ViewAskewbian

Hi all,
Long time member who finally upgraded to ye' ol BluRay a year or so ago. I had been playing them on a rear projection TV I'd had for a decade but I received a 4k TV for Christmas and since then have been basking in the glory of what I'd been missing. (Note: I don't actually have a 4k Player yet so still not getting all I'm missing but I do see some awesome 4k stuff on Youtube and Netflix)

Then came today.

I got a hankering to watch my DVD of Fight Club, popped it in, and...well, it looks like ass! Muddy image, crude around the edges of the characters, text somewhat pixalated.

What the heck is going on?

If it helps, I have a Sharp Roku 4K TV Model: LC-43LBU591C (https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product...B&gclsrc=aw.ds)
And LG 3D BluRay Home Theatre System Model: LG BH6420P

Considering the bulk of my 1000 flick + collection is still DVDs, is there any way to fix this?

(As an aside, the surround on Fight Club sounded great on the player...just not so hot image to match)

milo bloom

It's a DVD, it maxes out at 480 lines of resolution, you're simply seeing the limits of how much detail they could squeeze onto the disc.

Remember when you first got into DVDs, then you went back and tried to watch a VHS and it looked like crap? Same thing.

But also, some DVDs were encoded better than others. It depends on the studio and the original master used, I've watched some older DVDs on our 65'" 4k display and some are tolerable but many are just plain bad. The original DVD of the first Austin Powers movie comes to mind. Looks like an old rental copy VHS. We quickly upgraded it to Blu.

ViewAskewbian

Yeah, I've been popping some of my fav flicks on my old DVDs left and right to see how good/bad they look. Things like WALL-E looked decent while the aforementioned Fight Club or Queen: Greatest Video Hits looked horrible.

I have no intent to repurchase my collection on Blu (most don't exist on the format anyway as, mainly, I used to collect old Film Noir, black and white flicks). I guess I just have to resign myself into the knowledge that while this TV makes my recent Marvel Purchases look amazing my original DVDs, sadly, look bad. I just hope not "unwatchable" bad as I didn't keep my old TV or DVD player

*sigh* Sometimes I praise and damn technology at the same time.

ViewAskewbian

Perhaps I just need a DVD TV and BluRay TV but then I sacrifice the kick ass surround. lol
Is there a win/win here?

milo bloom

Not really. Llike you've noticed, some DVDs hold up and others don't. If you have space, you could have a smaller screen setup to watch the DVDs that don't look so good on the bigger screen. Also, some Bluray players will upconvert DVDs better than others, but you'll need to ask in the Hardware section for info on that.

My current plan is to go through my 1550 title collection of DVDs and Blus and watch as much as I can and then start letting go of the titles that I either don't want to watch again, or don't look good on the big screen and I'll consider upgrading those to Blu. It's the price we pay for the march of progress.

ViewAskewbian

Milo: It's the price we pay for the march of progress.

I want that on a t-shirt.

Josh-da-man

Think of a DVD image as a 640x480 jpg, and a blu-ray image as a 1920x1080 jpg.

Blow each image up to fullscreen an an iPad. The smaller image will be blurry and have less detail.

melasnus

Some 4K TV manufacturers upconvert DVDs better than others (Sony is one).
BUT the bottom line is a low resolution source (DVD or SD) will never look as good as a BD or HD or UHD.
As they say: garbage in, garbage out.

ViewAskewbian

Maaaan, but my DVDs aren't garbage. They're my life's work.

Trevor

No DVD is garbage, unless it’s an Adam Sandler film.

ViewAskewbian

lol Trevor.

Thank you all, btw, for explaining this all to me.

mattysemo247

BTW, Fight Club looks fantastic on blu ray, and it's pretty cheap too.

rw2516

I had the opposite experience. I had a 2003 Sony 36" HD CRT. 720p. Had no HDMI, only DVI. I intentionally bought it to preserve some semblance of quality for low res stuff(CRT technology) yet have the benefit of 16x9 technology. I dreaded the day it would die. Even having it repaired twice.

In 2013 I bought a 50" Samsung plasma. Even with component hookup everything looked better. Bought a BD player just to upscale DVDs and everything was better still. If I watch a DVD-R I recorded from a VHS tape it looks the best it ever has.
Maybe it has to do with your new tv being 4K. Mine isn't.

ViewAskewbian

You may be right there. We watched the Monster Squad DVD on my gf's HD TV/Blu Ray player combo and it didn't have all the crude that, say, Fight Club had on the 4k.

