Introduction Home theater enthusiasts are now most certainly in a digital world, both audio and very recently video. It is becoming increasingly important to be able to add new components and switch seamlessly between a wide variety of digital sources. These now include DVI (digital visual interface) and HDMI (high-definition media interface) as an interface, providing a one-cable digital solution for both picture and sound, as opposed to the multiplicity of analog cables required to watch HDTV, such as RGBHV or YPrPb. Unfortunately, because of a continuing desire by the motion picture and television industries to control the dissemination of their intellectual property (the movie, television show or video game itself), we now are all subject to varying degrees of digital connection irritation brought about by the inclusion of HDCP (high-definition copy protection). This copy management system inhibits the ability of any digital recorder (such as a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disc recorder) to legally or illegally make ...

Introduction The name Faroudja is the first that comes to mind when I think about high-performance video, specifically on the subject of line doublers, tripplers , quadruplers and, more recently, scalers. Now that high-end video has pretty much moved to the digital domain, Faroudja has created a new line of video-enhancing products in their Native Rate Series (thus the "NRS" name), which address many of the problems with the picture on a modern digital video system from a completely different angle. Simplistically, standard video information is "interlaced," which means that each frame is split into two halves. Only half of the information is ever shown on the screen every 60th of a second (known as 480i). The line doubler "deinterlaces" the signal by putting the two halves back together again so you get the whole frame every 60th of a second (known as 480p). This reduces flicker, line stair stepping and other yucky motion artifacts. This ...

Introduction The Proceed PMDT is a $5,995 modular DVD-Video transport and video processor built by Madrigal, the parent company of brands like Mark Levinson, Madrigal Imaging, Revel and Audio Access. Unlike nearly all commercially successful high end DVD-Video players, the Proceed PMDT as a transport is built from the ground up for performance, not a repackaged Japanese OEM player with a bunch of tweaks made under the hood. The advantage of such an approach is complete freedom to deliver amazing functionality. The disadvantage is, as DVD-Video has developed into the most successful AV technology ever (that’s right more successful than CD) the technological road has been far from smooth including DVD authoring issues, disc reading issues as well as the looming DVD-Audio format to consider. To date, the Proceed PMDT attacks the challenge of reproducing DVD-video discs at the highest level with nearly no competition other than Meridian’s $16,000 800 DVD machine. There are three key areas ...

Introduction The iScan Pro is a progressive scan video converter, a product better known in the industry as a "line doubler." Line doublers are devices designed to improve the visual appearance of video displays and projectors, limited to those that can accept the higher scan rates found on many front video projectors, high-definition rear-projection televisions, plasma TVs and computer monitors. This improvement consists of increasing the scan rate, which creates a smoother and more film-like video presentation. To comprehend how the iScan Pro works, you should first understand some basics behind what makes televisions and video projectors tick. Until recent years, all televisions, even front video projectors, were cathode ray tube (CRT) based. This technology has been a part of our lives since the invention of the television some 50 years ago. This technology works by projecting horizontal lines in front of the picture tube. CRTs are capable of presenting 480 visible scanned lines, a number that the ...

The Runco DTV-991 projector incorporates three 8" liquid-cooled CRT tubes for a super bright, high-resolution picture. The companion SC-4200, video processor, contains both a line quadrupler and a line doubler. Together this dynamic duo projects extraordinary video images with any type of source material. Taking a drive down to Genesis Audio Video in Lake Forest, California (just south of Irvine) I was treated to a demonstration of the Runco combination in Genesis' new home theater room. Featuring Snell's THX speaker system, the room was powered by Proceed amplifiers and accompanied by the Proceed PAV preamp and DSD digital processor incorporating both Dolby Digital and DTS decoders. The Runco DTV-991 Due to its 75 kHz horizontal scanning capability, the DTV-991 handles any video media including the newly adopted High Definition format and PC graphics. Several different aspect ratios and temperature settings can be programmed into its 100 memory locations. At Genesis Audio Video, they calibrated convergence for three ...