Scaler Showdown

Josh@dvdo said:
As I have stated, significant means 'huge', meaning an untrained eye can easily see the difference, which in my opinion is not the case.
 
So what's the going rate for a professional setup of a Lumagen, then, if that's got to be factored into the cost of the thing? That might be helpful to know when deciding which way to go.

Regards

Mark
 
Lumagens are generally shipped from dealers preconfigured if they are not being installed by the seller. Different dealers may charge different amounts for their services....or nothing at all. Even if they are not configured they work out the box. Having said that they do have advanced features that need specialist knowledge to benefit from. How much someone would charge you to do a full ISF calibration with a Lumagen would depend on who they were. It is not a requirement but it will improve your picture...whether you've got a lumagen or not.

Gordon
 
I'm not going to bother with the semantics of the word "significant". An untrained eye could see the difference, perhaps not easily for an untrained eye (where a trained eye would see easily), but there again the untrained eye isn't the kind of person that requires a video processor to extract more from their system. I am interested to know how would you rate the difference???

Hi Mark - an ISF calibration would get the most out of a Lumagen, or of an iScan. Both require professional setup to make full use of their facilities. But that's not say you couldn't get a massive improvement just using your eye and a setup disc. I usually supply units with timings preinstalled so the hard work of pixel matching and setting up the inputs and memories is all but done already.

It's going to the next level so to speak that would require professional calibration, where the calibrator will use specific tools to measure the light output from the display, enabling fine adjustment that simply isn't accurate/possible by eye. Again both processors would gain from this and have functions specifically there for the calibrators use only. And both would produce an even greater picture. But the Lumagen is still the better imo :D
 
How fun is it to let the dealer do all stuff? not very much i say.

It's like letting the car dealer drive the car for you.

That is the passion of this hobby to do everything yourself, not paying insane money for other people to do the same job as you could do after some time.
 
Likvid said:
How fun is it to let the dealer do all stuff? not very much i say.

It's like letting the car dealer drive the car for you.

That is the passion of this hobby to do everything yourself, not paying insane money for other people to do the same job as you could do after some time.

Hell yeah!!!

Although it's not gonna be quite the same job. Would be like entering that new car in a race, but driving it yourself instead of handing it over to the professional racing driver.
 
Liam @ Prog AV said:
Hell yeah!!!

Although it's not gonna be quite the same job. Would be like entering that new car in a race, but driving it yourself instead of handing it over to the professional racing driver.

People who buys and drive a Ferrari or whatever high perfomance car isn't the average Joe Ford Mondeo driver either ;)

People who have passion for their hobbies or interests for what they are doing get professional with time, same thing goes with these products.
 
Liam @ Prog AV said:
Hi Mark - an ISF calibration would get the most out of a Lumagen, or of an iScan. Both require professional setup to make full use of their facilities. But that's not say you couldn't get a massive improvement just using your eye and a setup disc. I usually supply units with timings preinstalled so the hard work of pixel matching and setting up the inputs and memories is all but done already.

It's going to the next level so to speak that would require professional calibration, where the calibrator will use specific tools to measure the light output from the display, enabling fine adjustment that simply isn't accurate/possible by eye. Again both processors would gain from this and have functions specifically there for the calibrators use only. And both would produce an even greater picture. But the Lumagen is still the better imo :D


Which is fine, but you neatly side-stepped my question. How much? :)

Regards

Mark
 
No side-step intended!! Prices vary from £250-£300 depending on who you use.
 
Thing that bothers me is that none of them seem to have sufficient inputs for the amount of things I would want to plug into them. So you'll always be having to use some sort of switch box. Now the question is, should you switch as many things as possible, prior to the box of tricks, or use up all the inputs and just externally switch the least used things? If the former, then a box of tricks with minimal inputs would do, but if the latter, then one with as many inputs as possible is required.

And they don't seem to have dual outputs either, so that you could feed both a TV and a projector. I know they have analogue and digital, but if you wanted to feed both digital, say, then that's yet another switch box or buffer required after the box of tricks, is it not?

And is it not also true that these de-interlacer/scalers really work best on interlaced standard definition feeds? By the time you're getting up to digital feeds from the likes of the next year's HiDef Sky+ STB the need for these boxes will diminish somewhat, I would have thought. Why spend thousands trying to improve on something that exceptionally good already? Would not the law of diminishing returns be severely biting them in the backside by then?

Regards

Mark
 
Mark_a said:
And is it not also true that these de-interlacer/scalers really work best on interlaced standard definition feeds? By the time you're getting up to digital feeds from the likes of the next year's HiDef Sky+ STB the need for these boxes will diminish somewhatMark

I have been wondering that myself.

