CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

oliverg · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:33 am Post subject:

Gary, I didn't say that if Mark doesn't see an imporvement he shouldn't be happy - I'm commenting on his statements that a HTPC is the be all - the view that VPs are just "scalers" and that nvidia cards are only good for gaming. Good luck to him and to anyone else that is happy with their setup, but dont make statements that aren't informed.

larryk · Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 106 Location: Edmonton Alberta

I have just built a pc with a quad core, GA- &&% MB, and a 8600GT. I am using the new GCC combo drive and Vista. At standard resolutions it works fine but I found out the hard way that I can't use poverstrip with this video card. I am feeding a CRT XG PJ and I need to be able to configure resolutions like 1920 by 800 48 or 72 ETC in order to optomize my PJ output. What can I do to enable custom res. and timings without powerstip?

I have installed the two earlier versions and the latest beta version of P.S as of Oct 28 but no luck.
Thanks
Larry

oliverg · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject:

Get Riva tuner - you need version 2.01 or later.

There's a whole refresh rate wizard in there.

If you have XP you should have the advanced icon - Vista needs RT.

Having said that, there have been issues with the order that some of the applications have been installed in that may cause some functions to act erratically. There are certain software components that sometimes depend on one version but when say, NTune is also installed the functionality goes haywire. Its often best to use drivercleaner at that point and reinstall the drivers, doing the display second last and Riva Tuner last.

Kind regards
Smile

Mark_A_W · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:00 pm Post subject:

I'm not a broadcast studio. I just have a modest CRT based HT. Just as there are Audiophools, there are also Videophools, and I try very hard not to fall into either category (cables, etc). Swapping projectors willy-nilly, blowing thousands to get a 1% improvement...such a waste of resources.

And YES, I'm reasonable familiar with VPs (happy now?), and they offer nothing major which my current PC can't do. And the PC can do so much more. Convienence and reliability are the downsides of a PC, and I can live without them, considering the exorbitant cost of a decent VP - four or five times a decent 8" LC (and yes I'm very familiar with a G90, and it only offers a small improvement over my XG LC).

If Nvidia has fixed the hardware accel, and custom res controls, great. But when I tried icustom res's, using 3 different cards, I was severely frustrated. I'm not completely anti-Nvidia, I went from an ATi 9500 Pro, to a 6800GT, to a HD2600XT, and quite frankly the 6800GT was a PITA compared to the ATi cards.

I don't care if you think I am naive - I'm an 80/20 guy. 80% of the performance, 20% of the cost.

I give up arguing with you - according to you, it is impossible to stream HD over USB2 - well Microsoft engineers obviously disagree, that's why the Xbox HD-DVD drive is USB2 AND WORKS JUST FINE.

oliverg · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:49 am Post subject:

Mark .. you can't say on one hand "Why would you have a HTPC AND A scaler" and then when I explain why, you start telling me that you are happy with what you have therefore what I’m saying is invalid!

I'm just responding to your claims that you obviously think that a VP has no benefit when used in conjunction with a HTPC, which isn’t true. If you're happy with your setup, good on you - but don't tell other people that their setup is pointless when you haven’t seen it working and you have no real exposure to the technology in question.
Any late model VP owner would tell you that your views on "scalers" was outdated and out of touch. Furthermore, saying that nvidia cards are only good for gaming – what sort of statement is that?? At first you jump in sideways saying that nvidia cards don’t support custom timings and when people point out that’s not true, you change your argument to “it only supports one at a time which you have to keep changing” which is ALSO not true. I can see a section in Riva Tuner which clearly supports multiple custom timings.

As for USB2, I never said it was impossible - I said it was not optimal. We weren't talking about the HD-DVD drive for the bulk of the discussion, we were talking about external hard drives. My point - which was backed up by the original person who was arguing with me in the end was that USB/Firewire isn't optimum for use when streaming high density video like 1080P. Its not - and I actually AM a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer as of 1996, ex Microsoft Australia and the IT company I half own is a Microsoft Certified Partner, so please don't try to pull the "Microsoft engineer" argument.
SATA/PATA or even using a raid array is a far superior method of delivering HD content - especially when using VC1/H264 codecs - as without video hardware acceleration CPU utilisation often peaks. High CPU utilisation and USB/Firewire isn’t a good mix. You get choppy video occasionally and interruptions. This isn’t speculation, I’ve seen this phenomenon first hand, well over a dozen times. I’ve even seeing with DVD ISOs being streamed! Once the content was taken off the external drive and stored on the internal drive the problems went away.

