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Old 22nd June 2012, 15:45   #13350  |  Link
digitech
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 54
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikey2 View Post
digitech - my Yamaha RX-V1800 receiver has an Anchor Bay up-scaling chip. I am not entirely sure what you are asking, as that is independent of anything I am doing on madVR. However, I am guessing you are asking if you can feed your Wii/Cable/etc into your computer so that madVR can do the up-scaling? AFAIK that is not possible with something like a video-game console. You can always get a Cable-card/TV tuner in your PC so you can display cable through that. For that, although I have not tried it, I do not see why you cannot force madVR to render the video.

However, I mainly wanted to post to let you know that even if it was possible, unless you are upgrading your entire receiver, I do not really recommend it for $500. First off, most cable stations these days are Hi Def already, so you will not really be using the up-scaler anyway. (Well, technically you are with at 720p signal; however, many stations broadcast in 1080i, which naturally only requires de-interlacing.) I do use my Yamaha/Anchor Bay to upscale my Wii from 480p to 1080p, and while it is a bit nicer than letting the TV itself do the scaling (remember it always has to be done at some-point, somewhere,) the difference is minor enough that I do not think it is worth the price. Remember, while up-scaling a 480 signal can be done in better/worse ways, in the end you still just have a 640x480 signal! There is no "magic" that suddenly gives you pixel-information that is not already there in the first place! (Yes, I love madVR's up-scaling algorithms, but there is more going on than just upscaling that makes madVR output a better image than other renderers.) If anything, I believe there is more value in a good de-interlacer if you are stuck with a 480i signal.

EDIT - One more point: I am not sure if the upscaler you're looking at has this limitation, but mine cannot up-scale a 720p signal anyway. (I think that may even violate HDMI HDCP!) It will only upscale 480i/480p...so my point about up-scaling 720p Cable stations on the Anchor Bay is probably moot.

I hope this helps...
Thanks Mikey, you are right with the point about the upscaler not doing 720p, i didn't think about that very important thing, i guess im going to stick with a better a/v receiver at this moment, thanks for the help!
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