My Calibre Vantage HD Experience!

[PaulWilliam]

First a bit of background as to why I now have a Calibre Vantage HD!

I started off with DVDO products ending up with a VP30 with ABT102. Once I got Sky HD I really needed to upgrade as the VP30 cannot get 576i from HDMI and does not do true HD de-interlacing.

An upgrade to a VP50 via the DVDO upgrade programme would have cost £850 and I still would not have got noise and artifact reduction. No doubt DVDO will be after more money for this functionality when it eventually arrives. So I jumped off the DVDO train. In addition at this stage I purchased a Sharp Aquos 1080p 37” LCD. And there is no motion blur, the colours are great and a VP (especially the Vantage) does bring very noticeable improvements for this size of screen!

I initially got a Lumagen VisionProHDP second hand for £1,000. This is a great product and got me true HD de-interlacing and 576i from HDMI. Yes, it was an improvement over the VP30 and was just about worth the net cost of £300 to upgrade. However for me it is a complex beast to operate and I could not get it started myself, and needed a professional to do this for me. Also the video de-interlacing is not that good and you do not get noise and artifact reduction. However, it was still worth getting.

Then I got the opportunity to buy a second hand Calibre Vantage HD for £1,200 selling my Lumagen for £975. So the upgrade cost from the VP30 is now £525. I now have the following:
• A VP I can install myself with no hassle – easy to follow windows style menus.
• Noise and artifact reduction
• Very good quality de-interlacing, including true HD de-interlacing
• 576i from HDMI!
• Very good quality scaling
• In addition the support from Calibre has been superb. They have answered my e-mails very quickly. An issue I identified they ensured they got sorted quickly via a firmware upgrade. I moaned about fan noise so they sent me a much better one for free and the noise level is much lower (the new one is now standard in new models).
• So, I am happy. The picture is now transformed rather than greatly improved.

The downsides!
• Well I understand the Lumagen does have a lot more features, functionality and connections. However, I am happy with the sheer processing power of the Vantage and am not so worried about having less functionality and don’t need those additional connections.
• There is still a low amount of fan noise but you do not notice it when the sound is playing. Plus I am only 10 feet from the Vantage and I should notice fan noise more than a lot of you!

I hope this helps people who may want to consider the Vantage option in addition to the standard DVDO and Lumagen options very often discussed on this forum! I was lucky to get it for £1,200 albeit second hand. I think it costs £1,995 full UK retail brand new but you may be able to get it a lot lot cheaper from the USA if you want to go down that route.

[Alex_HDTV]

Thank you very much for sharing. I've also noticed this board tends to go either for DVDO or for Lumagen solutions. I'm looking forward to the upcoming discussion this thread is going to make.

It seems to be a very nice machine. I didn't know it existed until now. I'm just getting in the market for an external VP and I've had difficulties making up my mind. Seeing the weaknesses that the other options present compared to the Calibre Vantage HD does help a lot. The strenghts you listed for your VP are almost exactly what I've been trying to target.

[Onno1]

This seems to be an allround processor.
I would like to know more about:
-noise and artifact reduction: does this also include mpeg artificact reduction and mosquito noise?
-Is the processor able to take a 1080i60 from hd-dvd/blu ray, and do reverse 3:2 pulldown, so it can output 1024x768p at 48 or 72Hz(removes the stuttering)or 1080i48?

[Liam @ Prog AV]

No it only does 59.94 and 50.00Hz outputs.

Noise reduction is the same as featured on other HQV devices. It's useful but not as good as you would find on say an Algolith device. For the price you can't really complain, but it does still influence image detail.

[depot]

One on ebay for £950.00 at the moment.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vantage-HD-Sca...QQcmdZViewItem

[StooMonster]

PaulWilliam

That's a great review, and I'm glad you found a VP to suit you.