It maybe true if Sky HDMI (720p) matches your displays native resolution. only time will tell. Maybe image panning may be smoother through an external scaler, or is that only the case with interlace sources?

There is still the matter of legacy DVD though, until blue-ray or whatever comes along.
 
Well, that seems to have taken the wind out of everyone's sails. Nobody wants to agree/disagree with what I said? :)

Regards

Mark
 
It is true that the benefits of a scaler are going to be much less pronounced once hd-dvd and Sky HD and Xbox 360 start appearing as they will already output 720p minimum anyway. Whether or not that matches your native display resolution trust me it will look bloody good! I had Euro 1080 going straight to a Panny HD panel via component and it looked jaw droppingly good and the panel was downscaling that native 1080i signal itself.
I think the use of the word 'significant' is unfortunate as it suggests the difference is clearly visible, I'd be very surprised if that was the case on a 42" plasma, perhaps on a projector the differences (and I'm still not saying they're necessarily substantial) would start to show themselves more clearly so it's worth bearing in mind the display you'll be using.
In order to put the argument to bed about which is best surely it's worth doing a blind test whereby people don't know which scaler is being used and have to say which they think looks best and why. If it was a large enough sample then it would be quite a definitive result!
I think £1000 for a scaler is money better spent elsewhere right now. Why not wait and see what the new hidef formats bring to the table and how things look on your display then?

Cheers,
Andy.
 
Mark: I have lived with HD for around two years now. Let me tell you that very fast you realise that it has it's issues just like SD. Mpeg compression artefacts and interelace issues are common on 1080i material. Walking around the CEDIA show last week there was HD everywhere. There were also those artefacts that jump out and bite your bum even more obviously because the rest of the image is so good. While it's tru to say that 720 to 720 display may not show huge, if any improvements with the current scalers in their current states , this is really only dependant on whether the material is being broadcast as 720.....if its broadcast as 1080I and the STB is doing the de-interlacing and scaling to 720 then I'd excect obvious improvents if you let the processor do the hard work....and of course we are forgetting that the bulk of fixed pixel displays in our living rooms are not 720p anyway....

Lets wait and see what joys HD brings. Then lets see how we can clean it up and make it look even better.

Mark: I charge £65 to plug in a scaler and set up the inputs and outputs with a test disc. If you want me to go further and get the measruing stuff out to set all the display chain parameters then it's going to cost more....

On the source front. Every source is likely to need unique settings for brightness, contrast, colour, overscan etc. So ideally you want an input for each device. However if that is not possible then I'd give priority to the image critical ones. IE DVD, possibly Freeview/Sky then put your video recorder or games consoles on a switch if required.

Hope this is of use,

Gordon

Gordon
 
Yes, I can see that once we start getting true 1080 displays then there may be a case for digital external processors again, but at the moment as both my TV and my projector's true resolution is 720 then I think something minimal and analogue will surfice for what I want to do, which is simply deinterlace and possibly scale to 720.

Just been looking on Keene's site. I never realised they did so much stuff in this line. Most of their machines seem to be made by Kramer, but they certainly do a wide range.

Regards

Mark
 
Mark_a said:
Thing that bothers me is that none of them seem to have sufficient inputs for the amount of things I would want to plug into them. So you'll always be having to use some sort of switch box. Now the question is, should you switch as many things as possible, prior to the box of tricks, or use up all the inputs and just externally switch the least used things? If the former, then a box of tricks with minimal inputs would do, but if the latter, then one with as many inputs as possible is required.

And they don't seem to have dual outputs either, so that you could feed both a TV and a projector. I know they have analogue and digital, but if you wanted to feed both digital, say, then that's yet another switch box or buffer required after the box of tricks, is it not?

And is it not also true that these de-interlacer/scalers really work best on interlaced standard definition feeds? By the time you're getting up to digital feeds from the likes of the next year's HiDef Sky+ STB the need for these boxes will diminish somewhat, I would have thought. Why spend thousands trying to improve on something that exceptionally good already? Would not the law of diminishing returns be severely biting them in the backside by then?

Regards

Mark

Gordon has already mentioned the benefits for HD users, with HD material. For me, I want a scaler now because I want Sky and DVD to look good now. I'm not going to live with poor picture quality now just because in a few years HD material will be the norm (which will still benefit from dedicated video processing - think of the people using scalers now, to turn 480i into 480p for their SD plasmas...). I want the best picture now, and the scaler is the only choice.

