Teranex, a name we do not see to much on this board. It is a commercial piece who's price clearly fits this forum. I was skeptical to purchase ( yes I bought one ) a Teranex as my requirements are in the HD domain only.Im talking the VC300 which performs and unheard of 15 TeraOps per second in real time.
A little history , Teranex was originally an up converter limited to SD but had the reputation of cleaning up source artifacts while bringing out detail bringing DVD closer to HD in visual quality. I had my concerns how the latest generation Teranex would perform with its new HD processing. Some may ask why purchase a high priced commercial VP when there is a selection of user friendly consumer VP loaded with features for a fraction of the cost? Well heres why!
Some of the tools on board allow you to clean up Edge Enhancement greatly reducing it to fully dialing it out. You can change the pixel aperture, sharpen it or softening it taking the edge off that hard digital look. There is a broadband filter that allows you to dial out high frequency video noise. The enhancement filter works independent in the horizontal and or vertical plain and does not add ringing like most consumer sharpness filters, it really brings out detail. You can add film grain to your image to emulate film, chose the size grain and its density.
There a large assortment of NR features that are the very best and can be used without noticeable loss in detail. Mosquito, remove film grain, remove scratches or lines, spacial, temporal NR. Full CMS ( chose DCI color ) with spot color correction. the list goes on and on.
In a sense some people pay big coin for an all silver or gold speaker cable when the average person cannot hear the difference I feel the additional processing power of the Teranex is something no one will miss the visual improvement this box delivers. It works in the HD/SD SDI domain only so you will need to purchase a blue ray player modified with an HD SDI output or purchase one of the many HDMI to HD/SD SDI converters. Once this thing it is setup I leave it alone. It is a pro piece so it is noisy so it does belong in an isolated booth. I forgot about Teranex over the years but Im glad I revisited its processing power and wanted to raise its awareness to those who want the very best in VP. I feel the difference is not marginal. Our source is the weak link in our video chain and the Teranex takes it up a notch. Its not perfect, like anything else it has its quirks but for me this is one purchases I could not easily give up. For those who want the best should consider looking into one & taking it for a test drive. Im betting you would consider its visual improvement to your system large enough to warrant its purchase.

You are referring to the Video Computer series - 300/400/500 - right? And I absolutely agree with your argument, and I'm envious that you have one.

Silicon Optix managed to bring Teranex back to the lead of the pack?

You are referring to the Video Computer series - 300/400/500 - right? And I absolutely agree with your argument, and I'm envious that you have one.

Hi Mike

You nailed it. They've done away with the other platforms, 6RU. Technology has advanced enough for them to fit everything into the VC300 or 3RU.
Each of the the 3 processing boards are 15 layers deep with each layer loaded with micro chip technology.

Silicon Optix managed to bring Teranex back to the lead of the pack?

A breath of fresh air. There are some good people with Teranex. Anyone remember Mike Poirier from Algolith, he is with Teranex now.

Alan, did you use the Teranex with the Sim2 C3X 1080? Or with what projector???
With how wide a screen, 16:9 or 2:35, and what gain????

Oh well. My monies spent already. I enjoy my C3X 1080 And Lumagen Radiance!!!@@@

.... Silicon Optix managed to bring Teranex back to the lead of the pack?

They always were at the lead in the home market, contrary to what tends to be posted over in the video processor forum. I spent a great deal of time (over a year) researching the various brands and technologies and finally went for a Calibre PVPRO-HD. That's the Pro big-brother of the Vantage. Inside is a Realta with Calibre's latest firmware and newest hardware designs. Not as powerful as a VC300 or Xantus, but still comes reasonably close in many areas, since the Realta definitely -is- Teranex processing. The only scaler technology that will beat out the Teranex equipment is Snell & Wilcox PhC (Phase Correlation FFT controlled scaling).

Alan, did you use the Teranex with the Sim2 C3X 1080? Or with what projector???
With how wide a screen, 16:9 or 2:35, and what gain????

Oh well. My monies spent already. I enjoy my C3X 1080 And Lumagen Radiance!!!@@@

Hi Steve

I did not own the Teranex when I had the C3X but man I wish I had. What a combo that would make. Screen is 8 feet wide scope, high power.


.... Silicon Optix managed to bring Teranex back to the lead of the pack?

