vantage hd is this a good buy?

puppy

Standard Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
54
Reaction score
1
Points
31
Been offered a vantage hd but dont know how good these processers are. Was going for iscan hd+ but guess this in a different league (its £1200). Is this a good price and are they any good on sd?

I only have topfield 5800 and sony dvd rec, my plasma hitachi 1024x1024 alis (not the best panel to scale I know) but could change later to something more suitable.

Is there anything out there for £1200 that is better?
 
Hello puppy

I guess the first question has to be why is it so cheap!!!

The second one is how much experience do you have setting any of these devices up and how much patience will you have to take the time to learn if its all new to you.

The Calibre Vantage is still very much an unknown and without a big support or user base you may tear your hair out trying to get it looking good with your ALiS Display - not easy!!!

Personally I wouldn't bother with the DVDO iScanHD - you need to look at the VP20 or VP30 and preferably with the optional ABT102D card.

A Lumagen VisionHDP (or HDQ) may also be a better option at slightly over your 1.2K budget - again its not just about the hardware its about the backup and support for the product.

Best regards

Joe
 
Joe Fernand said:
Hello puppy

I guess the first question has to be why is it so cheap!!!

The second one is how much experience do you have setting any of these devices up and how much patience will you have to take the time to learn if its all new to you.

The Calibre Vantage is still very much an unknown and without a big support or user base you may tear your hair out trying to get it looking good with your ALiS Display - not easy!!!

Personally I wouldn't bother with the DVDO iScanHD - you need to look at the VP20 or VP30 and preferably with the optional ABT102D card.

A Lumagen VisionHDP (or HDQ) may also be a better option at slightly over your 1.2K budget - again its not just about the hardware its about the backup and support for the product.

Best regards

Joe
i e-mailed projetiondreams via e-bay to see if they had any iscan hd+ units left, the last price they were £675+ postage, a man called vince e-mailed me back to say, no iscans left but can buy vantage hd for £1200. not sure if its brand new or ex-dem but price seems good.
have no experience of processors but do have patience.will swap panel for phd8 hopefully. seen vp20 on e-bay starting bid £750, last time got no bids at £800!
 
Ah Good Old Vince!

Just when he was supposed to be burying the hatchet with DVDO (though he's still blacklisted) it looks like he's going to cut Vantage to bits too :)

Mind you the web site says he's in Portugal now so maybe the collective world of the VP manufactures cant get at him ;)

See - http://www.dvdo.com/res/unauthorized.php

I'm sure Vince will be along to explain it all soon enough!

The VantageHD launched to the UK Trade at CEDIA UK in June 06 - it seems a bit quick to be turning over Demo stock already!!!

The VP20 pricing you indicate seems a 'touch' low - though possibly again some stock is being cross shipped from the US.

I repeat - you need to factor in some support with any of these devices; you really ought to talk to Invision about UK support if you go down the Vantage route.

Best regards

Joe
 
I saw the Vantage (well the box) at smart home 06 (could make cedia) and at the time it was untested (been very quiet ever since) its a gamble buying one (more in terms of support than anything else) if you want a beter picture there may be other/better ways to spend £1200
 
For my money I would rather go with a proven and tested product.

Crystalio, Lumagen or VP30.

Steve
 
One of the things that's put me off the Vantage is that a couple of early adopters on AVS have already swapped it for a Crystalio II. They say they are happier now. I get the feeling that the Vantage is clunky and everyone is really hoping for new features via firmware (calibration being a priority). Mind you £1200 is a different price bracket.

If I was investing in a new scaler, I would want to think I'd got the best for my situation. I'm saving up for a CII, unless by the time I've got the money, something better is available.

If I was buying a DVDO, I'd make sure I checked with DVDO that my unit would be eligable for the trade-in offers (i.e. Vince's units might not be). That's one of their USPs IMO.
 
Grey imports again :( Seen the Vantage in operation and although I like some of the things it does, it has a long way to go yet in the domestic market place, DVDO and Lumagen are much more rounded products imho, £1200 is tempting but not everything that is shiny is gold :)
 
Grey inports from Yorkshire. :)

Vince has been an official Calibre dealer for a while, though not quite as competitive as all THAT. I think the £1200 price is when bought in conjunction with other equipment.

