CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[hansilili]

Dear all,

I am missing an overview of the different scalers around, thought this should be found as a sticky thread somewhere. Used market has offers ranging form $50 to $1500 but I am not sure which machine will do the jobs I need.

When before the availability of high def. content their main purpose was to upscale VHS, DVD and TV signals this is nearly irrelevant to me now. A standard AVR can do that. An additional scaler would be useful though if it had the following essential and nice to have features:

essential:
1. porch adjustment, pan, zoom to fit AVR 1080p output to the CRT projector
2. down scaling from 1080p60 to 50 Hz and less (bandwidth limitation of my projector)
3. down scaling from 1920 to 816 lines to fit 2.35 AR content

nice to have:
4. gamma adjustment, individual color management (somewhere in between essential and nice to have)
5. user presets to switch items 1-4 for different sources
6. HDMI and HDCP compliance if applied before D/A video conversion with HD fury or moome
7. horizontal resolution higher than 1920 supported to anable 2.35 AR with 1080 lines and keep aspect ration for PC desktop
8. full hd video and audio support to insert the scaler between different sources and and pass hd audio only to the audio processor
9. HDCP video to analog conversion (no more Fury needed)
10. enables signal splitting for blending

What else did I miss?

cheers
hansilili

[hansilili]

Here is a list of available scalers (copied from elsewhere http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-134-1054.html) The prices are copied too and shall reflect European used ebay avg.. To me the price levels seem to be stable until today.

Which of these models are really useful, assumed that the the projector is capable of throwing a good HD picture and HDMI capable AVR and HD Fury (or similar device) is already there?


DVDO
http://www.dvdo.com

- iScan VP50 Pro (ca. 2000 Euro neu, 1300 Euro used, 400 Euro für das HD-SDI Upgrade)
- DVDO Edge (ca. 700 Euro neu in DE, 500 Euro neu bei Import aus den USA)
- iScan Pro (150 EUR used)
- iScan Ultra (200 EUR used)
- iScan HD (nur noch used, ca. 220 Euro)
- iScan HD+ (nur noch used, ca. 250 Euro)
- iScan VP20/30 (ca. 450-600 Euro inkl ABT102 Karte used)
- iScan VP30
- iScan VP50 (ca. 750 Euro used)

LUMAGEN
http://www.lumagen.com

- Vision HDQ (ca. 1000 Euro used)
- Lumagen Radiance XE (ca. 4500 Euro neu, beim Import 2000-2500 Euro.
- Vision DVI (ca. 450 Euro used)
- Vision HDP (ca. 750 Euro used)
- Vision HDP Pro (ca. 900 Euro used)

CINEMATEQ
http://www.cinemateq.com

- Picture Optimizer (ca. 250 Euro used)
- Picture Optimizier Plus 2 (SDI) (ca. 500 Euro used)
- Picture Optimizier Plus HD (SDI) HDMI (ca. 800 used)


DENON
http://www.denon.com

- Denon DVP-602CI (2500 US$, nur in den USA zu haben)

CYP
http://www.cypuk-europe.com/

- Instant HQV Scaler (ca. 900 Euro neu)

CALIBRE UK
http://www.calibreuk.com

- Vantage HD-2 (ca. 3000 Euro neu, 1500 Euro used)
- Vantage HD (ca. 600 Euro neu)


MICOMSOFT JAPAN
http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/index.htm

- Micomsoft XRGB-3 (ca. 300 Euro neu)

PC & SOFTWARE
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN
http://blackmagic-design.com/products/

- BMD Intensity (ca. 200-250 Euro)

IMMERSIVE
(Immersive gibt's mittlerweile nicht mehr, daher keine URL…)

- Immersive Holo3Dgraph I & II

PIXEL MAGIC SYSTEMS
http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/

- PMS Sweetspot bzw. PDI Deluxe (160 Euro neu)
- Plasma Enhancer (300 Euro used)
- Plasma Enhancer Pro (ca. 500 Euro used)
- Crystalio VPS2300 (ca. 600 Euro used)
- Crystalio VPS3300 & 3800 Pro (ca. 2000-2500 Euro used)
- Crystalio VPS3100 (ca. 1000 Euro used used)

TAW
http://www.taw.biz

- Rock / Rock Pro / Rock Hybrid
- Ruby

NEC
http://www.necvisualsystems.com

- Theatersync (ca. 800 Euro used)

TERANEX
http://www.teranex.com

- Teranex Mini (nicht am Privatmarkt zu finden...)

KEY DIGITAL
http://www.keydigital.com/

- HD Leeza (ca. 900 Euro)
- iSync HD & Pro (ca. 500 Euro used)

FAROUDJA
http://www.meridian-audio.com/faroudja

- Faroudja NRS Series (ca. 700 Euro used)
- DVP-1080P (ca. 1500 Euro used)


ALGOLITH
http://www.algolith.com

- Dragonfly (ca. 1200 Euro used)
- Mosquito HDMI (Denoiser) (ca. 900 Euro used)
- Flea (Denoiser) (ca. 650 Euro used)

OPTOMA
http://www.optoma.co.uk

- Theme Scene HD3000 (ca. 500 Euro used)

ANTHEM
http://www.anthemav.com/

- Anthem D2 (US$6500)


TVone products are missing. They are not present in European used market. I came across them upon blending inquiry.