They always were at the lead in the home market, contrary to what tends to be posted over in the video processor forum. I spent a great deal of time (over a year) researching the various brands and technologies and finally went for a Calibre PVPRO-HD. That's the Pro big-brother of the Vantage. Inside is a Realta with Calibre's latest firmware and newest hardware designs. Not as powerful as a VC300 or Xantus, but still comes reasonably close in many areas, since the Realta definitely -is- Teranex processing. The only scaler technology that will beat out the Teranex equipment is Snell & Wilcox PhC (Phase Correlation FFT controlled scaling).

fasti

The pro vantage looks interesting.
From what I can find on the S&W PhC it is an HD standards converter limited to interlaced formats at 50/60hz. No info on features.
http://www.broadcastequipmentguide.com/snell&wilcox_07_30_08.php

Alan

The PVPRO is not a Vantage, although it is based on that product. It uses a unique motherboard. Comes equipped standard with HD-SDI input and a genlock daughtercard. Pretty much bug-free .. pulled it out of the box and have been using it ever since. None of this flashing nonsense every other week to keep it running properly.

Snell and Wilcox make a variety or processors. Some are standards converters and some not. They probably cost -significantly- more than the VC300, so that is a consideration. This link goes to their processing page. Look under HDTV section at the Quasar and Ukon.

http://www.snellwilcox.com/products/conversion_restoration/products.php

This jpeg shows difference between Phc based processing (on the left) and conventional processing (on the right):

For some reason, the attachments option won't work. It uploads the image, but it doesn't show in the post?

fasti PVPRO looks interesting. Does it have chroma delay adjustment?

I was able to open the attachment for the S&W products. Interesting. Im really interested to know if it has the features to eliminate EE etc. That is the stuff I find priceless in the Teranex. I know each manufacture does things different and has different priorities. I still cannot find any mention what the S&W does outside of up,down,cross conversion but youve peaked my interest.

Alan:

I recall when you had the Teranex a few years back and that you became very frustrated with the user friendliness of the unit you had, has this been improved upon by their latest piece

Hi Lon

Yes I owned a 6RU years ago. For SD it was god but was never really intended for HD hence my reservation to revisit the product but the new platform years later has satisfied my needs beyond the best consumer product. Its really a shame...if people in the authoring business were doing their job and delivered source that was up to pare matching the marketing hype there would be no need VP. For the consumer VPs are used to correct for short comings in the source or projectors.

.... Silicon Optix managed to bring Teranex back to the lead of the pack?

They always were at the lead in the home market, contrary to what tends to be posted over in the video processor forum. I spent a great deal of time (over a year) researching the various brands and technologies and finally went for a Calibre PVPRO-HD. That's the Pro big-brother of the Vantage. Inside is a Realta with Calibre's latest firmware and newest hardware designs. Not as powerful as a VC300 or Xantus, but still comes reasonably close in many areas, since the Realta definitely -is- Teranex processing. The only scaler technology that will beat out the Teranex equipment is Snell & Wilcox PhC (Phase Correlation FFT controlled scaling).


Yup, SNL are top dogs in standardsconversion and processing. Teranex did put some pressure on them, but had (have) started lagging a few years ago as Snell & Wilcox started to dabble in Alchemy. How do you rate the stuff by LetItWave?

The Tera has touch screen control. I have it networked to my touch screen at my seating area.
Here are a few caps from a few control screens showing some of the features.
This is the color space preset selection menu.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7313.JPG
You can also customize the color space
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7319.JPG
or color correct. You can move a courser on the screen and target a color of choice
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7316.JPG
Plenty of NR with split screen. You can also target a portion of the screen
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7317.JPG
More NR. Here is the brickwall filter. You can dial out high frequency noise if needed.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7315.JPG
Heres the advanced aperture adjustment. I love this one.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7314.JPG
Cadence adjust
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7318.JPG
Format conversion.
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7312.JPG
You want to add a little film grain, we have that to
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7321.JPG
Seperate sharness on both plains allow you to sharpen or soften in ether direction
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/509/IMG_7320.JPG

Drool! :D

ddk - I'll have to study the Let It Wave literature. Would be interesting to know if any vendors are using their stuff. The examples they show on their website didn't impress me. They clean up the video up but also significantly blur the content. S&W claim to fame is that their processing removes/prevents artifacts without dynamically reducing the effective resolution.

Alan - Interesting you mention Teranex EE, because over on the Boston HDTV forum a couple of the guys were complaining about WCVB-TV (Ch-5 Boston) excessive EE. WCVB is using both a VC300 and Xantus for their HD processing. I own a S&W noise reduction processor and it includes a very comprehensive collection of user adjustable LPF, for reducing whatever artifacts. The Quasar and Ukon upscalers also include this type of NR processing, so the NR LPF would allow you to reduce excessive peaking. Also consider that a new Ukon will probably cost about the same as a new Mercedes E350!

