Holo3dGraph or MSI TV@nywhere with COMPOSITE feeds?

[Rob.Screene]

Anyone care to spill the beans what the composite input (Comb Filter) on a Holo3dGraph or a new Connexant board, like the MSI TV@nywhere are like with composite sources?

I'd like to improve the comb (colour) filtering quality of Laserdisc captures.

At the moment I'm using the digital comb filter in my Pioneer CLD 925 via it's S-Video output into an IDS Falcon.

BTW, most of the video noise I see is not from the Falcon capture card, because if I pause the Laserdisc (digital frame store pause), almost all the noise becomes stationery! Is the Holo3dGraph any better than this?

I see DScaler has a temporal comb filter but I can't see a way to use it during a 720x576 full-res capture?

I'm thinking of a TV@anywhere for £41 or perhaps a Holo3dGraph but I don't really, really (+£600) need it's SDI input or it's component input or the Faroudja DCDi de-interlacing.

DCDi of a component Playstation2 Grand Tourismo 3 input must be nice though!??

Comments appreciated.
regards,
Rob.

 

[buns]

I have used H3d with composite LD. It lokos very nice to me, though i must admit to feeling the image sometimes looked soft. I cant compare since i have nothing to compare to! Noise i have to say, is not a problem I have seen. The capture does in fact look very clean on all inputs I have tried.

If you explain me what the combing does exactly and how i could see it, then maybe i could help you further!

In all, those who have commented all are of the opinion that the analogue inputs on H3D are much cleaner than on other cards. How far that generalisation extends, i dont know.

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[Rob.Screene]

Thanks Buns. Here goes...

a) Comb filtering issues only effect Composite video (also known as CVBS) or video that has been stored as or converted from composite at any time.
e.g.
Composite off Laserdisc, S-Video off laserdisc, RGB off Laserdisc.
Composite out of a digibox (such as if you have a digibox set to output RGB, but the second SCART socket on your TV is not RGB enabled or your digibox is not set to RGB or S-Video),
Composite off of any VHS VCR,
Any analog TV broadcast or recording from it.

b) They are extra hanging dots of colour seen around strong colour transitions, like around R2-D2's red/green glowing status light on his head.

c) There's a great description of what comb filtering is and describing and evaluating the benefits of 2D and 3D comb filters in a Pioneer Elite CLD-99 & Elite CLD-D99 comparison by the respected Greg Rogers at http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/l...pioneer_elite_cld-99/pioneer_elite_cld-99.htm

d) DVD's are component format and the composite down-converted should be avoided. With S-Video, RGB or Colourstream Component comb filtering is not needed.

e) BTW, this has absolutely nothing to do with incorrect field deinterlacing "combing" artefacts.

f) Greg also has a guide to comb filtering at:
http://www.cybertheater.com/Tech_Reports/Comb_Filter_Tut/guide_comb_filters.html

Extract:
"In addition, dot patterns would appear along the edges of objects and degrade the image. The dot patterns are called hanging dots or dot crawl artifacts. The rainbow patterns are called cross-color artifacts.

In the last five years or so, digital versions of comb filters, called 3-line or 2-D Adaptive Comb Filters, were introduced. This technology made major improvements in preventing dot crawl and minor improvements in cross-color. Finally, in the last year of so, the first 3-D digital comb filters have appeared in a handful of TV monitors and now for the first time, a laserdisc player."

Any comparisons to an older DScaler capture card would be welcome.

I think DScaler 4's temporal comb filter gives some of the 3D comb filter benefits, but I'm not totally sure as I've only tested it on S-Video from a Playstation2 which was never Composite so won't have been through a comb filter.

cheers,
Rob.

 

[dannyc]

Where are you guys all planning to get SDI modded players from? I can't find a reasonable price anywhere on this side of the pond. Is this just one more item to import from the US?

 

[buns]

Rob,

I will see if anyone happens to have an older capture card to try out, but chances are very very slim. Do i need to turn of the filter in the pioneer player? I'll see if there is a way to turn of the filter on H3D then i can maybe give a better comparison for you.

Danny:
Drop couch potato a pm, he bought an sdi player recently at a good price. Personally I am holding back for a likely immersive mpeg card.

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[Couch Potato]

I got a Panasonic RA82 with SDI out, it has allegedly a superb MPEG decoder and this via SDI into my H3D is wow!!

I got it from http://www.jvb.nl excellent service.

