QUOTE(irfan @ Jul 26 2005, 12:22 AM)
people in the hometheater world use external scalers quite often. My zenith DVD player upscales a 480p signal to a 1080i and the image is MUCH better. its much much better even tho its the same 480p source. Different scalers produce different results.
doublebass2 seemed to be asking if anyone used a scaler on xbox games to make them look better.. and yes they CAN look much better with a scaler jsut as a DVD can look better thru a scaler regardless of its native 480p format. Using a quality Faroudja scaler to upvert a 480p xbox signal to 1080i will probably give great results. i know on my projector that 480p games are very blocky, and a scaler would reduce this. Yes the scaler introduces artificial information but the 'softness' introduced smoothes out the lines and gives a much cleaner looking picture, NOT a soft mess.
If a good scaler can make standard TV look decent on a 120" screen, it will make the xbox look better. Head to head with a 1080i game vs scaled game, the 1080i native will PROBABLY be sharper, but u lose framerate and you dont have a wide variety of games to pick from.
Additionally there is a very good chance that the doubler in the xbox is inferior in quality compared to a high end scaler...just like some dvd player give a better 480p image than others with the same DVD...and sometimes a TV will upvert to 480p better than a DVD player, meaning you dont use a 480p player and instead let the TV handle it. If you want the smoothest running games then the best solution for quality would be a scaler.
he's not missing the point, the fact is that 1080i games are rare (for a reason.. the xbox cant process it fast enough) so the scaler is a very good option. I dont have the 1200 dollars to spend on a quality scaler tho or id be using one right now and not looking at jaggies on the screen.
my point exactly!!!!thanks 4 the support!!either way, unfortunately,i cant invest on a very good(but pricey) scaler,so i am just gonna have 2 settle with the much less pricey vd-z3 that i ll b expecting in a week,in order to upgrade the visuals of my current xbox,(and hopefully to benefit from the xbox 360 high definition capabilities to my big computer monitor).it s 2 bad that some of the best games (including the online -offline multiplayer)ever made dont deserve the visual aspect that they should have(imagine a far cry insincts or doom3 and halo1,2 on 1080i/p......that sould give the pc fanboys along with their 6-10 times more expensive video cards a heartache....i can still remember the frown on my friend s ,with a 6800 ultra video card ,face when he figured out the much lesser difference that he expected to see in the xbox version of doom3 compared to the no coop pc version,imagine him if i had a better resolution...oh,well,xbox 360 ,might give the edge i longed 4...)