|
This Month's Featured Equipment Reviews |
|
|
|
Video Processors & Technology Forum Topics: |
|
|
|
Classic Video Processor/Switcher Reviews |
|
|
|
Past Video Processor/Switcher News |
|
|
|
Video Processors
|
Friday, 01 June 2007
,
Written by
Kevin Miller
Introduction
Anchor
Bay Technologies, makers of DVDO system products offers a full line of
video processors that deliver great performance at extremely
competitive prices. Last year, I gave the company’s second from
top-of-the-line processor, the iScan VP30, very high marks for the
price performance ratio with really only one serious caveat or
downside, which was how it handled de-interlacing of 1080i HDTV
sources. Since then, I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of
their latest flagship processor, the iScan VP50, which purportedly
solved the above issue. I have now been living with the VP50 in my
system for about a month, have used it with several 1080p resolution
projectors, and have it driving my reference Samsung SP-H710AE one-chip
DLP projector. Anchor Bay’s VP50 is an extremely impressive video
processor in terms of video performance and system set-up flexibility.
Some
might suggest that, at $2,995, a VP50 is probably overkill for most
consumer TVs like DLP and LCoS ...
|
|
|
|
Monday, 01 January 2007
,
Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
Introduction
In
the last year, I took on the costly and often frustrating process of
adding on 850 square feet to my relatively small 1,500-square-foot 1959
“post and beam” home in Los Angeles. The process amazingly and
unexpectedly included no less than $75,000 in cement to make sure a
modest two-story addition wouldn’t come crumbling down if, or should I
say when, the Earth starts a-rocking and rolling. The overall design of
the addition features a master bedroom and master bath cantilevered
over a light-controlled, purpose-built, stadium seating-based theater
with a 16x9 screen from Stewart, fabric walls, acoustical treatments
from RPG and beyond. While working on the design of my theater with
Beverly Hills-based installation and design firm Simply Home
Entertainment, I sold off my trusty JVC Professional DLA-HS2U
projector, tore out my existing theater in what was always supposed to
be my living room and headed toward what I would call the Dark Ages ...
|
|
|
|
Friday, 01 September 2006
,
Written by
Kevin Miller
Introduction
DVDO
burst onto the home theater scene in the late 1990s with a 480p video
processor, shocking manufacturers and consumers alike with a $599 list
price point. The surprise was not so much the low price, but the fact
that it produced awesome pictures for so little money. Only a few years
before that, good 480p video processing, or what we used to call “line
doubling,” from Faroudja’s venerable LD-100 carried a list price of
$15,000. Since then, the company has continued to put out head-turning
video processing products that remain the best bang for the buck in the
home theater industry. Enter the VP30 with a list price of $1,999, with
a virtual plethora of useful features and near state-of-the-art video
performance.
Many
of you might be wondering why I would need a video processor anyway.
There are a number of different reasons you might want a product like
the DVDO VP30. One is ...
|
|
|
|
Saturday, 01 June 2002
,
Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
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 ...
|
|
|
|
Friday, 01 February 2002
,
Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
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 ...
|
|
|
|
|