As a strange aside, I don't even have a 4k Player. The TV was just $300 and a SMART Roku set. I've always been pretty slow to progress with modern stuff. As mentioned, the tv I had been using up until thre weeks ago was a rear-projection Sony from 12 years ago.

of course, things like the new Marvel flicks, Star Treks and even 2001's recent remaster blow me away on this thing. Alas, the bulk of my collection doesn't hold the same water on the set.

mattysemo247

And also no offense, but Sharp hasn't had the best TV ratings over the past several years with picture quality. They even had a lawsuit going against the company that was making their TVs basically saying it was hurting their brand name.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKCN1G62YA

ViewAskewbian

None taken and I read on that before I purchased but considering ANYTHING was better than the rear projection set I had that now had a green line running on the top half I figured, what the heck. That said, the image on this set is amazing outside of the DVD thing I posted about. We started out the system setup on The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings flicks and were stunned by detail. Ditto our next series, the recent Star Treks. Now we are looking at Jurassic Park/World films. In an instance like 2001, it is like watching the film for the first time. I am satisfied with the TV (considering it only cost me $300 on a Black Friday sale). Just was surprised when the DVDs I popped in looked like a truck had run them over

orangerunner

I face a similar dilemma with a lot of DVDs that I bought for a buck or two of titles that either aren't available on Blu-ray or they're all in the $20-$40 price bracket. Most of my DVD to Blu-ray upgrades have been in the $1-$8 bracket and that's for titles I really liked. Spending $20 to upgrade something like Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man? I'll stick with the DVD I bought for buck at a pawn shop.

A win-win that worked for me was buying a cheap $99 RCA projector from Wal-Mart. I have a 40" Sony 1080p Bravia I use for my Blu-rays but when I watch DVDs, I pull-down a 84" diagonal screen that hangs just above my Sony and watch DVDs on that. Granted, this projector has a resolution of 800 X 480 and, no, it's doesn't give you that crystal-clear Hi-Def image but in some ways I find the image is better than how my Sony HDTV up-converts my DVDs. With the projector I find mosquito noise, jaggies and pixelation virtually disappears. I sit about 7 feet away and there is some mild screen-door effect but after a few minutes my eyes (or brain) just adjusts to the picture, which feels very film-like.

I found this to be good compromise as I don't find myself judging one format against the other because the 40" HDTV HD image is just different-looking than the 84" projected image. The immersive quality of the projector really renewed my interest in watching DVDs more.

I'm sure a proper HD projector would probably change my opinion but for now this is a cheap way of enjoying both formats equally.

Josh Z

You watch the lowest quality image on the bigger screen?

mattysemo247

I was confused by that as well

I'll chime in and say that my 3D projector along with my 135 inch screen is one of the main reasons I haven't upgraded to 4K yet. If I did end up getting one I imagine the screen would be between 55 and 65 inches and despite the resolution and HDR upgrades I think I would end up regretting downgrading the screen size.

Alan Smithee

Before HD came around I had a 40-inch Mitsubishi CRT, and it took several years to find an HDTV that would give me a comparable screen size- but now it seems screen sizes are going through the roof. Now using a 75-inch widescreen, haven't measured the 4x3 picture on it. But yes, regular DVDs usually look pretty bad on it. I've noticed that 4x3 material actually looks better quality-wise than 16x9 on DVD.

orangerunner

It surprised me too. This is my first projector so I don't have anything comparable to judge it against but DVDs do look better than I expected on the 84" screen - especially from a 480p budget projector.

I'm sure this model is the "Fisher Price" of projectors that many would scoff at but when you adjust the various levels correctly and watch it in a completely dark room it does project a rather nice picture - not blazing Hi-Def glory - but it certainly exceeded my expectations.

Josh Z

Well, you gotta start somewhere. Back in the day, before the home theater projector market was reachable by those in the lower 99% income brackets, a lot of people in the home theater community found that certain business-class XGA (1024x768) projectors were pretty good for watching movies. I got my start with an NEC LT-240. Still have fond memories, even though I've been through half a dozen or more better projectors since then.

orangerunner

This is a good example and speaks to the dilemma I sometimes face between DVD and Blu-ray. If you have a title in both 4K and Blu-ray, do you watch the inferior Bluray on the 135" screen or do watch the superior 4K on the 65" screen?

If the Blu-ray 1080p on a 135" screen is your go-to choice, it makes the purchase of any 4K titles unnecessary other than the possibility of buying a 4K projector down the road. Playing the 4K disc down-scaled to 1080p on your projector is pointless and doesn't help justify buying any 4K titles.

DVD Josh

I use my old Denon DVD player when watching DVDs. I feel they look a little better than when using an upscaling player. Enough to convince me to keep it!

mattysemo247

Is it really "inferior" though? The difference between DVD and blu ray is pretty big, but the difference between blu ray to 4K is much less noticeable IMO.

But yes, I would always go blu ray and projector over 4K and TV, at least for the time being. But I'll also admit that it's been hard lately watching DVDs on the projector as well and I almost prefer watching those on a TV instead.