CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

stridsvognen · Last edited by stridsvognen on Tue Mar 12, 2013 8:29 am; edited 1 time in total

Just received my 100$ Calibre Vantage HD2 scaler, and i'm exited to test it on the big screen tonight.

For now i'm just testing it on my SONY LCD TV, and finding out how its all working.. After 1 hour navigating around, getting it setup for DVD 576i and Laserdisc 480i i'm quite impressed. Thumbs Up

And it can pass true 1080P 24hz

Nashou66 · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 6:21 pm Post subject:

Kurt, does that have any CMS or Greyscale calibration abilities?

Nashou

stridsvognen · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 7:33 pm Post subject:

I can adjust
Brightness / Contrast
0-7,5 IRE
Gamma in and out from 1.1 to 2.8 what look like different curve forms..
Color temp. RGB gain and offset adjustment.

No CMS or fancy 11 point gamma correction.

I'm quite surprised with all the options for filters and noise reduction, and what i seen so far i can tune Laserdisc to look better than both my Radiance and DVDO VP50.

Right now it connected like this.

Pioneer CLD 2950 composit out -> Vantage HD2 HDMI 1080P 60hz out-> Radiance XS ( No scaling ) CMS and gamma correction-> JVC RS50/ X7

stridsvognen · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:27 am Post subject:

Looks like this HQV based Vantage is quite fantastic 4:2:2 - RGB converter for BD material, and it looks like my Radiance loves to work RGB in _RGB out.. I have to see some more BD movies, but from what i seen from those 2 i seen last night it was amassing..

SD upscaling reminds me a bit of my SD reference Denon DVD A1XVA / DVDO VP50 setup. Just the deinterlacing is a not all perfect in the Vantage.

stridsvognen · Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 10:53 am Post subject:

Now i have spend 1 week with the Vantage HD2, and i think i know its strong and weak points.

It cant output any interlaced formats, and the sharpness/ detail adjustments are not neutral, but its possible to find some very nice setting.

The detail and Sharpness adjustments have a default setting on 50, and can be ad´justed from 0-100, so it has plenty of range both ways, there is some nice filtering options to, whos actual working very well on noisy sources like laserdisc. and lots of NTSC DVD.

For now its my favorite laserdisc scaler/ comb filter. And go from there into my Radiance and from there to my display.

I think ill prefer the Vantage over my DVDO VP50 for SD material, but there is + and - with both.

Radiance is the best scaler

DVDO VP50 / ABT102 is the best SD deinterlacer.

Vantage cant beat any of the best performances, but do SD deinterlacing better than the Radiance, and scaling better than the VP50.

So it looks to be a fine VP with limited options, it has a custom output resolution, so its possible to make a 1440x960P output for a CRT setup.
And 24-48-60hz out option for 24hz material.

stridsvognen · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:36 pm Post subject:

1 week more of experimenting, i'm now using using my Denon DVD A1XVA / 5910CI component BNC out, 480/575i into the HD2, and from there output 720P into Radiance.

It sure sounds crazy, but damn it looks good. First time ever i have seen SD material deinterlaced and scaled to 1080P with absolutely no ringing, combing, banding or other obvious problems.

It takes a lot of time testing and adjusting the options in the Vantage, but it has been worth the time.

Compared to other scaler setups i might look a bit solf on a distance, but im douing all adjustments closeup to a LCD display, and then testing with a few movies on my JVC X7.

Ill say it all looks natural.

I have tested with different players with analog and HDMI out, and so far i cant get pure digital signal Work this well.

The HD2 have some problems upscaling to 1080p 50/ 60hz, it makes some thin green lines specialy in skin colors. Faces legs arms and stuff.. Never seen anything like that, its not visible from normal distance to the screen. Thats the main reason to only output 720P.

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 1448 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

I use my Denon DVD-5910 for CD & DVDs as well, but I upscale to 720p right out of the DVD 5910 via HDMI, then input into my Denon AVR 5805, and again "scale" the resolution to 720p, then it feeds out via HDMI into the DVDO VP30 (which glitched last night and actually let me do 1080p for an input! Shocked

)then the DVDO HDMI out feeds into the HD Fury gamer to the XG RGBHV input.

I will say this, it sounds like a lot of scaling and processing BS, but I have shown about 3 or 4 DVDs with it setup this way, and no o ne was the wiser that it was only a DVD. The clarity, detail, lack of noise in the video, is just incredible out of a DVD. I really didn't think DVD could even get much better than "close to HD" but I am very happy with the way its currently setup.

I think a big part of it though is the DVD5910 itself, it is one HELL of a DVD player, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else, period.

stridsvognen · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:35 pm Post subject:

Nice to hear others like the Denon 5910 to.

It looks like both the HD2 and the Denon 5910 is adding some sharpness in 0 setting, so you should try put the sharpness settings in the denon Down as much as possible, and the DNR is usefull to in that player.

You will Loose a bit of the super Sharp, but also artificial Picture. The 5910 cant get rid of the ringing from the sharpness, but the HD2 have more adjustment range so there its just to find the balance.
I think they both uses the same HQV chip.