In a year or two I will have HDTV, and I will still need a scaler because most of the material is gonna be SD anyway and will still need decent scaling. I will also still need a scaler to watch the hundreds of DVDs I've been stockpiling over the years (I'm not willing to replace the entire catalogue with expensive new HD disks). We're all different, but not all entirely mad :rotfl:

Inputs can be a pain, DVD and digiTV are usually covered leaving just SVHS left for LD, Games stations etc. Although there are two DVI on the Lumagen (which can run HDMI DVD players, PC, HDTV), and of course you could use SDI :D :D :D

Two displays in no problem with either ana + digi or a DA on the digi output. The Lumagen at least has more than enough memory allocations to manage it optimally.
 
Hello Mark a

'which is SIMPLY Deinterlace and SCALE' - now why didn't the hardware manufacturers think of that one :)

If only it was so easy there would be no requirement for any after market products or services!!!

There more to all of this than simply matching pixel outputs to pixel inputs - being able to make much finer adjustments to greyscale and colour tracking over a range of Input signal types for example is often way above and beyond the controls your offered in your Display or Projector.

Its interesting to note the upsurge in interest in Video Processing in the US and other areas where HD already has a foothold - the arrival of HD is not closing down development of programmable and customisable Video Processors its pushing it forward as folk want to gain that last few percent of image quality from a system.

I guess everyone gets to a point where the law of diminishing return sets in but its always worth at least exploring new avenues before you set that point unaware of what is just around the corner in terms of your own system.

You only have to look at the time and effort folk in the US and other 'HD is Here' regions put into trying different Lens filters and contrast settings with your Panasonic Projector to understand how much extra performance you can eek out of any system.

As others have said starting with a 720P signal may be better than starting with a 576i signal but don't assume everything is then spot on.

Best regards

Joe
 
No, you misunderstand. I agree that some form of external processing is required now for standard def stuff, such as Sky and Freeview, and if you have a standard DVD player. But if you've got a decent scaling DVD player already, such as a Pany S97 or a Denon, then it does a pretty good job already, either over component or HDMI.

What I'm yet to be convinced about is the need for processing digital feeds, such as DVi or HDMI, as they're already high enough quality for the standard 720p displays we have at the moment. When we start getting true 1080p displays then, sure, a higher level of processing may be needed to squeeze the last drops out of the system.

Regards

Mark
 
As a HD user and one of the few here who can deinterlace HD 'correctly' NOW, I have to disagree with Mark A strongly. HD and SD are really no different, you need to deinterlace each properly. If you don't it stands out like a sore thumb. In fact if you don't get HD right then it is really distracting as I suspect CEDIA would have shown ;)

LOL :) Denon doing the job properly, well thats a turn up for the books. Even the thought that the 'pagued by problems' Panny can be described as a pretty good job. I think you get what you pay for might be a better and more accurate description. This is why those who have bothered to look buy a video processor.

Don't forget HDMI is not about quality but copy protection and convenience, NOT quality.
 
Hello all

Nic - to the point as ever :)

Mark a - you can stick garbage down an HDMI/DVI cable just as easily as down a 75ohm analogue cable.

I'm with Nic on Denon - stick that well known torture test called Insurrection in a DVD-3910 and watch it squirm; Denon have even gone to the trouble of having a Film/Video indictor on the front panel that flickers around as it try's to work out what it should be doing!!!

Arcam and Pioneer at least recognise the requirement to have Interlaced 480 and 576 out via HDMI to enable you to use a well built player as a decent transport; though I had heard Denon were reacting to lots of requests for Interlaced out via DVI or HDMI.

If you get the opportunity to view your 'Standard' 720P Displays with an all Digital front end with all sources processed via a decent quality Video Processor with everything optimised and calibrated by an experienced technician with proper calibration tools you'll be wondering why you took so long.

It was interesting to note the number of folk who went to the Bristol Show earlier this year and having attended the Denon demo and subsequently invited to 'ask questions' of the specialist on hand made a beeline for the guy from Silicon Optix (technology partner on the DVD-A1XV) to ask if this was the best implementation of the HVQ technology; the moment he suggested it would be better in an off board processor the conversations were ended :D

You simply don't get the range of adjustments and controls in the majority of source or replay devices that an off board Processor offers - again no matter if its an SD, Scaled SD or HD source device.

Best regards

Joe
 
Joe Fernand said:
If you get the opportunity to view your 'Standard' 720P Displays with an all Digital front end with all sources processed via a decent quality Video Processor with everything optimised and calibrated by an experienced technician with proper calibration tools you'll be wondering why you took so long.

Oh I'm sure it's improved, but I wonder by how much, over and above a reasonable quality analogue system, 5%, 50%, a 100%?

I'm not trying to be contentious, just wanting to know what you think the improvement might be, as you see it.

Regards

Mark
 

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