Here's a link to what I was trying to post.

http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/broadcasting_highquality_encoding/

Is there some trick to uploading images? I clicked on the paperclip, browsed to the jpeg image located in My Documents, uploaded, and nothing shows. What am I doing wrong?

Well then perhaps Teranex should stay in the high end consumer market. Because they sure don't care about the professional market to spite the support many gave them in their humble beginnings.

There's a lot more to broadcast level conversions than picture quality. There are nit picky details that don't have the high prestige of writing scaling and NR algorithms but nevertheless are essential in making a broadcast conversion.

The origional Xantus was introduced at the same time as the Panasonic UFC. As the Xantus promissed better performane a few companies invested in the Xantus based on promisses that the needed features which the Panasonic already had would be implemented. Well they never were. Instead Teranex invested that money into reducing the Xantus scaling technology to a single chip for wide spread consumer market uses. Then they were bought by Silicon Optics.

This pissed a lot of people off in the Hollywood market. We ended up buying two Panasonic UFC's and the Teranex gets little use these days. It's OK for clips being inserted into a project but it's can't do an end to end conversion of a master.

http://broadcastengineering.com/images/high-quality-encoding.jpg
What is phase correlation technology?

Imagine applying that to MGM HD channel.

From that Broadcast Engineering link...

Glimmie

I cannot speak on behalf of the commercial market, sorry to hear this. I wanted to bring attention to this piece as most have no idea something like exists and its performance is beyond any consumer VP.

That there is a renaissance in high end video processing.

Hi Steve

I did not own the Teranex when I had the C3X but man I wish I had. What a combo that would make. Screen is 8 feet wide scope, high power.

Didn't you know he is back to the 9 inch CRT.:D

Oh brother, someone needs a superkontrast MKIII really bad.

What is Phase Correlation Technology?

Basically, they take a DFT of each frame and subtract the results from adjacent frames, which identifies the spectral content of pixel movement in the image. This result is inverse transformed to put it back into the time domain where it is used to steer or direct the motion adaptive algorithms. As you might guess, it takes a lot of processing power. Take a look inside a Snell and Wilcox processor and you will see arrays of Altera and Xilinx FPGAs (lots of heat too). Keep in mind that this equipment is strictly HD-SDI in/out, so you would need an SDI modded player and your display equipment would also need SDI input. Too rich for me. I'll stick with my lowly Realta based processor.

This is what I have been looking for...

What show is this piece shown at NAB or Shoeast/West?

Peter

Probably will show at the SMPTE Tech Expo out in Hollywood, late October. Snell and Wilcox are listed as exhibitors:

http://www.smpte.org/events/smpte_annual_tech/exhibitors/exhibit_hall

The product you are interested in, is the Quasar:

http://www.snellwilcox.com/products/featured/quasarphc/

Not sure what they mean by "surprising affordable price"..... as your jaw drops to the floor. Is that the surprise?

The quasar is sd to hd. I am looking to improve directv 1080i 720p and blueray 1080p24. Ukon?

But it has to be motion compensated and it must have Phase Correlation Technology.

Glimmie

I cannot speak on behalf of the commercial market, sorry to hear this. I wanted to bring attention to this piece as most have no idea something like exists and its performance is beyond any consumer VP.

When they first exhibited at IBC two years ago, I also sensed they clearly were more into this widestrech stuff and reference LCD monitors that weren't really reference monitors, than the broadcast and productiongrade scaling.

Fastl, also two years ago Brickhouse Video from the UK launched an LetItWave single FPGA based SD to HD upconverter. List price, at the time, was around 6K UKP, according to the Brickhouse representative I asked. Last year the French did show some 2 RU boxes, an upconvertor, scaler, and an HD standards convertor, not sure if they build their own or they source them.

Peter

Probably will show at the SMPTE Tech Expo out in Hollywood, late October. Snell and Wilcox are listed as exhibitors:

Not sure what they mean by "surprising affordable price"..... as your jaw drops to the floor. Is that the surprise?

IBC, NAB, smaller events(tech retreat?).

Gadgets that are only 25K Euro or UKP, are what gets Peter up in the morning:rolleyes:.

http://broadcastengineering.com/images/high-quality-encoding.jpg

http://broadcastengineering.com/images/high-quality-encoding.jpg

It's just a silly marketing illustration. An original and the low pass filtered version. Relevance to subject entirely unclear. There are no such differences between HD compressed with state of the art encoder A or B or C.

