What Is Upscaling on a Smart TV, and Does It Help Streaming?
Upscaling can make lower-resolution video look sharper on a big screen, but it isn't the same as true higher resolution.
Upscaling is processing built into most modern TVs that takes a lower-resolution picture and stretches and sharpens it to better fill a higher-resolution screen.
What it actually does
The TV analyzes the incoming picture and uses processing to smooth edges and estimate additional detail, aiming for a cleaner result than simply stretching the image.
What it doesn't do
Upscaling can't recreate detail that was never in the original video — it's an estimate, not a true increase in resolution. For a genuinely sharper picture, the source content itself needs to be higher resolution to begin with, which our 4K and HDR requirements guide covers.
Adjusting upscaling settings
Most TVs let you adjust the intensity of upscaling and sharpening in the picture settings menu — see our guide on TV picture settings that improve streaming quality for a starting point.
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