People that use USB/Firewire external HDDs as a storage medium for video have been known to have issues, that's a fact. Peak transfer rates are one thing but sustained transfer rates (especially when high CPU cycles are also involved) are another. To top this off, there's a lot of inadequate attempts to interpret what should be the very consistent standards of USB/Firewire - . One implementation isn't as good as another. This is different with SATA/PATA which has ended up being a much more consistent and reliable standard.

Even my XBOX HD-DVD drive has its hiccups and the driver implementation is quite good with it. Sure it works well most of the time – but if Microsoft had another interface they could deploy cheaper than USB2 (like eSata) they would have used it. As it happens they only decided on an external drive so they could keep costs down on the Xbox vs the PS3. At first glance, the Xbox looks a lot more attractive than the PS3 until you add up all the extras.

Anyway Mark – I’m done arguing with you too – you have some very quaint ideas which you are willing to go to bat for, good on you for that – but you do so at the expense of your credibility.

Mark_A_W · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:21 am Post subject:

Well, I'm glad to hear Riva tuner helps you get custom res's. I stand corrected on that - if Nvidia has fixed custom res's so it ACTUALLY WORKS, with 3 decimal point precision, whatever porches you want, and you can drive multiple res's with Riva Tuner, then I'm happy to stand corrected.

But read the Powerdvd HD-DVD/Bluray thread on AVS if you want to know how much fun Nvidia cards can be. At the moment ATi is ahead for HTPC cards. According to a post today, the hardware accel does not work. But if it does, well, good, about time.

I stand by my Scaler/VP comments. I've played/watched the owner play quite extensively with a VP50. Yes, lots of good stuff in there, IVTC, Gamma, Colourspace, lots. (Last I heard it was for sale, if you are interested - you seem to have an unlimited budget). But it's not needed if you have a decent PC, and here's the key, happy to use it. My G90 owning mate (in Wheelers Hill - do you know him?), is not the right person for a HTPC and Aaron (and me a little bit...cause I'm the one helping him fix it over the phone) have encouraged him to go separates.

If there's some minimum time period to get "exposure", then I guess I fail, I'm not perfect, like some it seems.

The whole point of CRT is to get fantastic results, on the cheap. Which meshes perfectly with a HTPC.

As for me being uninformed, well, bite me. Now your just being spiteful, he's you, popping up on the scene for a couple of months, and now the rest of us are uniformed... Rolling Eyes

Mark_A_W · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:23 am Post subject:

Oh, and you STILL DIDN'T explain why you need a VP/Scaler after a HTPC in the video chain. WHY????

oliverg · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:59 am Post subject:

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

oliverg · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:52 am Post subject:

Gary, a "scaler" is very limited compared to what a late model VP does. IE Just scale with some limited processing. When Mark keeps calling VPs scalers, it demonstrates my point - he is out of touch with technology and is thinking in terms of devices which are only slightly more advanced than line doublers.

These days, VPs are a LOT more advanced. The technology that broadcast studios invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on is now available to the average consumer

Teranex / HQV / VXP etc give video processors the ability to make SD video look almost HD like and HD video even better.

I challenge anyone to audition one of these machines and not notice a significant improvement in PQ.

Take a look at these links if you want to know more about the features:
http://www.progressive-av.com/accessories/crystalio_II_crystalioii_vps-3300_vps-3800_pro_pixelmagicsystems.htm
http://www.anchorbaytech.com/products/systems/vp50pro.php

Sure the PC can do alot of these functions but it doesn't do them anywhere near as well and it wont apply all the processing to all the sources like a VP can or do it on a more global and discrete manner.

I refer you back to Mark’s statement/question:
Oh, and you STILL DIDN'T explain why you need a VP/Scaler after a HTPC in the video chain. WHY????

Its simple, the VP improves the PQ.

Mark has made some points he really has no idea about but is claiming to. Non-one should ever debate on a subject that they don't have any (or limited) applied knowledge of. I have / have had these machines here and I have actually used them extensively. Mark cannot make that claim - he has some passing / conceptual knowledge about scalers and second hand opinions. I’ll even wager he hasn’t even held the remote control of a good VP and by his own admission he has not evaluated one seriously.