But but it is from Broadcast Engineering and our new pal here fastl says it works... I want to try this before a Barco DCI.

Too bad it is not 12 bit video.

... silly marketing illustration?

I believe that what they are trying to demonstrate is that their processing maintains full resolution during motion unlike other products, where resolution drops to one-half during motion. Dynamic blurring. ... that's what they are claiming. Read the Quasar product literature. Only way to tell is to view the product in operation. So if Peter wants to see it in action, the SMPTE Tech expo would probably be a good place to visit.

Over in the video forum there are a lot of hyped-up claims about how superior Gennum processing is. Well I have Gennum processing and bought the Realta based Calibre product and it easily out-dukes the Gennum. So much for the hype. As the old saying goes .... seeing is believing. Alan's Teranex VC300 is another cut above what I've got, particularly in tweakability. The S&W appears to be the top-of-the-heap.

Cost of the new Teranex?

Mark

The problem with the commercial units is that they don't have a good solution for video based SD and HD processing, at least not the last time I checked.

Peter - the primary difference between the Ukon and Quasar is that the Ukon is classified as a universal converter whereas the Quasar is primarily a resolution converter. Since the Ukon does rate conversion, i.e. 50 -> 60 Hz, it is much more complicated and expensive. As to whether the Quasar will take 1080i in, don't know. You would have to ask S&W. Was comtemplating going to SMPTE expo, but don't think I'll make it.

... commercial units don't have a good solution for SD and HD conversion?

What they don't have is the ergonomics and switching features of the home equipment. In terms of processing capability, home equipment isn't in the same league. Don't forget that S&W at one time did make a processor oriented towards the high-end home user -- Interpolator Gold.

... commercial units don't have a good solution for SD and HD conversion?

What they don't have is the ergonomics and switching features of the home equipment. In terms of processing capability, home equipment isn't in the same league. Don't forget that S&W at one time did make a processor oriented towards the high-end home user -- Interpolator Gold.

The problem is with video based, not film based sources. I am currently using a Teranex 6RU unit and have been for a very long time. The best solution for video based SD is conversion to 720p60. There is no option for 1080p60 and I don't think that any of the SW models offer it either. It's similar for video based HD and the best soution is conversion to 1080p30, which is acceptable only with some sources.

I wonder if frame interpolation would be useful with the .98 Barcos?

Since they do 3-d they probably can handle 72hz refresh [3 x24]

It's just a silly marketing illustration. An original and the low pass filtered version. Relevance to subject entirely unclear. There are no such differences between HD compressed with state of the art encoder A or B or C.
Mark, your point is well taken. Nevertheless, I'd rather spend my $$$ on a Teranex over a 5.1 set of Revel Ultima2 speakers.

There is no provision for 1080p60 output on the professional scalers because there is no provision for 1080p60 in the distribution/transmission chain. 1080p60 is a display format and the pro units are designed for outputting formats compatible with media storage and broadcast transmission. Similarly, they have no provision for HDCP because that it isn't a factor in the environment that the equipment if being employed in. Still, the quality and flexibility provided by their signal processing algorithms easily eclipses what we have in the consumer equipment environment.

As to the relevance of the broadcast engineering comparison image that is posted above, it most certainly is relevant to the published article and to the PhC scaling discussion. The topic of that article is asset management and repurposing - not a comparison of brands x-y-z AVC codecs. It's about maintaining a high quality signal throughput in the plant where you are dealing with various formats and resolutions that inevitably will involve signal processing before the final encoding stage.

There is no provision for 1080p60 output on the professional scalers because there is no provision for 1080p60 in the distribution/transmission chain. 1080p60 is a display format and the pro units are designed for outputting formats compatible with media storage and broadcast transmission. Similarly, they have no provision for HDCP because that it isn't a factor in the environment that the equipment if being employed in. Still, the quality and flexibility provided by their signal processing algorithms easily eclipses what we have in the consumer equipment environment.


That's the problem. They are designed for a different application. Video based 1080i60 without a 3:2 cadence is a mainstay format. It requires de-interlacing to 1080p60 for display with HT projectors, except for CRT types. It's the same for video based 480i60. Processing to 720p60 requires an additional scaling to 1080p60 by 2K projectors. Scaling twice is not a good solution.

The commercial units do very well with film based SD and HD and provide very sophisticated image processing capability. Those are the reasons why I use one.

