What the hell is this then?

G a f f e r

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OK. I've posted this up elsewhere and no one has a clue so I thought I'd try again.

Here it is in a nutshell:


"Hi.
I have a Jamo DVR50 which outputs either NTSC or PAL in either interlaced or progressive to my projector. However, even though 525p output looks fine, 625p has lots of (?random) darker horizontal lines that come and go on the picture. For instance, the menu's especially and landscape shots on LOTR EE's look terrible. This is why I have to resort back to an interlaced signal with the PAL output.
Can anyone tell me what's going on? Why is PAL progressive affected, but NTSC progressive fine?
My projector recieves the signal via a component lead and is a Panny AE500, yet with the interlaced PAL signal, the projector's onboard deinterlacer works fine and I get no 'interfence' at all - am I connecting it wrong somehow?

I can't figure out why the Jamo has an isolated problem with PAL prog output only and would appreciate any help (i'm a bit miffed because the whole point of me buying this DVR50 was to benefit from the PAL progressive output which is unwatchable). I'm not convinced if it even is the player (might be the projector).

Thanx for any help."


As no one can give me any info, I've named it HORIZONTAL BANDING, and here it is in all of its glory....hooray for PAL progressive..... :devil:

pic1.jpg

pic2.jpg

pic3.jpg

pic4.jpg
 
I don't know if this helps but I used to get exactly the same symptoms with my AE100. Basically I used to have a Compacks DVD5000 dvd player which was a pal/ntsc progressive player. Using its component outputs was fine with my AE100 but the Compacks DVD5000 also allowed progressvie scan via its Scart RGB output. So I made a cable that went from scart rgb to the vga port of the AE100 projector. This cable worked perfectly for all pal material but I had exactly the same symptoms as yours displaying ntsc progressive material via scart/vga some of the time.

In my case it was the ntsc signal not being quite high enough for my AE100 to accept and this seemed to cause the banding which was as yours looked but moved about slightly up and down as the frames changed.

One thing I can suggest is try to find a macrovision free firmware for the Jamo as this might be your problem. As you are probably aware macrovision plays around with the sync to give video recorders a hard time. Its not necessary in progressive mode but I think its still there anyway. Do you have the same problems with non-macrovision protected material like divx, xvid, vcd, svcd etc?

I would tend to think it was a problem with your projector rather than the Jamo.

I actually have a Kiss DP-450 which is basically what the Jamo is based on and have no problems at all with pal progressive and my AE100. The picture is fabulous with the latest firmware.
 
sorry, double post see below;)
 
By not being high enough do you mean that boosting the signal (amplifying) icould get round the problem?
I unfortunately cannot find a macrovision free version of the software.
Thanx for the info though as the problem you had (lines moving slightly frame by frame) is what's happenning.
At the moment, I play R1 discs as 525(480)p but R2 discs as 625(576)i.
I only have dvd's so can't check if it happens with divx or vcd's.
thanx for the help :)
btw - doesn't happen at all with superbit discs so it can't be the projector because it displays these ok. Must be something with the player/firmware
 
When I say not high enough I meant the signal wasn't of a sufficiently high frequency for the AE100 to lock on to. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't know whether PAL superbits have macrovision or not. I only have 4 superbit dvds, 3 of which are ntsc (Spiderman, panic room and starship troopers). The only PAL one is 'The One'. Which to be honest I haven't even watched yet. Started watching and quickly lost interest. Plan to watch it completely and sell on soon.

One other point about superbit dvds is they have a dts soundtrack. Could this be the difference. I.e. if your playing a dts soundtrack the problem is gone. Maybe this is an indicaiton that the Jamo frequency is too high. Maybe when the main processor is under its highest load its progressive pal frequency is slightly lower. Superbits are very high bit rate and dts soundtracks require more processing power. Result is your going to be utilising a higher percentage of the 200mhz arm processor built into the sigma chipset.

Have you tried downgrading/upgrading the current firmware?
 
yep, I have the newest Jamo 2.7.6 firmware.
superbit works wether R1 or R2.
other discs (non superbit) with DTS engaged (eg Gladiator), also have this problem and don't display correctly. So I think it's audio independant.

To tell you the truth, I'm well and truly stumped.

I'm thinking it might simply be in need of the 2.8.1 software in development.

Alternatively, your macrovision theory sounds the best...
 
Can you switch microvision off in any 'hidden' menu on the Jamo? You can with many DVD players of this sort.
 
the dvr50 is basically a KiSS driver, and there are handset hacks to disable macrovision on other KiSS models but not this one I think (KiSS DR-1712).

...well, at least I haven't found it yet anywhere...
 
What Component cable are you using and how long is it? You can get interference / signal degradation over long cable runs even with high quality cables.

If you are using a long run of cable have you tried it wil a shorter cable ?
 
component cable = IXOS gamma 1713 (703A) 75 Ohm, 3m length. I've added 4 ferrite rings to the ends to stop RFI interfernce even further. Image appears just as good - no change to these lines that appear though.

I think the signal is sent as Y Pb Pr with the sync on the green phono lead.

Again, I find it hard to believe it's the cable as this is a dedicated interconnect and the banding doesn't occur at all with NTSC progressive (525p) signals - so the cable is fine with the bandwidth and doesn't get any interference normally...:confused:
 
was told it might be an earth loop? eh? has this got sumink to do with the sync on Luminance (Y)?

(or is earth loop thingy a macrovision problem?)
 
Hi,

Your problem looks a bit like the streaking that can occur if the sync isn't quite right for the projector (or the sync signal isn't quite strong enough). On a crt projector you sometimes have to 'move' the image around to get it just right. Does your projector have a way of "relocking" the picture if it's a bit offcentre ? Try that and see if it helps. (I presume that the projector is "happy" with a progressive pal signal). It may also be that the signal from your source is a bit on the "weak" side and your projector is having problems locking on. If that's the case, you'll need to boost the signal a bit. It would probably be useful to go to your dealer and test your source with another projector ..... and your projector with another source. See what that does.

Brian
 
er..what do you mean by "relocking"? The projector can store independant horizontal and vertical position for each source, but alteering this doesn't change anything.

Boosting the sync on Y sounds like a good idea but how do I do that?

Unfortunately no macrovision free software for this dvr50 player on the horizon.
 
Hi,

I've seen comments with regard to other projectors where the image hasn't been 'quite right' and the solution has been to "re-initalise" the projector for that particular source. Your particular projector may do that every time you switch source (e.g. from composite input to component) or you may have to do something 'more' to do that (some projectors seem to have systems where you hold a particular button for a few seconds to lock onto a particular resolution) ....... I'm just suggesting that you might try that as an option.

There are devices from Keene and Lektropacks that boost the signal (and sync voltages) although I'm not sure if they are available for component video (most seem to be for getting rgb into a projector). I'd have thought it sensible to try (via your dealer) another progressive pal source (another dvd player) to see if that works OK with your projector. Some projectors won't work with progressive pal but I'd have thought that a recent model like yours would be fine. If anything, I suspect that the output from your source isn't quite "spot on" and that your projector is having trouble locking onto the signal. The other likely cause (to give results like that) is a poor cable connection but it's fine with ntsc, so that's not the problem.

Brian
 

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