Gary, why would studios spend 100s of thousands of dollars on equipment that had no noticeable benefit? At this point, Mark makes the point that HT is all about bang for your buck. That’s totally beside the point – not to mention that you don’t even have to spend those sorts of dollars because now the average consumer can afford to get high end performance at consumer pricing.

You ask "How??" when you should probably ask "Why?".

So if the everyday consumer can get what studios used to spend so much money on (only a few years ago), don’t you think people should keep an open mind and at least try/evaluate the technology out (properly or at least extensively) before they make blanket nonsensical statements which they have absolutely no substantial justification in making?

Cheers

Phil Smith · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 7717

Damn Oliver, you're usually an easy going guy. HTPCs seem to bring out the worst in you. Wink

Tell Mark and Gary SPECIFICALLY what they're missing out on by not owning a VP. EXACTLY what VPs have that their HTPCs don't. If you can't do that, then maybe you should pick topics to debate that you're more knowledgeable about.

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC

and as for the agrument that "the studio" bought it... how does that make it better!!? if ABC wants to sell you a line doubler-it is still a line doubler-even if it does have SDI.
So again... why is it better?
what can it do that a person with basic computer skills and a HTPC... NOT do?

not stirring the pot, I really am curious

Mark_A_W · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:27 am Post subject:

Oliver what are you talking about SPECIFICALLY??

What magic menu did we miss in the VP50???

Scaling? Yes, but needed not for HD sources.

Noise Reduction? I think so, but didn't look for it - but not needed for HD sources anyway.

Custom Porches? Yes, but so can a PC.

Refresh rates? Yes, but so can a PC.

IVTC? Yes, but so can a PC, but maybe not as reliably.

Pick your Colourspace? Yes. Can be done on a PC sometimes = tricky at best, and video card manufacturers sometimes get this wrong.

Levels Expansion? Yes, but you shouldn't. Again, video card manufacturers sometimes get this wrong.

Constant Height capability - Yes, we played with this with an Anamorphic lens, but not relevant to a CRT really. PC can do this too.

What am I missing? I can't remember all the VP50 menus offhand - did we miss the magic menu? I was very impressed with the product, but also came away thinking I didn't need it, but it was perfect for a non-PC savvy HT owner. And the owner - a former 1292 owner now with a Ruby, had decided to sell it as the only function he was using was IVTC, and that doesn't bother him.

I guess it comes down to whether you think you need, or should, meddle with HD, like you NEED to with DVD to make it look reasonable.

BTW I've never stated that what I have is the best. But it is GOOD ENOUGH to be well in the running. You are the jumping in and assuming my level of knowledge. Not that I really care - I just like to debate.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:02 am Post subject:

Getting back on topic for a minute ( gee never thought I would say or try to do that )

Can you play Blu Ray via the VGA or does the HDCP crap kick in? I know BR+ isn't cracked but can you still view it via the VGA out?

oliverg · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:14 am Post subject:

Phil, I am an easy going guy. But when someone jumps in sideways into a disucssion and makes as many false claims as what Mark has, well - I'm not going to stand by and let things go.

So far Mark has said:
- Nvidia cards don't support custom resolutions (false) which changed to

- Nvidia cards only support 1 custom resolution (false)... Kudos to Mark for admitting his mistake.

- Nvidia cards are only good for gaming "end of story" - absolutely false – there are a great many HTPC users that have Nvidia cards that are perfectly happy with them. In fact, the low to mid range 8 series cards are aimed more at the video market than the gaming market. Nvidia is much more popular now too, outselling AMD significantly. In fact, AMD made a 396 million dollar loss last quarter – a 2.2 BILLION dollar loss so far this financial year. AMD is in serious trouble – sure this is also related to CPUs but the GPU market is also suffering enormously at the hands of Nvidia.

- Only people like "videophiles" can see the benefit of VPs - totally false. I’m no videophile, in fact I doubted the ability of a VPs to do as the marketing claimed – but now I’m a convert. Why? Because I actually tried them out. Properly.

- There is no benefit from routing a HTPC into a VP since the HTPC does everything a VP can - also false
All these claims were made not from actual considered evaluation, but from hearsay and vague theoretical knowledge of "scalers". Lets consider this – if you were listening to a debate where on one hand, person 1 was intimately familiar with the devices in question and had given due first hand consideration and evaluation and on the other, person 2 hadn’t even picked up the remote control of said devices .... who would you believe?