[fragzero]

Currently using an Vp50 pro.Features it has:

1
2
3

5
6

4)No CMS, only chooses here are the DVDO Duo or the more popular Radiance processors.

8)Unsure what you mean, it has hdmi 1.3 but only 1 port so you can add it to a PJ+avr stream and have HDMI audio without any issues.

9)No Processor will do this unless you strip HDCP first. Most don't even have Analog out anymore!

Why would you want analog out after a processor? i'm using Sources - Vp50 pro - HDMI cable - HDFury III + 15cm breakout cable.

[Nashou66]

I say the best VP with the most features of any of the used VP's is the Lumagen HDx series.

You can find then here in the states from 200-500 dollars and I think its a good deal at any of those prices.

Or if you find a VP 50 you can add CMS by looking for a used Video Eq, i have seen those for about 200 dollars as well.

Athanasios

[fragzero]

The previous generation of Lumagen devices is quite nice indeed!

They have 1 disadvantage, they do not accept 1080p60, only 1080p24.

That's why I'm using a VP50 pro, my Xbox 360 outputs 720p60 or 1080p60. With a used Lumagen i would be stuck at 720p60

[Nashou66]

[fragzero]

Video games aren't 1080p24

And no the previous generation only does 1080p24

[stridsvognen]

A DVDO VP50 with a HDCP stripper should do a damn nice job with any HD signals, and output via RGBHV or HDMI. Fine downscaling, but lousy upscaling, and perfect deinterlacing.

The VP50pro is full of bugs, and the result dont look as good as the old VP50. But you get HDMI audio pass true.

The DVDO VP50 and VP50pro dont have any CMS or 11 point gamma adjustment.

But no matter what you do you need a HDCP stripper before or after the VP.

Perfect solution must be the Lumagen Radiance and moome card or box. used lumagen XD is often less than 1000$

[Nashou66]

[AVphile]

You can use 1080i for games, it looks good on a CRT.

Do you need analog inputs or just HDMI? When the Radiance mini goes on sale it is close to the price of those used processors, and shipping is usually included.

[Phoenixed]

Nash.

He is right. Its the reason I switched to DVDO products with my projectors from the HDQ due to the lack of 1080p60 input, i just ran 1080i60 when I had the lumagen.

FYI 1080p24 gaming would be terrible, although consoles can barely push 720p30 with modern engines.

[Nashou66]

[Phoenixed]

[fragzero]

Why i do not have my xbox directly connected to my PJ

- I need porch adjustments to fix left side banding
- Now i can zoom on games which insist on having a small border around the screen (darn underpowered consoles)
- this makes my setup significant less complex (sources - vp50 - avr - hdfury)

And a VP50 pro is fast, I'm quite certain my overall lag is less than your average television/projector.

Now everything has advantages and disadvantages off course

If you want this for pure 1080p24 materials (nearly every video source you can find) I'd got for a previous generation HDP + some solid dvi to hdmi cables, this should do everything you want and offer basic gamma adjustments.

[hansilili]

Thanks to all for your replies so far.

Me myself is looking for a low budget scaler if any at all. So far HTPC is the only source and I have good scaling and gamma management. However, I can't use my stand alone HD-DVD-Player, Powerstrip doesn't support the latest ATI GPUs anymore (which is a PITA), and sooner or later might get tired of the constant HTPC tweaking problems - plenty of time to wait for a bargain scaler.

Models like Radiance and VP50pro will do the necessary but are out of my budget. How about VP20, VP30, edge, cinemateq POP, lumagen HDP. Thoses seem to be the cheaper ones.

Also there are a lot of Gefen socalled scaler on ebay. To me it seems most of them are VGA to HDMI converters only with little picture adjustment options. The have dedicated HT scalers for $999 on their web site. Are there no older analog models?

Cheers
Hansiliil

[fragzero]

I'd grab a Lumagen HDP/pro/vision if i were you. You can do 1080p24 - 1080i72 or 96 with it + some basic CMS. Only issue is that it does not do 1080p60 but for video content it's a none-issue.

Options to feed your projector.

- Lumagen with BNC + a Moome HDCP stripper, this enables the lumagen to do digital to analog conversion

- an HDFury or Moomebox (maybe an internal card?)

I had the same choice to make but after seeing the prices of high end BNC cables i decided to grab a HDFury 3 and a 15cm breakout cable. This allows you to stay digital untill the end avoiding any noise which could happen on longer coax cables.

[hansilili]

[fragzero]

Can they downscale 1080P60 to say i60?

No

Can they take a 1080p24, crop the black bars on 2.35 AR content and output 1920x817p48 with adjustable porch settings?

Yes


Should you consider a VP30, these are limited to 720p60!