StooMonster

[Packetfront]

Same experience here, the difference is that i ended up with a Crystalio VPS-2300 as i thought it delivered worldclass picture from my STB with standard video content and the great noise reduction feature and detail enhancement by DCDI.

However it's not a full HD processor so i miss that part but it blow all my previous processors when it comes to SD video contents performance.

[Timbo21]

Originally Posted by Liam @ Prog AV

No it only does 59.94 and 50.00Hz outputs.

That is a surprise.

48HZ/72HZ output is definitely a big priority for many. Pretty strange they've left this off.

Sounds nice tho. I very nearly bought one myself.

T.

[PaulWilliam]

Originally Posted by Timbo21

That is a surprise.

48HZ/72HZ output is definitely a big priority for many. Pretty strange they've left this off.

T.

I wonder if it is feasible that at some stage this feature could be added via a software upgrade? I don't know?

Calibre have been quite good so far at regularly updating their software.

[Liam @ Prog AV]

I requested this a year ago. With other shortcomings that I thought made it less competitive compared to the VP50 which was just being launched at the time, and the Lumagen HDQ, we decided to no longer supply it.

It has since then seen a lot of improvement, at the time there were only fixed resolution options, no automatic 50/60 output based on input! They have definitely listened to user feedback, but I think there are still hardware limits that I personally couldn't live with such as lack of decent number of inputs/outputs, 48Hz output option etc.

Of course this is at a retail of £2,000 rrp, the prices I've seen this thing go for would certainly tempt a man

[welwynnick]

It's very good to hear some postive posting about video processors that don't begin with "L" for once. More to the point, there are very few users who have actually owned and used more than one processor, and can report on the benefits of ugrading. I've done a few scaler comparisons, and that's a real game. Quick demos are very difficult. You need time, experience and understanding to get your set-up right, and live with them for a bit.

The Vantage isn't the right scaler for everyone, but I think it's really earned it's place in the market through sheer performance and pretty good support. It's winning a lot of plaudits now, and might make a bit more progress in the UK. Calibre used to use InVisionUK (?) as their UK distributor, but it was pretty obvious that they weren't pulling their weight, and there is a new distributor now, High Definition Solutions. It's Invision who appear to be selling their demonstrator.

Nick

[PaulWilliam]

Out of pure interest what other VP’s can do all of the following?

• Windows style interface
• Noise and MPEG artefact reduction
• 576i from HDMI
• Very good quality de-interlacing
• Very good quality scaling
• Automatic 50/60 output based on input

Thanks

Paul

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Anything HQV and later VXP units do all of that except "Windows Style Interface" (Crystalio II, ThemeScene HD3000, Lumagen Radiance).

Lumagen Vision does all except the interface and more extensive noise reduction.

Interface though, surely that should be WAY down the priority list. You set it up once, you never touch it again!

[PaulWilliam]

I thought I read somewhere that you cannot force 576i from a Sky HD box via a Crystalio VP.

Can you definitely force 576i from the Sky HD box HDMI output from Crystalio 2 and the Themescene HD3000?

Also, do these both definitely do true 1080i HD de-interlacing like the Calibre?

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Ah you didn't say the ability to force 576i from a certain source - you just said 576i HDMI which I read as being able to work with Arcam, Pioneer DVD players etc!!! Take the list I wrote, and assuming a requirement of either Prep or EDID editing then you need to remove the Crystalio II, the Vantage (edit: sorry think EDID was added after I tested one), and the ThemeScene.

Not sure what your understanding is of "true 1080i deinterlacing" but the Lumagen has some of the best 2:2 and 3:2 detection for 1080i there is going. Gennum powered units match it, but the VP50 does not (hence the VP50 having force film modes!). Haven't seen the Vantage for a while and with upgrades made since then wouldn't want to comment on its performance. Also the Lumagen Vision has 1080i per-pixel motion adaptive deinterlacing, the Radiance adds better directional analysis and noise reduction etc but still uses the same No Ring Scaling algorithm.