Viewing DVD5/DVD9 at 1080P VS Viewing HD-DVD/Blu-ray Disks

[ed klein]

Is there any noticable video quality difference from viewing a DVD-5 and DVD-9 video disk with no compression at 1080P resolution
VS
Viewing a HD-DVD disk or Blu-ray disk?

[admin]

If you mean by "no compression" that the DVD is an original quality one, then there is a difference, although how much depends on your TV.

I covered this point in my new Blu-ray/HD DVD Buyer's Guide, quoted below:

So why not just keep on using DVDs with upscalers? Why bother with HD movies that cost more and require new hardware? The problem with upscaling is that in the end, it really is just a "trick" rather than real proper HD. The upscaler can only show details that were originally encoded into the 720x576 resolution video, it cannot create new details that weren't there. It does use techniques to trick you into thinking that there is a great amount of detail, such as sharpening the picture, but these are still just tricks. And it's not just the lack of details, once you upscale a DVD to a higher resolution, you will start to see in more detail the compression artifacts, noise and other effects that weren't so obvious at the standard resolution. So while DVD upscaling is a great way to extend the life of your DVD collection, for true HD content, you cannot beat Blu-ray or HD DVD movies for true HD quality. And just in case you aren't convinced, all Blu-ray and HD DVD players act as DVD upscalers, so there's more reason to upgrade if you don't already own a DVD upscaler.

Upscaling vs True HD comparison

The link provided uses images that are artificially generated, but the difference shown is fairly indicative of the difference you might see in real life. Very high quality scalers, like the Reon VX chip in the Toshiba HD-XA2, will produce better results that are harder to distinguish from true HD sources, but you can still tell in most cases.

I've made a choice not to buy any HD movies that I already own DVDs for (with possible exceptions, like LOTR), and I think many people with a DVD upscaler will feel the same. For new movies though, I've stopped buying DVDs already because with the Buy One Get One Free sales, you can easily buy HD movies (Blu-ray or HD DVD) for about $US 10 to 15 each (with postage), so the price is alright (comparable to DVD prices for 6 months old releases). New release HD movies are a bit more expensive (usually $24 to $28 on Amazon), but I remember paying similar prices for DVDs back when DVDs were still quite new too, so prices will drop.