Apparently it's not a "problem" for Alan, since he's using the VC300 (which doesn't output 1080p60) and is getting satisfaction with the unit. I was merely augmenting his discussion of pro scaling equipment in general by including mention of the S&W product line.

As I stated in earlier, I spent over a year looking at a lot of products, including items in the Teranex, S&W, Barco product lines, and finally wound-up purchasing a pro VP that -does- output 1080p60.

For myself it is rare video is displayed in my theater but when the occasion arises I use a second VP wired to a second input on my projector.
fastl you've peaked my interest in the pro VP for that purpose. What are your thoughts taking the signal ( 1080i ) from the Teranex HD SDI into the VP pro letting the pro do its magic. Do you think there would be any picture degrading? Now you would have the best of everything.
fastl does the pro have chroma delay adjustment. Im asking because I did try the vantage and that feature was lacking. Thank you!

Alan

Primary reason for purchasing a Realta based processor was the superior quality of the de-interlacing. Primary reason for purchasing this particular VP was the large front panel alphanumeric display (negating need for OSD) and the comprehensive collection of input types, including HD-SDI. The SDI input is spec'd to handle SMPTE 292M thru 259M-C (up to 1.48 G/s), so it should handle a VC300 output. Incidentally, the SDI input is not an afterthought as with the other popular VPs but is actually part of the motherboard.

With respect to the chroma question, there is no manual adjustment for chroma offset that I'm aware of. They do have a CCS (chroma crawl) filter, a CUE filter and an ICP (interlace chroma) filter, all of which I normally leave ON. I don't ever recall seeing any program content where it appeared that the chroma was offset so maybe I'm just lucky or these filters automatically take care of the problem.

I might add that this VP has a very noisy fan so I installed my own, to get rid of the noise.

Mark, your point is well taken. Nevertheless, I'd rather spend my $$$ on a Teranex over a 5.1 set of Revel Ultima2 speakers.
What are these pictures comparing? Deinterlacing of originally interlaced video? Compression quality of different encoders? The former makes a bit more sense than the latter. It looks still greatly exaggerated, though. And since it's animation, how come it's not progressive or with a simple pulldown to begin with? :confused:

confused - The jpeg image in the referenced Broadcast Engineering article is what's known as an ILLUSTRATION being used to graphically help demonstrate the following phenomena:

"Conventional HD upconverters use either linear or motion adaptive processing techniques, both of which
tend to produce visible artifacts. Linear conversion involves processing compromises that can create ringing or softness in the output. Adaptive mode switching causes intermittent loss of clarity and
definition as well as producing objectionable artifacts on all but the simplest material. With both of these approaches, the maximum vertical resolution possible with a moving video scene is half the resolution of the input. This means that the HD upconversions are always at a lower resolution than the SD video source. Quasar Ph.C on the other hand employs Ph.C and FormatFusion. This ensures that each individual element and characteristic of the picture is seamlessly processed with absolute precision, using the most appropriate conversion algorithm. The result is a dazzlingly clear and sharp HD output regardless of the nature or complexity of the source material" .... copyrighted material from Snell & Wilcox, Quasar PhC, product data sheet.

So how would one illustrate a dynamically occuring phenomena with a static image? Probably by blurring one side of the static illustration image to show what is happening with commonplace scaling equipment during (non-static) image movement. Get it?

confused - The jpeg image in the referenced Broadcast Engineering article is what's known as an ILLUSTRATION being used to graphically help demonstrate the following phenomena:

"Conventional HD upconverters use either linear or motion adaptive processing techniques, both of which
tend to produce visible artifacts. Linear conversion involves processing compromises that can create ringing or softness in the output. Adaptive mode switching causes intermittent loss of clarity and
definition as well as producing objectionable artifacts on all but the simplest material. With both of these approaches, the maximum vertical resolution possible with a moving video scene is half the resolution of the input. This means that the HD upconversions are always at a lower resolution than the SD video source. Quasar Ph.C on the other hand employs Ph.C and FormatFusion. This ensures that each individual element and characteristic of the picture is seamlessly processed with absolute precision, using the most appropriate conversion algorithm. The result is a dazzlingly clear and sharp HD output regardless of the nature or complexity of the source material" .... copyrighted material from Snell & Wilcox, Quasar PhC, product data sheet.


fastl

This would only apply to interlaced material correct. If it also applies to motion and or progressive source I wonder how it compares to Sonys 120hz motion trick.

It's about deinterlacing then of temporally interlaced material, cross conversions and frame rate conversions.

Progressive information direct off the disc ( blue ray ) maintains this information correct?