I’ve answered specifically what the VP does for any video/film source - it improves the PQ. I provided two links which are quite clear about features two of the leading VPs have. The bottom line is that no matter what a HTPC can do, the dedicated VP can do it better. You can get 85-90% of a perfect picture from a well calibrated source and display but when you add a good quality VP into the picture, you get the extra 10-15% (note I’m not saying 1-2%!). I’m so confident in what I’m claiming that I openly challenge anyone to get a VP, play with it over a few weeks and come back here and tell me that I’m mistaken.

Mark wont even try, he’s already made up his mind – as far as he’s concerned, he’s got his 80% - so whilst he will sit there and admit his system is 80% of a damn near perfect PQ, he claims the 15-20% improvement that I’ve observed is false! You can’t have it both ways Mark, you can’t admit that your picture is 80% perfect and that you’re happy with it and then claim the 20% doesn’t exist. VPs work in that 20% area and even some of that 80% Smile

If you don’t want to read the contents of the links, I’ve copied them below In doing this, I hope it will conclusively answer your questions as to “Why?” and “How?” and “What?”

This has turned into a comparison to HTPCs and dedicated VPs.- but take these points in context - I believe the best HTPC configured as well as it can can provide an excellent picture. But to get that last "20%", throw a good VP in the mix and watch what happens.

POINT 1: Scaling - the PC cannot scale anywhere near as well as a HTPC, the scaling algorithm in my C2 for example is

1024 point and totally hardware based. The VP does this effortlessly – the scaling is much smoother and looks more realistic. Even applications like Dscaler can’t compete.

POINT 2: Rich inputs/outputs .Extremely flexible and high quality inputs/outputs. High quality BNC connectors are used for all analog/SDI video I/O.

The HTPC doesn’t provide for external sources anywhere near as well as a dedicated VP. With a HTPC, if you can’t plug it straight in you need to capture it. As a hub for all your sources, the VP is far superior.

POINT 3 – Dedicated video processing chipsets: eg VXP™ by Gennum – “Uncompromised HD motion adaptive de-interlacing with 3:2 and 2:2 inverse telecine, bad edit correction and advanced dynamic directional interpolation for eliminating jaggy artifacts; image enhancements for improving details and true 10-bit broadcast-grade processing to deliver the world's most advanced and flexible image processor.”

Speaks for itself – OK a HTPC can do some of this, but features such as dynamic directional interpolation – 10 bit broadcast grade processing – bad edit correction. Whatever similarities the HTPC feature list has with the listed features ends at the wording – a dedicated VP will outperform the HTPC at every level. The HTPC can’t even do IVTC reliably.

POINT 4 - 2:2 and 3:3 processing. Cadence lock to 48Hz and 72Hz for film source to provide ultra-smooth playback.

Another thing the HTPC can’t do well.

POINT 5: Adaptive 3D noise reduction - Reduce unwanted video noise and produce more enjoyable motion pictures.

Taking two frames, analysing them both and identifying the differences between the two then removing noise in real time – a HTPC struggles with this as even with a quad core processor this is an intensive process.. Noise reduction on a HTPC doesn’t come close to how a VP can do it.

POINT 6: Precise picture control - Besides the conventional brightness, contrast, hue, saturation & picture controls, Crystalio II offers advanced controls such as sub-pixel Y/C delay calibration, user-customizable gamma curve through the user-friendly graphical interface and more.

HTPC doesn’t have sub-pixel Y/C delay calibration. The gamma controls aren’t on a HTPC aren’t anywhere near as advanced.

POINT 7 - Friendly user interface - Crystalio II is designed as a user-friendly plug-and-play appliance. Alpha-blended OSD (on screen display) offers an intuitive graphical user interface. 10 user-customizable independent picture control profiles for each input. Input and Output configuration profiles. Access to 24 user-customizable macros from the backlight remote for quick access to the most frequently used features.

Lets face it – the HTPC has a bunch of applications that all do specific functions. The VP has them all rolled into one and in a way that can be easily familiarised with. You don’t have to learn how to configure graphs, learn what codec does – why certain renderers wont work with certain codecs - The differences between overlay, DirectShow, Direct3D – what Vista’s Media Foundation is.. the list goes on. A HTPC takes alot of time to learn. Even when you have, its more of an exercise of learning what it can’t do rather than what it can do. I’ve been an IT person for 20 years and when I started getting serious and my the learning curve was vertical. How does the average person cope with this? Most don’t – they wont even try a HTPC.