Nick
 
welwynnick said:
Grey inports from Yorkshire. :)

No Bradford :thumbsup: I wonder what the distributors think about this amazing price :eek:

Does he have a current website?
 
Lumagen always answers email within 5 minutes from you sent it, i would recommend you to go with them
 
Thanks Joe, I had a look there and missed it completely!! Why Portugal? I thought he was in Ashford! Do we call that grey exports then :)

£1769 there, must be another one of those Ex Demo machines that are so popular, at the £1200 price.
 
I'm sure Calibre are working at making it better with future firmware updates, but in its current guise I tested the Vantage a couple weeks back and could not get rid of the edge enhancement it literally pasted all over anything. Even at £1,200 I simply would not want an image that was littered with noise, even if behind that layer it looked like some of the best video mode processing available to the consumer market. As advice already given, if you are gonna go for this you are gonna really want some decent backup as it's hardly user-friendly and you may find yourself tearing your hair out!
 
I'm surprised we haven't see him in this thread.
Anyway, as long as you're buying within the EU, and Calibre are ok with it (he is on their website at least), I don't see anything wrong with buying from him. All warranties sould be covered (make sure before you buy).

Ignoring the import issue and just looking at the products, it's definitely tempting if you've got HD video sources. Although please please go and read through the main vantage thread on AVS to make sure that none of the known problems effect you.
 
I always seem to find myself backing the unpopular products, or the underdogs. Sony amps, Pioneer DVDs, CRT projectors, electrostatic speakers, SACDs, Blu-ray,....... and Calibre scalers.

Calibre originally took an uncompromising view on Vantage support and development, not appearing to listen to customer demand. There were to be no custom resolutions, gamma adjustment, test patterns, user EDID control etc. And now look at what they have planned for release.

Successful VPs are not created overnight, and that includes all our faves, but it does look like Calibre might be getting there.......

Nick
 
@Liam, IIRC you tested with sharpness set to 0, while later somebody (was is Gordon?) found out the neutral sharpness setting was 50. Were you able to redo the tests with a neutral sharpness setting? Obviously that won't improve things like cadence detection, but it might get rid of the "over processed" look you had reported in your test.
 
No me and Gordon were both testing together. The default was 50 on sharpness and 50 on detail. We put sharpness all the way to 0 and still saw ringing. We started adjusting the detail setting but it was actually removing detail but not the edge enhancement so we got the happiest medium we could and carried on with the tests. Compared to how it was out of the box, I'm surprised we got it as good as we did! One setting we couldn't get our hands on was MPEG noise reduction, which was set to 6 but was greyed out for adjustment. I have since reported my findings to Calibre and hope some of the issues will be addressed in further updates. Don't get me wrong, I really want this to be the product the spec sheet says it is as I've got plenty of installations where I can stick this in and know that the client will be pretty much chuffed with the whole lot (video/film, SD/HD).

So as I say, it's not really something you'd want today since the edge enhancement ruins the picture totally IMO, however once a few of these things are sorted it will have it's place in the market as an off-the-shelf HQV video processor. No major customisation or calibration features, but still a HQV for 2 grand :D My most videophile of clients won't like it, but they'll have your Crystalio's and Lumagens to tweak to their hearts content! For me the Vantage is for users who just want a fat boost to the picture quality accross the board, but who perhaps wouldn't be so sensitive to finer artefacts still being there and aren't interested in spending 3k on a processor or getting a calibration or probably wouldn't know what D65 actually looks like (or is...). The fact that the Lumagen outperformed it on cadence detection for 2:2 and 3:2, SD and HD material, means I will still continue to put Lumagens into home cinemas as my preference.
 
Liam, I found the post I was thinking of which is this:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3180232&postcount=40

Gordon @ Convergent AV said:
Liam: Just had a quick look at the Algolith thread over at AVS. It would seem that the default for no process on HQV may be Sharpness 50 and detail enhance 0.....So when you get the Vantage back I'd try that as I don't think we ever tried those settings. Could possibly get rid of the nasty processed look to the thing.
What do you think?
 
Haven't seen that post! I don't think we did either. Will have to wait till I get to see one again.
 
can you give me a link to the thread? Have been having real problems getting any email reports for last few months.

EDIT - never mind just found the wee link at the top corner!
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom