Which scaler is likely to be best for me?

[Peter Baker]

I have a fuji 50XHA40US, and an Infocus 5700 PJ as displays, with Telewest TvDrive and an Arcam FMj DV27 DVD player. Most watching is on the Plasma.
I'm interested in getting a scaler to improve the image on both the PJ and the TV, but am unsure which way to jump.
TVDrive currently provided little HD, so virtually all my watching is SD. In fact the TVDrive picture on SD is pretty good, certainly far better than on my previous cable box.
Most of my watching is on US TV series such as ER, CSI, House, NCIS etc etc. These generally look good, but obviously improvement would be welcome. I notice grain in skyshots, and some shimmer on pans, as well as occasional softening of the picture.
I also watch sport occasionally, and do notice jaggies and some fizziness around players on screen.
Looking at various threads there seems to be a view that the VP30 +ABT is the best for SD video, with the VP50 offering the same, but with useful HD capability.
On the other hand the Lumagen HDQ offers better cadence detection and de-interlacing, with the forthcoming Radiance being a further step forward, especially for HD. The user interface on the Lumagen is perhaps a little trickier?
Then there's the Crystallio, which seems to be well regarded in most respects.
Whichever I get, I will get it professionally installed, as a week long demo of a VP30 persuaded me that it's beyond me (although I did get some useful improvements, particularly on PJ.

On the face of it, with my priorities, it would seem that the VP50 is a good bet. Not only is it usefully cheaper than the Radiance and Crystallio, but it is optimised for SD. The thing is, I have no idea how much of my viewing is video. If most US series are film based then I might be better off with the Lumagen, with its better film detection. Also Gordon's support would undoubtedly be a major plus. I'd probably spring for the Radiance in this case to get the latest and best.

Advice would be most welcome

[Barcoing Mad]

Your remarks are too intelligent for the set up of a VP to be beyond you!

The Crystallio virtually climbs out of the box and plugs itself in. However, good support is good. One of the reasons I went for Crystallio is because Henry is near me (well not at the moment, he's on a jolly touring Las Vegas strip clubs, I mean CES).... but Gordon comes over as being an excellent guy.

I wouldn't worry too much about optimised for SD - all the processors do a good job.

The decently broadcast, high production value series, e.g. CSI, House, Las Vegas, are 2:2 pulldownable.

er....what else.. buy a decent projector (sorry, I'm a CRT PJ fascist).

[Peter Baker]

Thnaks for the response. So, showing my ignorance, when you say they are 2:2 pulldownable, that means they are a film rather than video source, right?

In which case I may be better off with the Lumagen, or Crystallio, as sport is a secondary viewing pursuit for me.

I am tempted by a new PJ, and in particular by the Sim C3X Lite or D35, but feel it difficult to justify the expense when I watch most stuff on the Fujitsu.
Sorry, can't really accomodate a CRT, and certainly wouldn't get it past the wife!!

[Liam @ Prog AV]

The day you buy something like a Sim2 D80 or C3X is the day you stop watching most of your stuff on the plasma LOL.

Processor wise I would lean Lumagen. The most talked about reason not to is SD video processing, but you won't use it. DVDs are pretty much always film, and Telewest upscales all SD to 1080i anyway. Of course something of more the Radiance or Crystalio area will give you noise reduction toys to play with and two outputs for your projector and plasma

[choddo2006]

Does the Telewest box do as good a job of the upscaling to 1080i as either the vp50 or the Lumagen would though? Presumably it's got an Auto mode like the SkyHD box? Or not?

[Liam @ Prog AV]

It doesn't make any difference cos the TVDrive only gives you 1080i or 720p, no auto mode. Worse still, if you wanted to try and use scart for SD you still have to go into the services menu and turn off HD output as the TVDrive can only do one resolution at a time. Anyone with telewest HD basically has to have 1080i upscaled SD

The Sky box on the other hand has an always active SD scart output, and the HDMi can be made to do SD/HD automatically.

[Peter Baker]

Now I'm a bit confused again. If the telewest box is upscaling all my TV feeds to 1080i or 720p (I think I have it set to 720p as I had trouble getting the 1080I to work), then does this take away a lot of the benefit of having a scaler ( as self evidently I will not be using it's scaling).
Or does the rest of the processing work wonders on the image, despite the presumably less than perfect scaling going on in the TVDrive.
I guess the fact that it is upscaling explains why the picture is generally pretty good?

[Liam @ Prog AV]

For SD material on Telewest yes the scaler won't be doing much in terms of deinterlacing and scaling. Well nothing for deinterlacing video, thankfully 2:2 film detection on the TVDrive is ok and can be detected in the 1080i output. However ALL SD signals will be upscaled to 1080i so will be softened by the TVDrive (the Lumagen at least can still get a cadence lock on it).

With HD this is natively 1080i anyway so is not altered by the TVDrive. You can still get the full deinterlacing and scaling benefit of a dedicated VP here.

The picture still sees improvement though through the other functions the VP has. Noise reduction, colour error repair, genlock, y/c adjustment, gamma adjustment etc. To say a VP would be wasted here would be incorrect.

(P.S. remember scaling only makes an image worse. What you are trying to do is scale with as little image loss as possible rather than trying to add somehow to the image)

[Timbo21]

Although Gordon set up my TV Drive with my Lumagen HDQ for 1080i, it looks sharper, with less jaggies set at 720p. I've got a feeling that TW may not be the same as Sky, who output everything at 1080i for HD material.

There is no Auto setting on the TV Drive like you get on Sky HD, so everything is scaled.

I have got a scart connection going from the TV Drive to the HDQ for SD material, and for film material like Sky Movies it does a fantastic job, much better than upscaled via HDMI.

[Peter Baker]

So. in your view, is the HDQ is a major step forward for TVDrive? In what way is the picture better. Also what does it do for Sd DVD sources?
I'm really interested to see someone using it with TVDrive, so I'm sure you'll excuse the questions

[Peter Baker]

Sorry Timbo, just noticed an inconsistency with what Liam was saying (I think). You seem to suggest that you have HDMI at 720p output for HD (what little there is) and a scart output for SD into the HDQ. Is that right? I thought that, as Liam said, the TVDrive will only allow one output type, and therefore the scart would disable the HDMI, and vice versa. Unless of course you are going into the settings area and resetting for each type of program (not too much of a faff as almost all will be SD).
If you have SD out on Scart, then presumably the scaling is takiung place in the HDQ, and this is what is superior to the standard TVDrive 1080i upscaling?

Back to the main thrust of my query. Of the programmes I commonly watch
(24, ER, CSi, House, NCIS, Bones, and also Planet Earth type documentaries)
how many are film baswed rather than video based.
If it is most, then does Liam's response imply that the Lumaged will identify these (this is what cadence detection is?) and will then de-interlace and scale these to my plasma/PJ.
And if it is, will this be likely to reduce jaggies, and shimmer arifacts, as well as cleaning up the picture?

Finally, if all of this is possible using the HDQ, what additional benefits does the Radiance bring?
Should I be worried about the lack of HDMI output on the HDQ, and how easy is it to split the output signal to feed both Plasma and PJ?

Lot's more questions, but I still feel a little in the dark, so many thanks for the assistance so far

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Unless there has been a change in firmware since I last used a TVDrive, you would need to go in the settings to get scart output (SD) with an active HDMI output. Could be wrong, it has been a while.

If using the Telewest HDMI output, SD material will not get the deinterlacing or the scaling of a VP since the Telewest box is doing it. You will still get noise filtering etc, but will be relying on the quality of the TVDrive. As above, there are ways to switch inputs on the VP and outputs on the Telewest to get SD scart output. At this point the VP will be doing it all.

HDMI and DVI output in this example are as good as the same thing. The Lumagen though is the better suited processor to having multiple profiles for dual displays (will need a splitter if HDQ).

Radiance brings better video mode deinterlacing for both HD and SD (sports, tv shows, live studio type stuff) and some quite impressive noise reduction (even more so than Crystalio II). It will use identical scaling, gamma adjustment, y'c adjustment, mosquito noise filtering etc as the Vision range does (a testament to how good it is).

DVD to the Lumagen is excellent IMO. Only difference Radiance type level performance would make is for noise reduction, and for better video mode processing (most DVDs will be film information).

For the purposes of keeping it simple I've not taken into account that the bigger more expensive processors also have more inputs, dual outputs, HD-SDI capability, internal media players etc etc. Just trying to keep to raw performance from specific sources as asked.