You really don't really need much (if any) processing for BD material since you're typically feeding the display 1:1. No de-interlacing or scaling. Maybe a little tweak for black level or gain and that's about it.

Upscaling SD material is a whole different ball game. Particularly, when you are trying to assemble a program stream that might contain 1080p material that is being alternated/mixed with the upscaled SD material. If it isn't done properly it -will- be noticed. That's S&W's rationale for their phase correlation technique that maximes the upscaled resolution. Incidentally, they (S&W) are making the claim, not me. I was only trying to educate everyone as to what the -real- high-end in video processing is by pointing to their marketing propaganda.

The 120 Hz frame flashing technique has nothing to do with this. That's a psychovisual trick to eliminate the motion blurring effect that occurs with LCD panels that are sample-and-holding the image.

There is temporal interpolation of intermediate fields, Faroudja was working on that.

You remember Yves famous last words .... something to the effect that I've spent my whole career developing solutions to the de-interlacing problem and have finally concluded that none of them work!

To clarify 120 Hz. There are two different 120 Hz schemes out there. You can multisample 24 fps by basically repeating the frame multiple times to reduce flicker or you can modulate the frame (shut the frame off half way through period at 60 Hz) to reduce the motion blurring effect that is unique to LCD panels. Didn't mean to confuse the two.

What's the MSRP?

MSRP? You mean for the S&W Quasar? You know the old Rolls Royce saying, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. I never dared ask, but I recall seeing the Ukon quoted at somewhere around $60K and the Alchemist around $100K. They are chocked full of FPGAs. The big ones draw around 500 watts! That's a lot of juice for a VP.

What is the MSRP of Alan's unit?

Now if someone put that horsepower strictly for the benefit of hd (deinterlacing and frame accelerating of 24 x 3 with discrete before and after images, we would get somewhere.

Mark around 50k retail but it depends what platforms you choose.

Thanks. Pocket change to you I guess. :) Too rich for me.

Thanks. Pocket change to you I guess.

I wish it were. Even for those with the money we all need to self justify large purchases especially when its something in an economy with fast turn around. Id rethink this if Teranex had a new model each year, thankfully this is more software platform so we do expect software upgrades . I compared this to purchasing a screen. While we may change out our projectors each year this is something that will still earn its keeps in my rack years from now. I hope:confused:

You remember Yves famous last words .... something to the effect that I've spent my whole career developing solutions to the de-interlacing problem and have finally concluded that none of them work!

And guess what, he has since been associated with another French company trying to tackle de-interlacing and scaling.

Good for Yves! Some people get bored with retirement and have to get an iron back in the fire. BTW, I finally got around to printing out the Let It Wave paper, "Super Resolution Bandlet Upconversion for HDTV". Looks interesting. Probably will take a little while to fully digest.

Just like those $15K Faroudja's when $15K was like $50K now. Seriously, I think you are right on this one. I just can't afford $50K. My $4K Lumagen will be my long term processor. I have to come up to your place sometime and see this thing in action.

The reason those 15k units were that price is because the ikegami scaler at that time was 13,500. Yves had 3/2 pulldown so he priced it a bit higher.

I have to come up to your place sometime and see this thing in action.

Mark if ever in the area you are always welcome.

The reason those 15k units were that price is because the ikegami scaler at that time was 13,500. Yves had 3/2 pulldown so he priced it a bit higher.

Remember this well, brings back memories. Did I just give my age away:) I was never impressed with the ikegami. Thought it was over priced. The Faroudja was better in terms of performance and features for its day.

The unit was all white you can see it 3 units below the monitors here:
http://cineramax.com/images/projects/titan250.png

I actually thought the sharpness enhancement on the IKe was a bit better.

Alan,
I'm surprised you're considering Teranex again.
I remember you, from years ago, mention that Teranex was the biggest mistake you've made in your HT purchase history as you've spent $30k (?) on something that did the same job as a modern projector's de-interlacing chip.

Am I wrong on that?
Man, for $50k, just buy the HT5000 and be happy. Just like Art! ;)

We are in a golden age of projectors, technology, sources. Art expects to get a new projector within a year. Who knows what we will see at the high end at CEDIA this year. And then there is commercial cinema stuff too for the big boys. Scalers will be needed for the 4K stuff. I think Alan is getting ready for the future.

Andrikos you are correct. All I remembered was how well it performed with SD and as a technology leader the wait for them to jump in the HD band wagon was a long one. It seamed consumer VPs were passing them by. The wait is over, its finally here & I would never keep anything in this price range if I were not impressed with its performance.