Steve (Now looking for a BG808s!!)

 

[Rob.Screene]

It's normally easy to compare the two comb filters

a) Use S-Video output from player = using players comb filter

b) Use Composite output from player = using capture card's comb filter

However, the Pioneer CLD-925's composite output is compromised, because it is the comb filtered Y/C recombined, probably to allow digital Chroma noise reduction or something.

There doesn't seem a way to get a pure composite feed straight off the Laserdisc with this player, but I do have another, a high-quality Philips LDP600WS. This doesn't have a digital comb filter or side-turn, but I'ts the only Laserdisc I know of with an RGB component output. I've always suspected the RGB picture output was cleaner than any Pioneer I've seen or used, but perhaps that was because the S-Video input on the telly I used wasn't as clean as the direct RGB SCART. (This would be what I probably end-up using for Laserdisc capture if I had a Holo3dgraph using it's composite or forthcoming RGB SCART inputs?).

I don't think earlier players had this problem, check your player using the links under:-ttp://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/laserdisc_archive/pioneer/pioneer_cld-d925/cld-d925.htm
Extract:
"The composite signal retrieved from disc enters the digital domain, goes through the frame-store stage, gets filtered into RGB, and is then converted into separate luma and chroma for the S-Video output. The composite video output is simply the separated chroma and luma of the S-Video output combined."

The thing is, if the comb filter in the £41 MSI TV@nywhere is as good (same chip) as the Holo3dgraph's composite input then I'd be happy to use that.

The Holo3dgraph's DCDi would be nice for my Playstation2 S-Video de-interlacing, but from reading the arguments on AVS I think I'd probably stick to TheaterTek/Maudio over taking a composite input from my domestic Sony 725 DVD. It's an awful lot more cash though!

I certainly wouldn't bother getting an SDI player right now, with the Holo3dgraph's MPEG add-in card soon to be confirmed. I like the sound of a one-supplier integrated solution within a HTPC! Like a DVD and video processor, but which allows the output graphics board to be upgraded at will.

regards,
Rob.

 

[buns]

Why wouldnt you use the dcdi for LD?

The rgb scart i suspect is on a daughter card......but im not sure.

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[Rob.Screene]

I initially didn't think the Faroudja DCDi was any benefit with film sources, because they can be perfectly converted to progressive using inverse telecine and don't need deinterlacing/DCDi.

I just noticed the following notes by Stacey Spears and Brian Florian that the FLI2200 chip also provides:
"Chroma Processing
The FLI2200 does a couple of different things to the chroma, or color channel. Faroudja's most popular advertised feature is the cross-color suppressor. This technology dates all the way back to the LD-100. It was developed for composite sources (composite video), where the luma (black and white, or detail) and chroma information are combined into one channel. Once combined there is no perfect way to separate the chroma from the luma, so some of that luma information will leak into the color channel and introduce cross-luma or dot crawl (see diagram below), and some of that chroma will leak into the luma channel and cause cross-color. Dot crawl is seen at the boundaries of contrasting colors, like blue and yellow. It looks like a moving escalator. Cross-color looks like little rainbows that show up around fine detail like in a chain-link fence. DVDs are stored in the component format (component video), with the chroma and luma separated to begin with, so in theory, cross-color should not be an issue. However the source for some DVDs come from composite masters. If you are fan of Japanese animation, you may love the cross-color suppressor feature, because Anime most often comes from a composite master."
Reference: http://www.dcdi-video.com/technology/articles/sage-dcdi-overview.html

I wonder if the capture drivers of the Holo3dgraph allow post-FLI2200 capture?

cheers,
Rob.

 

[JohnAd]

Rob

D'oh I've just answered on AVS.

Oh well...

Summary is the h3d uses a different chip the saa7118 for decoding and this is better than the cx23881 although both are a lot better than the bt878.

You're probably right about the benefit you might get from the chroma filter on the fli2200. I found it made no diffrence using a DVB source but then it shouldn't... I'll test with OTA

If you're looking to do capture the drivers do (only really) support capture after the FLI2200 but there will be annoying usability issues.

John

 

[Rob.Screene]

Sorry John, "I'll test with OTA " Huh?

Rob.

 

[JohnAd]

Err sorry, OTA = off the air i.e. a bog standard terrestrial signal, this will be composite encoded signal so that you would expect to show cross-colour artefacts.

Been hanging round on the septics forums for too long

John