Upscaling SD video, but NOT HD video? (1 Viewer)

[bugmenot]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.30
MediaPortal Skin: X Factor
Windows Version: 7 64 bit
CPU Type: Intel Core i7 960
Memory: 9GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 460
Video Card Driver: 270.61
MPEG2 Video Codec: ffdshow
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow
TV: Panasonic Viera full HD plasma
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI

Hey guys. I had until recently been using my PS3 for watching videos on my TV, but it wasen't able to handle MKVs very well, so I looked it something that would handle MKVs natively. This is when I discovered MediaPortal (great program BTW!)!

I've been using it for a week or so now, and I've noticed that SD videos don't look as good as they did when I was watching on my PS3, in animated content, the black outlines look very jaggy. I suspect that the PS3 is applying some kind of upscaling to SD videos to make them look better. I would like MediaPortal to do something similar. If I had to be specific, I guess the jagged black outlines are what bothers me, I'd like to smooth them out. Not expecting the image to look like native full HD or a professional SD Blu-ray upscale, but an improvement of some sort would be nice. BUT! Here's the catch: I want it to leave 1920x1080 videos alone!

I've read the guide on post-processing (Postprocessing Guide - MediaPortal Wiki), and tried out just the "resize" filter, since it seems to be the only filter that has the option of not taking effect unless the video is below 1920x1080. But I can't see much of a difference when I play a SD video in MediaPortal. I tried setting the settings in "resize" to ridiculous settings, hoping that I should see SOME kind of difference. I saw none. So I suspect that the filter is not being applied for some reason. I've tried setting this in MP's post-processing version of ffdshow like in the guide, as well as normal ffdshow that runs Windows.

Does anyone know where I'm going wrong?

*EDIT* Silly me, I had my greater than and less than around the wrong way. Not to mention I hadn't changed "or" to "and". So essentially, it was currently set to only resize if the video was BIGGER than 1920 or 1080, which in the case of the former, wasn't gonna happen, and in the latter, ignores SD content, the very content I wanted upscaled I got my black outlines nice and smooth now, though if someone can suggest a way of getting my SD content to rival professionally-produced SD to HD upscales, the kind you see in an upscaled Blu-ray, that would be awesome!

 

[mbuzina]

You use the FFMPEG Resize filter? Try the LANCZOS method, which should provide best quality I believe.

 

[bugmenot]

Yep, already using it. Though I think I need to turn the sharpening down, I'm getting a little bit of grain around the edges of objects.

 

[tony72]

For upscaling I use bicubic resize followed by sharpen (xsharpen), in that order. That post-processing guide seems to say to sharpen before resizing, but that will actually increase the "jaggies" in my opinion. Also Lanczos resize has inherent sharpening, so I personally tend to avoid it if I'm going to have a sharpen filter afterwards.

 

[bugmenot]

The sharpen filter can't be limited to videos of a certain resolution like the resize filter right?

 

[tony72]

Not directly, but you can use ffdshow presets and set preset autoload conditions to apply different combinations of filters and settings to different resolutions, file extensions etc. I use different profiles for HD, SD and sub-SD videos, etc. E.g. my TV(SD) preset is set to trigger if height is 576, width is between 704 and 720, and filename matches "*.ts.tsbuffer".

 

[lanceuppercu]

i use a pioneer g10 plasma (1920x1080) tv and i have the zoom level set to "normal" and if i enable the resize postprocessing within the submenu whilst playing a video, it resizes it to a smaller window (1280x720 i think), attached is my ffdshow settings page for resize (followed the wiki), where am i going wrong?

 

[tony72]

The settings look ok to me. You could temporarily add "OSD" in the ffdshow filter list, and check "output size" and "input size". Then ffdshow will display on-screen the resolution it thinks it's outputting, see if it matches what you think it should be doing or not.

 

[lanceuppercu]

ah never mind, it seems my poor cpu cant handle the upscaling

 

[cruse]

AW: Upscaling SD video, but NOT HD video?

Thread is somewhat older, but I recommend Spline as Luma method. I wrote a small guide eons ago

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/watch-edit-videos-104/guide-making-720p-look-like-1080p-96272/

To further improve SD content, also experiment with Blur & NR in ffdshow. Sharpen has lots of drawbacks in my eyes (literally).