Home > Consumer Reviews > ADS Technologies HDUP1500 HDTV Upconverter

I recently purchased ADS's HDTV Upconverter for use with my Mitsubishi 42" HDTV (CRT-based rear projection). I have a variety of video sources including an HDTV receiver, a DirecTV/Tivo receiver, a progressive scan DVD player, and an Xbox game console. Broadly speaking, I wanted to improve the quality of standard definition 480i signals from the Tivo and reformat 780p signals from the Xbox to work on my Mits which only accepts 1080i (along with 480i/480p). I also tried upscaling the output from my DVD player, sending both interlaced and progressive scan signals to the scaler.

The HDUP1500 certainly does provide a wide range of flexibility, in that it can take virtually any video signal and deinterlace/scale it to all of the current standard and high-definition formats. I was successfully able to input all my sources and output the signals at 1080i (also tried 480p to see the deinterlacing capability on 480i signals). Unfortunately, I was less than impressed with the results of the unit's deinterlacing and scaling. Scaling of 480i signals from the Tivo was decent if the sequences were mostly static images. Xbox 780p signals were indeed converted (Soul Caliber II) but with excessive edge enhancement, imo. I preferred the progressive scan output of my DVD player to the video sent thru the scaler.

PROS: supports virtually all formats in & out, ability to scale to various resolutions (for fixed pixel displays) and usual high-def formats (780p/1080i), does pretty well on static images
CONS: motion sequences end up w/ fair amount of artifacts, excessive edge enhancement degrades picture, no pass-thru of 1080i signals (these get pillar boxed, unfortunately), switching between inputs takes several seconds, mediocre 3:2 pulldown processing (mix of video & film sequences)

Overall, it's difficult for me to justify the ~$600 price for mediocre scaling and deinterlacing. I ended up returning the unit as I'd rather save the money and apply it towards the purchase of a newer TV which has better built-in scaling and deinterlacing capabilities (e.g. Samsung DLPs or others). The ADS Tech HDUP1500 may be better suited for people with plasmas and other fixed pixel displays. DVDO and others are expected to release other high-def scaling products in the near future, which may be another option though these are all likely to be substantially more expensive.

I bought the ADS upconverter because I bought a HDTV only to find out that my cable co. didn't offer HDTV and after 3 failed attempts to switch to a satellite provider that did offer HDTV (too many trees around my house). I wasn't expecting the upconverter to magically turn my standard signals into an amazing HDTV picture, but for $550+ I was expecting the upconverter to do something that was actually noticable. When I first turned in on I asked my wife to look at the picture and tell me what she thought. She looked at the TV and said okay I'm ready turn it on. I said "it IS ON!!" This is pretty much the reaction I had also when I looked at it. The image I got for my digital cable was certianly different, but that's all it was, different. It was NOT noticably better. In fact, in some instances I though the picture was worse. I called ADS tech support and they kept insisting I try it with my DVD because that is what the product is best for (even though that's not what I got it for). So I did and to be honest I really preferred the picture I got directly from my DVD over the picture I got after running it thru the upconverter. It didn't matter what display format I put it in it just didn't do anything to improve the picture. Save your money. If you can't get HDTV don't expect this box to give you anything close to the next best thing.

This is a very disappointing product. It is supposed to enhance the image but it actually made it a lot worse. I have a perfectly calibrated home theater and after I put this cheapo upconverter everything needed to be readjusted. Color, tint, brightness. I couldn't believe it. If you are serious about upconverting, invest in a real box like the DVDO iScan HD. Now that's about the performance. About the rest, it sucks even more. The case feels cheap, switching between the different inputs takes forever (like there is a 5 sec delay between the moment you push and it does switch) DO NOT BUY.

Start off with the bad news. I have a Motorola DVR / Converter box with my Comcast cable service, and the Comcast remote sends the ADS box into gonzo fits. Attempting to use the menu button on the cable remote causes the ADS box to switch inputs. Using the cable DVR fast-forward button cycles the ADS through screen formats with each button push, etc. I contacted ADS tech service and they responded that the only fix was to physically separate the two boxes so the remotes could be aimed at one at a time.

Obviously, this is not acceptable.

Too bad because this box does a much better job than my Philips Cineos at upscaling. Tivo, analog cable, DVD, Laserdisc all look better. The improvement is more than worth the hassle of having another remote to handle, but definitely not worth it if you have a Motorola cable box that will conflict.

5 stars for video quality, 3 stars for user interface (which is not so great), subtract all but 1 star for failure to publicise conflict and for failure to solve conflict.

This is about the least expensive Scaler you will find, Period. I have a Home Theater system which includes a Front projection system with a D-Theater 40000u JVC VCR and a high end DVD Player. The Projectors native resolution is 1024x768. I set the HD VCR for 1080i and use the HDUP1500 HDTV to downconvert the D-theater to my projectors maximum resolution. The Picture looks great. I also use the Scaler to upscale DVD and it does a good job. When you enlarge a dvd Image without the use of the upconverter on a 100" screen it doesnt stand up too well and Normal Televison fairs even worse. This scaler upconverts both and I cant begin to tell what an improvement this scaler makes on quality. One improvement they should make is to include an rgb connection. My projector does not have a component connection so I use a KDS Transcoder. While there are scalers that do a better job they dont come close to the bang for buck you get out of this unit.