Is it motion compensative or like the consumer models for us peons, motion adaptive?

Andrikos you are correct. All I remembered was how well it performed with SD and as a technology leader the wait for them to jump in the HD band wagon was a long one. It seamed consumer VPs were passing them by. The wait is over, its finally here & I would never keep anything in this price range if I were not impressed with its performance.

Alan,

Can you tell us specifically what is impressive about the Teranex in regards to HD video processing. I am specifically referring to sources from Bluray or HD-DVDs. SD material does not have good enough video quality in the first place so I am not interested in what it can do here. Thanks.

Alan,

Can you tell us specifically what is impressive about the Teranex in regards to HD video processing. I am specifically referring to sources from Bluray or HD-DVDs. SD material does not have good enough video quality in the first place so I am not interested in what it can do here. Thanks.

These processors offer filters not yet seen on consumer VPs. Consumer VPs have a typical sharpness filter which do nothing more then peak all frequency's & depending how its used can make a good source look bad and a bad source look worse. For instance most consumer detail enhance or sharpness filters do not go into the negative they only go in one direction...up:( If your watching an overly sharp transfer you may want to soften it but have no option for doing so. The Tera has a set of notch filters, low pass and peaking filters some of which are frequency selectable allowing you to target the trouble area. You can easily tame an overly edgy transfer while extracting additional detail even on the best transfers while maintaining a natural not processed looking image. You can knock down that digital glare using the aperture filter. You may find the above subjective but for myself titles with excessive edge enhancement/ ringing is an annoyance that reminds me Im watching an electronic media and not film.
The Teranex gives you the tools and flexibility to address this. The NR features are also on another level. The processor also has full color CMS. These are very powerful PCs working in real time and they are noisy.

WOW fitteee grand!

Curious does it have an "in - out" button or in other words this is the picture before and this the picture after?

NR yes because all NR filters are in one window pain so you can kick in several filters at once while in split screen mode. All the other filters show up in individual windows, no split screen but make your adjustment and toggle their on/off button which visually accomplishes the same thing.

These processors offer filters not yet seen on consumer VPs. Consumer VPs have a typical sharpness filter which do nothing more then peak all frequency's & depending how its used can make a good source look bad and a bad source look worse. For instance most consumer detail enhance or sharpness filters do not go into the negative they only go in one direction...up:( If your watching an overly sharp transfer you may want to soften it but have no option for doing so. The Tera has a set of notch filters, low pass and peaking filters some of which are frequency selectable allowing you to target the trouble area. You can easily tame an overly edgy transfer while extracting additional detail even on the best transfers while maintaining a natural not processed looking image. You can knock down that digital glare using the aperture filter. You may find the above subjective but for myself titles with excessive edge enhancement/ ringing is an annoyance that reminds me Im watching an electronic media and not film.
The Teranex gives you the tools and flexibility to address this. The NR features are also on another level. The processor also has full color CMS. These are very powerful PCs working in real time and they are noisy.


Alan,

I know they are noisy, I have seen them at a friend's place. They seem more targeted as professional equipment for use in a broadcast studio.

It seems to me that all the filtering modes are nice but aren't you in a way modifying the material from the original intent of the master? Even if you were willing to do this, and you had access to the unencrypted video material, you can do even better in non real time by re-mastering the video material and burning a new Bluray disc. This software process would take multiple passes and much more time but would produce the best results. You already have access to unencrypted video because for the Teranex to work, you need HD-SDI which is not encrypted.

You can also do better noise reduction filters in software because you can try many different algorithms and do it selectively for different portions of the video material.

I consider CMS to be useful but you can already get this with a Lumagen Radiance for much less.

It seems that the Teranex offers features useful to a broadcast studio to enable them to on-the-fly, in real time tweak average to poor video material. I am not sure the Teranex buys you anything if the video material were already good such as that which is found in Bluray and HD-DVDs.

euryd

Yes indeed the HT market was not the original intent.
Regarding modifying the content, the digital master is passed in raw form as the director intended it to be seen to the authoring studio some of whom then pump up the colors, contrast, sharpness and noise reduction removing detail thinking this is what the consumer wants to see on their TV sets.
The Teranex, S&W offer additional flexibility beyond consumer product to restore or further enhance the image to your liking.
These processors do indeed work in the software domain. They are super computers.
Seeing a side by side image processed by your choice of vp to the Tera the difference is easy to see. The larger the display the more these are appreciated. I can only hope over time some of this technology and additional flexibility will find its way into consumer products.

