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emdawgz1
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7949
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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Id like to revisit this thought.
I have
NEC XG 75(Runco 991)
Sony BDP S1 Blu ray player
Dishnet 642 HD-DVR
Nec ISS 6020
Whats the most cost effective (cheap) yet effective way to a processor?
Suggestions anyone???
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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What exactly do you mean by "video processing"?
Your BDP-S1 player upscales SD DVD's to whatever you want (not the greatest but it works and is better than most cheap scalers).
Your Dishnet 642 HD-PVR can also scale everything to 1080i.
So not sure why you need an external scaler at all unless you want/need more features. What exactly do you need/want?
Kal
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emdawgz1
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7949
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | What exactly do you mean by "video processing"?
Your BDP-S1 player upscales SD DVD's to whatever you want (not the greatest but it works and is better than most cheap scalers).
Your Dishnet 642 HD-PVR can also scale everything to 1080i.
So not sure why you need an external scaler at all unless you want/need more features. What exactly do you need/want?
Kal |
I just wanna be sure that im getting the best pq. If i send both sources to the ISS and then to the pj, im ok???
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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Curt Palme
CRT Tech
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24396
Location: Langley, BC
TV/Projector: All of them!
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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Em, you have a similar setup as to what Cliff has. I'd get a Moome card with gamma correction. Cliff also has a VP50 in the mix, but for your sources I don't know that you need it.
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emdawgz1
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7949
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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I already have a moome internal card for the xg, i'm trying to sell it and get an ISS card.
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perisoft
Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2920
Location: Ithaca, NY
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| XANATOS wrote: | almost all scalers are a bargain. a good doubler once coust 15,000$$$
upconverting 1080I to 1080P cost 20,000$$$ ...
XANATOS |
Why am I suddenly thinking of these guys?
...seriously, a deinterlacer for twenty grand? A doubler for fifteen? Even in the early '90s you could have put together a system with off the shelf components for far less than that. I have a feeling that the guys in that business had.... comfortable margins.
That said, and being a hardcore HTPC guy, I'd be interested to see a real, pixel-wise comparison, frame-on-frame, of what various upscaling DVD players and scalers can do. I read reviews, and they go, "The image is light and punchy with a subtle depth and a distinct smell of bull****" and have fifty pictures of glossy knobs, and utterly fail to provide any information relevant to the proceedings.
Anybody know of a source to determine what these things are *actually doing* rather than relying on subjective, twenty-year-old hype?
(Yes, I'm a bit harsh... but seriously, some of the scaler prices are absolutely ludicrous; you could buy industrial image processing kit which would not only 'line double' but find all scenes containing Mila Jovovich and tell whether any vegetables in the scene were fresh for that kind of cabbage.)
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kschmit2
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1141
Location: Heidelberg, Germany
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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$10k-$25k wasn't that unusual for doublers/scalers in the late 90s to early 2000s.
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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Nowadays, the Crystalio 2 is the FINEST scaler/processor on the market (next to the Radiance) and they can be had for less than 3k now on Videogon (new they are 5.5k)
I bought one to resell it - unpacked it and tried it. I was SERIOUSLY impressed! Makes everything you throw at it look better. All my sources output at 1080i/50/60 - the scaler then does all the deinterlacing (and believe me a 5k processor can deinterlace better than almost anything!) - I get the most impressive 1080P/50/60 image you can possibly imagine.
It makes SD material look as close as HD as I've ever seen.
I sold my Calibre Vantage (also a great VP) for it - but that's also worth considering.
Seriously, go an try one out - you wont be disappointed. I'm egging Kal to get an Anthem D2 with the Gennum chipset (same as the Crystalio 2) in it.
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perisoft
Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2920
Location: Ithaca, NY
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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If I could see some highly detailed screenshots of that scaler I'd love it. As it stands I have absolutely no clue what quality difference I'm looking at between a $3k scaler and throwing $400 at upgrading my HTPC and running LimitedSharpenFaster through FFDshow. I do know that if I spent twenty thousand I'd be unimpressed with what I see coming out of FFDshow, but the input quality with standard DVD is so absolutely awful that it's hard to imagine getting much better at any price. Silk purse, sow's ear, etc.
Does anybody with a good scaler have some raw output shots? Say, Mila's eyes and teeth in the up-against-the-wall scene in the Fifth Element?
There's something to be said for the raw convenience of using components, but there's also something to be said for being able to make my own absolutely precise gamma curves and use inverse overlays to even out small variations in phosphor output across the screen - one of which appears to usually require its own high-dollar piece of kit and the other of which is flat out impossible without a PC.
On the other hand, if, given the limited quality of the input data, a ten-year-old Faroudja scaler that *used* to be rape-and-pillage $30k and is now $300 on ebay can come within 95% of matching my HTPC, I'd have to consider it pretty seriously.
But I have no idea what the real quality levels are - absolutely none!
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| perisoft wrote: | If I could see some highly detailed screenshots of that scaler I'd love it. As it stands I have absolutely no clue what quality difference I'm looking at between a $3k scaler and throwing $400 at upgrading my HTPC and running LimitedSharpenFaster through FFDshow. I do know that if I spent twenty thousand I'd be unimpressed with what I see coming out of FFDshow, but the input quality with standard DVD is so absolutely awful that it's hard to imagine getting much better at any price. Silk purse, sow's ear, etc.
Does anybody with a good scaler have some raw output shots? Say, Mila's eyes and teeth in the up-against-the-wall scene in the Fifth Element?
There's something to be said for the raw convenience of using components, but there's also something to be said for being able to make my own absolutely precise gamma curves and use inverse overlays to even out small variations in phosphor output across the screen - one of which appears to usually require its own high-dollar piece of kit and the other of which is flat out impossible without a PC.
On the other hand, if, given the limited quality of the input data, a ten-year-old Faroudja scaler that *used* to be rape-and-pillage $30k and is now $300 on ebay can come within 95% of matching my HTPC, I'd have to consider it pretty seriously.
But I have no idea what the real quality levels are - absolutely none! |
I'll see what I can do re:screenshots
Believe me, I have a HTPC that is .. well amazing. QX6700 - an 8800GTX, 4Gb of RAM - 1.5Tb of RAID0 array - etc. I have FFDshow with all the major players like Power DVD Ultra (latest version). I've tweaked and tweaked and while I can get very acceptable PQ, its not as good as the modded appliances I have.(Sony DVP9000ES with SDI) Having said that, if I put my HTPC through the Crystalio, I can barely tell the difference between the high end appliance sources and the HTPC.
The Crystalio 2 was the absolute best purchase I've made this year next to my PS3.
Anyway, once I find my camera I'll take some screenshots.
BTW, whilst I agree, the HTPC can be a tweaker delight, the C2 also has alot of 'tweaks' you can do - eg gamma curve manipulation - you can do Low IRE, High IRE - S-Shape, or even user defined. You can adjust the individual R,G,B or you can apply 'master' settings across the board.
PS, screenshots wont do PQ justice - you really need to see it 'in real life' but I will still see what I can do
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Stonefool
Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 253
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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There is currently a buy-it-now on VP-30 on ebay for $1299, and a VP-50 buy-it-now for $1800. Then there is one VP-30 for $200+ auction. And you have an auction for a Lumagen HDP for $810 going on, just to mention a few.
So you don't really need to spend $2000 on a nice processor.
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