ghost wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 8:42 am
trust your eyes
That's just the problem, I can sadly no longer do that.
just upscaled to a bigger resolution (maybe with some sharpening and noise reduction)
Aha! At least now I understand the distinction you are making. I totally get that just making a video bigger does not really accomplish much.
TV companies won't do much work on a movie if they broadcast it. Just scale it up to HD.
That is what I assumed they were doing for 720p broadcasts: either scaling up a Standard Def source, or bit-starving a 1080p source. Because they are cheap and want their audience to think they are getting something better when it is not nearly as good as it COULD be. Because most people are not technical experts, nor do they have a refined aesthetic sense ... or their eyesight has gone to crap like mine. When my 4k TV died I did not replace it, I just went back to a lower resolution one. I figured I was physically incapable of really appreciating the money spent!
But I take what I can get, and to a certain extent I can still see improvements in a 720p upscale from DVD versus, say, a VHSrip. My eyes are at least good enough for that.