Video Asylum

Posted by cin5 (A) on April 14, 2022 at 16:14:06

I need advice deciding between two schemes for deinterlacing and scaling 480 content to achieve the best results affordable on a late model 1080p 50" plasma TV. I decided against even the best Sony 48 or 55" OLED TVs as all TVs today are 4K, and however intelligent the algorithms in their processors, scaling 480 to 4K is likely to generate too many artifacts.

My collection of movies and TV series is sizable but only 30-odd movies and one TV series are on 1080p BD. The rest are on DVD, though pressed from Warners, Sony, Universal, Fox, CBS/Paramount, Studio Canal, et al.

I won't deal with monthly streaming fees and that lossy sound quality. I don't even subscribe to a monthly TV service. Nor do I want to rely on my excellent Oppo 95 or Pioneer LX500 players, as well designed fully featured BD players are a dying breed with limited service support. So I'd rather play BDs and DVDs via JRiver on the BD drive in the HTPC that I want to build-outputting the video via HDMI and the audio via USB to a DAC.

The good news is I do no gaming, so I may not need a super powerful video card. But how much horsepower will I still need to make my DVDs look their best on a plasma?

I only know of two ways to do this. The first way is this expensive box, not that I have any experience using it. http://www.lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=radianceMini_details

The second way is certainly far most popular: Use an HTPC with a suitably powerful graphics card and madVR software, or the Jinc utility which I believe is built into JRiver player. But while Jinc's learning curve might not be very steep most users say madVR can take you days or weeks to produce decent results. I don't mind putting in reasonable time to learn as much as I can so long as my efforts bear good looking fruit.

However, the big concern here is fan noise, power draw and/or heat emissions. My HTPC build is way overdue but it also needs to be virtually (~ 80%) silent-and in a case no bigger than this. https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=233&area=en

But a madVR user said this silent card's too weak.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/gt-1030/specifications/ and to scale DVDs for a 1080p plasma-even when viewed 10 to 12 feet away-I'd at least need a card idling at 82 watts like this one.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/gtx-1650/

And the card's idling fan noise levels really aren't rated too well.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14270/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650-review-feat-zotac/15

Same with this card. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15010/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super-review-feat-evga/15

There is a fanless version of the 1650.
https://www.a2kmedia.net/post/is-silent-gpu-any-good-palit-gtx-1650-kalmx

But that's assuming I wouldn't actually need some stronger and even noisier card for great looking DVDs on a 50" plasma @ 10 feet, using madVR or Jinc.

So is asking for low fan noise and stellar DVD to 1080p scaling from a video card pretty much asking for the impossible?

If so, then unless this less costly model would give exceptionally good results on my screen and viewing distance https://www.kramerav.com/us/product/vp-424c , would this processor produce indispensably better images? http://www.lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=radianceMini_details

BUT I'll be sending the audio to an external DAC via USB, so any problems syncing the video with the audio while the pc's playing the DVD via JRiver?

Edits: 04/14/22