Scaler options and questions

[bcopping]

I have finally scraped together enough money to get a scaler. The ones in my budget seem to be:

Vantage HD2
Lumagen HDQ
DVDO VP50Pro
Crystalio 3100

At the moment my sources are fairly limited, just a Sky HD box and an oppo 981 DVD player but will be going back to HD once the format war is decided and the media is cheaper.

I will in a couple of months move to a 2.37 cinemacope setup once my wallet has recovered from the purchase of a scaler.

Watching wise i probably watch 50-50 sports and films and have heard that the lumagen isnt quite so good at deinterlacing sports.

I think the Vantage & Lumagen can get a deinterlaced picture from my sky box using EDID where as the DVDO has to process the Progressive picture to get it back to interlaced (PREP). To me the DVDO way sounds bad.

From my monkey logic above i have half talked myself into getting the vantage! but i dont want to spend that much and find out there are things it cant do or dosent do well enough and end up buying something else to replace it.

The questions!!

1) Are my suppositions above correct? (it might sound like i know what i am taking about but i dont!)
2) Can they all do the vertical strching needed to create a 2.37 picture with an anamorphic lens at all resolutions/refresh rates?
3) Do some calibrate better than others? (will probaly be getting it ISF'd)
4) Are there any other considerations i should be thinking about?

Thanks for reading! look forward to your views!

[bcopping]

Another question:

5) If i get it all calibrated then buy an anamorphic lens, does the lens make enough differences to warrent another calibration or will the initial one be ok?

[PaulWilliam]

Hi

I am not that knowledgable either!

However, I have owned a Lumagen and the video de-interlacing is no better in my opinion than the Sky HD box de-interlacing, so the 576i from Sky HDMI feature is of no advantage.

I now own a Vantage HD1 and it extracts 576i from Sky HD HDMI and the de-interlacing is to an excellent standard.

The only other VP that may do 576i from Sky HDMI is the Lumagen Radiance but it is expensive and I don't know for certain about the 576i feature.

I dont know the answers to your other questions!

[Avi]

Originally Posted by bcopping

I have finally scraped together enough money to get a scaler. The ones in my budget seem to be:

Vantage HD2
Lumagen HDQ
DVDO VP50Pro
Crystalio 3100

At the moment my sources are fairly limited, just a Sky HD box and an oppo 981 DVD player but will be going back to HD once the format war is decided and the media is cheaper.

I will in a couple of months move to a 2.37 cinemacope setup once my wallet has recovered from the purchase of a scaler.

Watching wise i probably watch 50-50 sports and films and have heard that the lumagen isnt quite so good at deinterlacing sports.

I think the Vantage & Lumagen can get a deinterlaced picture from my sky box using EDID where as the DVDO has to process the Progressive picture to get it back to interlaced (PREP). To me the DVDO way sounds bad.

From my monkey logic above i have half talked myself into getting the vantage! but i dont want to spend that much and find out there are things it cant do or dosent do well enough and end up buying something else to replace it.

The questions!!

1) Are my suppositions above correct? (it might sound like i know what i am taking about but i dont!)
2) Can they all do the vertical strching needed to create a 2.37 picture with an anamorphic lens at all resolutions/refresh rates?
3) Do some calibrate better than others? (will probaly be getting it ISF'd)
4) Are there any other considerations i should be thinking about?

Thanks for reading! look forward to your views!

You might wish to consider the JVC version of DVDO product due to be released in the US in a month or so. It has the capability to dial the JVC colour to correct standards. If your budget will stretch the Radiance is good as it will also allow colour correction. If not there may be a possibility that the Lumagen Vision range will also be updated with colour correct software.

AVI

[choddo2006]

To me the DVDO way sounds bad

Actually it works perfectly, it's ingenious.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

The Vision series have VASTLY superior film detection to the inbuilt processing in a Skybox. Their video source de-interlacing is probably about the same as Paul says. However once the stuff is de-interlaced it needs to be scaled and the Lumagens offer the best scaling of any of the options out there imho.

Radiance has the same ability as the other Lumagens for forcing 576i.

[bcopping]

Thanks for the replies everyone, sounds like they are all good!

Originally Posted by Avi

If your budget will stretch the Radiance is good as it will also allow colour correction. If not there may be a possibility that the Lumagen Vision range will also be updated with colour correct software.

AVI

Dont think my budget will strech to the radience. Plus will probably be too impatient to wait for it to be released.

Dont all of the scalers offer colour correction? thought that was one of the main purposes of a scaler!

[choddo2006]

They differ, the vp50 & as far as I know vp50Pro have more basic colour correction than the Lumagens. As Gordon says, they also don't have quite as clean scaling. They do have awesome deinterlacing though.

I thought the Radiance was about the same price as a VP50Pro?

[bcopping]

vp50pro is £1700, radience is £2895!

[bcopping]

Not that i could afford one but is there a release date for the radience? are the beta's still available?

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Beta Radiance is £2600. The beta units are hardware finished. Only difference between a unit ordered now and one when firmware is called production will be the firmware, which is user uploadable, free of charge.

[baritone]

gordon

how does the radiance compare, to the vision range, as regards the video-source de-interlacing .

regards:Alan

[bcopping]

Thanks for all your opinions, going to put my scaler purchase on hold for a while!

Have plenty of pc's lying around, so going to use one as a dvd player and perform the vertical expansion. Which means all my money will be spent on a new lens & screen. 2.37 here i come!

May bore you all with the same questions later in the year once the bank balance has had time to recover.

Thanks again

Ben