yes the MBP does upscale, however you will need most probably a blackmagic decklink intensity card, HDMI IN/OUT to capture the playback.
i offen watch movies on my tv upscaled but have found the coours to be lacking. you may also have to adjust the gamma of the ingest screen as it will be in computer gamma. also do not deinterlace, i have found with aple this only magnifies the pixelation on upscaling