you would need there proper HD box and then it would need to be connected to a fitting that can handle HD such as HDMI or DVI. If you connected the STB via the scart lead, although it was an HD box your TV would not be able to display HD signal. Only standard signal if that makes sense.
Do not confuse this with SDTV, that is something completely different.

The resolution of the DVB-T tuner is down to the TV Channel. DVB tuner can receieve signal in various resolutions right up to 1080i on the Q321. However it can only display at what the Channel you are watching is being sent at. So for example if the channel you are watching is sending there signal at 720P. The TV will decode and display the program at 720P resolution.

Hope that Helps some.

[enfield250]

Coops,
That helps a great deal, what I meant by not proper HD is 1366x768 is not FULL HD, therefore to a layman like myself, if it is not full it must be partial. So as the Q321 has no scaling built into it and my dvd player only sends 576p, the panny should give me a better picture.
Cheers!

[Coops]

Right yes yes i see what your getting at.

The only other thing i would point out is before buying try and see the TV in action with upscaling function.

The only reason i say this is that obviously if you have a 576P signal and upscale it, it could technically look really grainy once it gets to 1080P. This will depend on how good the upscaler is. Its also to do with how much the signal has to change. Obviously 576P to 1080P would be worse than a 720P signal being upscaled to 1080P.
As i said though this will be down to the quality of the scaler.

So technically all that being said yes the panny should provide a better picture than the Q321 in that regard as signal will be upscaled.
Check it out if you can and if you get one write back and lets us know your results and thoughts.

[la gran siete]

What do you mean by proper HD i am somewhat confused?

The HD specification is for a unit that can display either 720P or 1080i.
If you unit can display these resolutions then it is an HDTV.

1080P is the next step in the technology. Its new and for those people who are buying premium market TV's today they might get this option. But it does not have to have 1080P to be an HDTV. On top of that getting items that can output 1080P is another thing, there are not many.

The Q321 does not have any scaling technology in it. Upscalers are an additional feature found in some DVD drives and TV's. Upscalers are not a standard feature. You buy this specially. For example you might want to buy an upscaling DVD player.
Q321 will only display what signal you send to it. ie. If you send a 720P signal to the Q321 Via its DVI, It will display 720P. If you send 1080i signal via its DVI it will display 1080i.

I would assume that the Panasonic TV would work in the same way as an upscaling DVD player if it has upscaling technology. You could send a 576P signal to the TV, it would then upscale this to your choice of resolution say 720P or 1080i or even 1080P if it supports this and display at this resolution. This being in much the same way an upscaling DVD drive would work but the TV doing the job rather than the DVD drive doing it. However i have never actually seen a TV do this before so hopefully someone who has one that can do this can add extra comment to this.

FSCART is standard TV interface and not HD type so only standard resolution signals would go through this fitting. I would doubt any TV would make an adjustment to a signal on this interface. Its a standard thats been around a long time.
Standard TV resolution is something like 350x576 for PAL signal which is interlaced. Therefore devices connected VIA scart for example Set top box etc would not display HD picture connected this way. For example to get HD quality broadcast from SKY or VM, you would need there proper HD box and then it would need to be connected to a fitting that can handle HD such as HDMI or DVI. If you connected the STB via the scart lead, although it was an HD box your TV would not be able to display HD signal. Only standard signal if that makes sense.
Do not confuse this with SDTV, that is something completely different.

The resolution of the DVB-T tuner is down to the TV Channel. DVB tuner can receieve signal in various resolutions right up to 1080i on the Q321. However it can only display at what the Channel you are watching is being sent at. So for example if the channel you are watching is sending there signal at 720P. The TV will decode and display the program at 720P resolution.


Hope that Helps some.
Hi Coops am i missing something but i thought all LCDs had to upscale and deinterlace in order to fit the sd pictures onto the sets which work progressively and have a 720p or 1080p native resolution? Plasmas which work differently donmt thgough

[Coops]

They do not upscale. This would mean the quality of the image would be improved. Standard TV signal delieverd via scart would look fairly poor i would have thought if upscaled to 720P and even worse up to 1080P due to the way upscaling works as the standard tv signal to start with is not high quality

The TV would upconvert the video signal. This involves adjusting the resolution of the Standard TV signal ( I cannot remember exact res ) to suit one of the LCD panels supported resolutions. There is no upscaling here, no improvement in the quality of the signal. I also don't believe that the signal is taken up to 720 resolution its more likely lower than that. I don't have the technically data to hand on this and each panel would be different based upon screen size and supported modes.
However we are talking here about signals sent over scart and s-video, things like that.

