[99rook99]

...

I understand quite a little bit about upscaling, since Im encoding all my dvds and quite a few HDTV recordings and I know the difference between the filters.

I also saw that discussion about the Rpi upscaling a few months ago, before I went ahead and ordered a Rpi3. Did you actually see that this Mitchell-Netravali sheet is from 1988? What resolution did they use back then? Something like 640x480 IF at all? This crap is stone age old.

The upscaling of specifically 720p content on both the Rpi3 and Shield looks somewhat blurry to me and too soft, compared to the Dune. The Dune is indeed using some sort of a sharpening algorithm (comparable to Lanczos3), which makes it look almost like 1080p from 2.5-3m distance. It doesnt oversharpen things though, there are no dark contours around white objects.

Basically it would be good if we had a choice to pick a sharper or softer upscaling algorithm, like it is the case in openelec on x86 devices where you can chose between spline36, lanczos2, 3, etc.

For now, I think the best combo is a shield for Netflix+YT+etc @4k+60fps and a proper media player like a DuneHD or a x86 device like a NUC, except that the 4k player from Dune isnt recommended and Id wait for the 4k Solo 2 for various reasons. But it doesnt seem like there is a device out there atm that can handle everything properly.

Last time I checked SPMC has those HQ scaler that you are looking for.