POINT 8 –Dynamic VP - When enabled, the image processing settings and output format/timing/configuration will change dynamically depending on the input formats. This is an extremely flexible feature for advanced users to apply various image processing options to a single video source with different formats, and CRT users to exploit the sweet spots of their display dynamically.

VPs do this easily – the HTPC requires scripting/specialist applications to compete and not easy for the average person to learn.

POINT 9 - UltraAR - Crystalio II supports virtually any video image aspect ratio and display devices aspect ratio including, but not limited to; video images ranging from 4:3, 16:9, 4:3 letterbox, 16:9 letterbox, to 2.35:1 anamorphic; and display device aspect ratio from 4:3, 16:10, 16:9, to 2.35:1. Non-linear stretching to display 4:3 image on 16:9 displays is also supported.

Non-linear stretch is one feature that stands out vs a HTPC. The rest is fairly standard.

POINT 10 - Pixel Magic System - Pixel Magic System is a set of tools including internal test pattern generator for the user to configure the video output of Crystalio II, ensuring that it is mapped in Pixel Perfect mode to your digital display
This handy feature, whilst available on a PC isn’t as convenient as having all your test patterns available on your VP at the touch of a button

POINT 11 - Chroma filter Chroma filter to mask the chroma bug of MPEG decoders.
3D/2D 5-line comb filter 3D/2D 5-line (5H) adaptive comb and chroma trap filter for both PAL and NTSC signals delivers excellent analog to digital video conversion, especially valuable for the VCR/LD users.

Haven’t seen this on a HTPC

POINT 12 – Dedicated controls and displays independent of the HTPC screen: LCD display and push buttons on front panel -Real-time status information display on LCD panel including source, video format, output resolution, deinterlacing, aspect ratio, overscan and more. Push buttons/LCD display for system configuration and control is available in the situations where the user cannot view the display devices directly.

This is available on an application by application basis on a HTPC

POINT 13 - Dual deinterlacer architecture - Dual deinterlacer architecture for SDTV material allows choice of VXP by Gennum and DCDi by Faroudja.

Two dedicated architectures is great – these are whole chipset implementations, not a simple selection between “bob” and “weave”

POINT 14 - Precision clock Video circuits and audio delay circuits are clocked by 1ppm high precision low jitter TCXOs (temperature compensated crystal oscillators) and produce the highest quality standard of video and audio output.
Not even the best video card can do this!

POINT 15 - Mosquito Noise Reduction - reduces random noise which appears along the edges of compressed images
Haven’t seen a HTPC that can do this – especially with multiple sources

POINT 16 - Fine Detail Enhancement - to extract fine detail in low-resolution or compressed sources
When taking an SD source and upscaling it to HD – the effect of this really improves PQ. The better the source quality, the better this works. Better than a HTPC.

POINT 17 - Edge Enhancement - to sharpen edges without adding any ringing

FFDShow can do something similar but once again, it doesn’t do it as well.

POINT 18 – PreP - Progressive Reprocessing of 480p, 576p, and 1080p input signals allows poor deinterlacing of any source to be undone and done correctly using Precision Deinterlacing

This is one of the best features of the VP50 . On the fly too. The effect of this has to be seen first hand – it is actually quite profound.

POINT 19 – When taking video from external sources - 10-bit, 300 MHz Instrumentation Quality DACs (2x Oversampling for 1080p)

You can’t do this with a HTPC without spending more money than what it would cost for a VP anyway.

You don’t have to take my word for it. I could keep listing features of why I choose to route my HTPC through my VP.. but if even a few of these points don’t convince you, I urge you to see for yourself. Audition a Crystalio 2 or a VP50Pro. Or a Vantage HD. I’ve tried all of these and I prefer the C2. No matter how good the source, unless they have VP technologies built into them (an industry trend which is actually happening right now! Some high end display devices and AVRs are intergrating VP chipsets ) the PQ wont be as good as it could be.

Over the next few years, we are going to see VP technology merge into the average display device. Gennum's REON VXP is one example. I wouldn't be at all surprised if video cards aimed at the HTPC market don't evolve with these technologies intergrated into them.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Can we drop the "Mark doesn't know the difference between a scaler and a VP" rant? You've made your point.

oliverg · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:55 am Post subject:

nuttall_chris · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject:

oliverg · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:24 pm Post subject:

To be HDCP compliant, as soon as an analog output method is selected, the output has to be scaled down Sad

Sorrry guys.