Signals coming over HDMI / DVI are a totally different thing especially with things like SKYHD or V+ Box on the other end.

I have been told that Panasonic do have a TV that has an upscaler in it but i have not seen it myself.

[la gran siete]

I think we are talking at crosspurposes here . By upscaling I mean upconverting ie to it into a 720p screen. Upscaling dvd players do that as well . They dont actually turn 576 p fooatge into 720p, they simply "enlarge" it to fit the screen. Plamas dont upscale at all , what you see is what you get . LCDs , because of how they work, must upscale. They must also deinterlace because they work in progressive scan mode.I dont think iyts a matter of improving whats there but of which tv , dvdplayer or didgibox does it better.
Anyway thats what i was led to believe .Could be wrong so i'll do some more research

[Coops]

OK. If you find a definitive answer on this let us know what you find out

[la gran siete]

I found this in AVforums
JayEM is correct. HD TVs (whether 768p or 1080p) have to scale up all SD broadcasts in order to fill the screen. All use some type of scaling technology to achieve this (LG's XD engine, Sony's Bravia engine, JVC's DIST, Philips' Pixel Plus, Sharp's TruD etc.), but with varying degrees of success. These are improving year on year however and new features such as 100hz (which many of the 2007 models have or will have) should improve things further. I has to be said, however, that no matter how good the technology involved, some Freeview channels are of such a low bitrate that little can be done to improve them. Rubbish in rubbish out as it were.
if this is correct then all one needs to know is which system Hyundai IT use?Whatever system( and frankly I think all of the above are just marketing terms used to impress potential buyers) is probably fairly rudimentary as a serious upscaler is very expensive , outstripping most displays in price although the OPPO 981 DVDp is quite cheap and is reckoned to be very good.

[la gran siete]

More
"I could be wrong as no one else has replied yet but as an example my Sony amp refers to upscaling as upscaling the pixel resolution ie. SD to HD and upconversion as the conversion of the video input type, ie. composite video to component video to HDMI.

You can of course do both at the same time which is probably the source of confusion ie. feed a sd composite video signal into the amp and take out an upscaled HD and upconverted HDMI output."

[la gran siete]

FIT Tm Engine seems to be the video processing.Quote
"FIT Engine offers best video processing for artefact free pictures"

[ad1974]

That quote about the panny processing all signals up to 1080p - and the screen is only 1366*768 - seems like a bit over the top to me. If i had a 1080p signal, I for one would want to see it in at least 1080i, not scaled down to fit 768. Sometimes I can see why some of these big brands cost so much, they contain features that appear to be a waste of time. Now give me a panny with a native 1920*1080 resolution and thats a different matter. :)

[la gran siete]

The way i see it all those so called video processing/enhancement features I mentioned above are just that. They incorporate upscaling but the enancement features as best kept in the off position.
the names given to them like pixel plus are just pure marketing

[ad1974]

I think you are spot on! I'm sure that somewhere down the line, they have a use, but for the majority of people they have little or no effect on their enjoyment.

My opinion since getting an HD panel, plus Sky HD is that if you put quality in, you get quality out. Same goes for the other end of the scale, infact may be even worse - put junk in and no matter how much processing goes on it will look worse. I have an HD compatible Toshiba and its noise reduction function actually makes things worse, but is there as a picture enhancement.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who will disagree, but I for one am happy to do without the extras. I'm happy to stick with Atec.

[enfield250]

Coops,
I have at last purchased a Panasonic TX32LXD70, and the picture quality is much improved over the Q321. On the Q321 as you approach the screen, picture tear is very visible, this is not there on the panny.

I have both HD sat box and DVD rec connected via HDMI connections, I have tried both 1080i & 720p on BBC HD and cannot really see any difference, with the DVD rec upscaling to 1080p the results are very good.

The DVB tuner seems better aswell on the Panny, with no lip sync error decernable.

So all things being considered I was happy with the Q321, but the Panny is better, and cheaper this year than the Q321 last year. The Q321 will I'm sure give sterling service in the conservatory.

Cheers,
Colin

[Coops]

Good to hear.

Yeah panny do make some very nice screens. So glad to hear its a nice one.

Yes pricing has come down a lot on the TV market. A lot to do with the demand and more and more people buying Flat Screen TV, especially as we head to the digital switchover. Hopefully this will drive prices even more =)

Nice to see your Q321 still has a use =) Mine still serving me proud. No issues.