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Should I Use My Oppo Player to Upconvert to 4K?

Al Griffin  |  Dec 5, 2019

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Q I use an Oppo UDP-203 Ultra HD Blu-ray player and an Apple TV as sources, with the signals fed through a Marantz SR7011 AV receiver to an Epson Home Cinema 5050UB projector. From what I understand, the player, projector and receiver can all upconvert standard- and high-def signals to 4K. Which one should I let do the upconversion? —Michael Antoniello, via email

A Use the Oppo player to perform the upconversion. When we tested the UDP-203 in 2017, we found its deinterlacing and upscaling capabilities to be flawless. The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB projector didn’t fare as well in the deinterlacing department in our recent review. And while the video capabilities of the Marantz SR7011, a model that features up-to-date HDMI 2.0b connectivity, wasn’t covered in our 2017 review, it’s unlikely to exceed the performance and flexibility of the Oppo player, which additionally features extensive picture adjustment and noise reduction settings.

How would you use the Oppo for video switching? Connect the HDMI output of your Apple TV to the player’s HDMI input. Next, run the Oppo’s main HDMI output directly to the projector, and its secondary audio-only output to the Marantz receiver.

COMMENTS
Old Ben's picture
Submitted by Old Ben on December 9, 2019 - 5:42am

One thing to be aware of is that it may be possible to exceed the bandwidth capabilities of HDMI if you do all of your upconverting with the Oppo. Specifically, DVDs could cause a problem because many of them play at 60 Hz. If your Oppo is converting a 60 Hz signal to 4K (and potentially adding an HDR signal?), then you may exceed the bandwidth capabilities of HDMI.

sonicsmoke's picture
Submitted by sonicsmoke on December 9, 2019 - 6:17pm

I have a 4K Vizio M Series Quantum TV (M658-G1) that upscales non-4K material to 4K. I also have an Oppo BDP-103 player and a Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray player, both of which can upscale to 4K. If I'm watching, say, 1080p content, which device is actually doing the upscaling? No matter which device I use or the resolution of the content, the TV always reports that it's in 4K, so I can't tell which one is upscaling. This also happens when I'm watching 1080p content through my Roku Ultra, which goes straight to the TV. Is it possible to disable the upscaling ability of the TV and have my Oppo do it?

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