I have never seen the Teranex but as I read Alan's description of what it can do I am reminded of the option (in the analog LP world) of adjusting VTA on every album. While there are certainly improvements to be made by doing so, it drove me crazy so I picked one that worked and leave it there.

Alan: When you put in a DVD that needs the improvements that the Teranex can address, how long does it take to dial it all in so you get the results you desire?

Alan: When you put in a DVD that needs the improvements that the Teranex can address, how long does it take to dial it all in so you get the results you desire?

Once you become accustomed to the platforms and features it is no different then turning up the volume on your stereo. It does not take long to learn what features associate with any given artifact.

euryd

Yes indeed the HT market was not the original intent.
Regarding modifying the content, the digital master is passed in raw form as the director intended it to be seen to the authoring studio some of whom then pump up the colors, contrast, sharpness and noise reduction removing detail thinking this is what the consumer wants to see on their TV sets.
The Teranex, S&W offer additional flexibility beyond consumer product to restore or further enhance the image to your liking.
These processors do indeed work in the software domain. They are super computers.
Seeing a side by side image processed by your choice of vp to the Tera the difference is easy to see. The larger the display the more these are appreciated. I can only hope over time some of this technology and additional flexibility will find its way into consumer products.

I agree that mastering is done with the original raw uncompressed video material. But you have to compare apples with apples. Your Teranex only has the Bluray compressed material to work with anyway. So I still think that a multipass software approach on this same Bluray material would perform better than the Teranex. The Teranex may be have a lot of cpu cycles but it cannot beat a non real time cpu done with multiple passes.

Also mastering is many times performed with human intervention. This person might decide to edge enhance only softer scenes in the movie. If you do not like this, you can dial it out with the Teranex (or other VP) but you will soften the rest of the movie needlessly. Unless the Teranex can do filtering for selective scenes only. To do this, you will need frame by frame step thru to pick the proper scenes to filter. I think this is better done with software.

To do this, you will need frame by frame step thru to pick the proper scenes to filter. I think this is better done with software.

I see what you are saying. Is there such a beast?

In reality if the content were delivered to us left alone without human intervention there would be no need for a VP in the chain. I hope that day is not to far off.

euryd

Are you trying to sell him a DaVinci 2k or are you just philosophizing? Most end users don't have the finances to buy that kind of equipment nor do they have the time to sit around color grading purchased material.

Actually, now that many of the big boys are dumping their FP CRTs, the time they used to spend futching, converging, yada yada could be put to use color grading, with gobs of time left over. Considering the number of plus $60K projectors sold by AVS and others, I think it fair to say for the REALLY BIG Boys, $50K is a consumer model or a very cheap professional model. I bet Alan's thread results in several consumer AVSers buying the machine. Pocket change to Alan, lost money beneath the sofa cushions to the BIG BOYS. Alas, it will remain the lowly Lumagen Radiance for me.

Actually not pocket change at all. Some people choose to have a BMW in the driveway where video is my passion so I have a Teranex in the rack:)

euryd

Are you trying to sell him a DaVinci 2k or are you just philosophizing? Most end users don't have the finances to buy that kind of equipment nor do they have the time to sit around color grading purchased material.

Unfortunately, just philosophizing :). I am an end user and am not involved in selling equipment.

I see what you are saying. Is there such a beast?

In reality if the content were delivered to us left alone without human intervention there would be no need for a VP in the chain. I hope that day is not to far off.

I think the VP can be used to tweak the constant parameters in ones viewing system such as the PJ and the screen. Changing settings based on viewing material is tedious.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/remotecentral/SLkIOyW8n5I/AAAAAAAAANY/xsbLGA0U4_c/s800/tera.JPG

I'm sorry Alan, but that's some of the worst video processing I've ever seen. My God, I can see artifacts all over the place. And the pin cushioning is horrid, someone needs to help you adjust your anamorphic lens. And the hot spotting on the lower right, ouch!

:)

Q, as usual, sharp eye. Also note by the moire in my pictures my touch screens run with perforated material :)

My gosh Alan,

You look like us audiophiles who tweak every aspect of the chain looking for the holy grail... For my 50g's I thought everything I did sounded better, but then...... i just wanted to enjoy the music.

And yes,

I am a CRT guy......

Have fun tweaking.

MAK

Alan:

Reading Peter's thread, A Moon of Saturn in a Boutique Hotel ? I stumbled upon your use of the VC300.

Which Package of the VC300 did you buy and if you don't mind me asking what is your work around if any for 1080P60 output