Well Chouca brought over his player and we tested it. Verdict is, it is a problem with ALL 79AVi's. His did the exact same thing. I showed him what the tests should look like with my Denon 5910 then I switched to the 79AVi I had. He was quite surprised with the issues and how dramatic they were. Then I plugged his in and did the same tests and the exact same things showed up. So it looks like the new processing that Pioneer is using here has some bugs. Whether this translates to viewing normal material is debatable, but there is no doubt that fine detail will be compromised with moving images in parts of the display, regardless of whether you can see it or not.

Yep, it's true and like Kris said the effect is not subtle at all. It seems like there must be normal film material that would show this, although I've never seen my 79avi look anything but fantastic. I'm going to look for something in my collection now that I know what to look for. If I find anything, I'll post it so others can see the bug as well.

Of course, if you're running at 480i there's no need to worry since the bug doesn't manifest itself in that case.

It isn't just the bottom of the image, it is the right side as well. Using the cadence tests on AVIA Pro showed the exact same thing. The resolution wedge breaks up with fast motion on the right side of the image and can't hold the resolution or film mode de-interlacing at all in the vertical direction. Switching over to my Denon 5910, I didn't have any of the same issues. It held the patterns the entire time with no distortions at all. I even tried different settings for progressive motion, progressive mode and NR in the Pioneer all to no avail.

I did some normal viewing with the 79 this morning and with regular material I didn't detect anything out of the ordinary. The image looks very clean, detailed and 3 dimensional. Excellent in about every respect. I will continue to look at normal material for awhile and see if I spot anything, but so far so good. I am hoping that Chouca will make it over this weekend to see if this problem is isolated to only my player.


hi kris, how would u rate the PQ of the 989 vs denon 3910? tks

Chouca & Kris

Thanks for the fine detective work.
Refresh my memory if you would. HDMI default setting (1080) to what type of display?

E

So it looks like the new processing that Pioneer is using here has some bugs. Whether this translates to viewing normal material is debatable, but there is no doubt that fine detail will be compromised with moving images in parts of the display, regardless of whether you can see it or not.

I'm just wondering whether it's just because of the deinterlacing capability of the pio on *some* materials. When it fails to deinterlace properly, it will appear as a loss of resolution. (this is why it "failed" on all outputs except 480i when it doesn't need to deinterlace)

The reason I asked this is because if u tried the HQV test disk on the 79, it basically failed the "Film Detail" test. If based on this "Film Detail" alone, I would have concluded the pio's deinterlacer is bad. However for most of the "normal" dvds, the pio performs very well.

Would u be able to find another test for resolution to see if this is material dependent ? (i.e. for some strange reason the pio totally screwed up the WHQL test, so its deinterlacer is weak, but it's not a "global" thing)

Whether this translates to viewing normal material is debatable, but there is no doubt that fine detail will be compromised with moving images in parts of the display, regardless of whether you can see it or not.

I just watched about six hours worth of "material" on all resolutions and the player is fine. Whatever you're seeing on your test disc doesn't manifest itself during playback of DVDs. For anyone interested in this player, get it. Unless of course you're primary source material is test discs. ;)

-bd

Can somebody explain to me the benefit of having a DVD player and a receiver each equipped with i.LINK?

when both have compatible flow control implemented, it reduces jitter for stereo playback.


The only benefit that I could find was that you can play SACD's with only 1 cable from the DVD player to the receiver.


and DVDA. ... and if u believe in marketing talk, manufacturers claim iLink is able to carry next generation multi-channel audio format (DTS+, HD-DD etc) as PCMs (basically player decode them as PCMs and receiver sees it as simple multichannel PCM)


I use an optical connection now. I don't play SACD's and mainly watch movies. Would an i.LINK connection work better for me?


No. No benefit other than providing a single wire connection.


Where is the audio decoding taking place?


normally receiver.

I'm just wondering whether it's just because of the deinterlacing capability of the pio on *some* materials. When it fails to deinterlace properly, it will appear as a loss of resolution.

The reason I asked this is because if u tried the HQV test disk on the 79, it basically failed the "Film Detail" test. If based on this "Film Detail" alone, I would have concluded the pio's deinterlacer is bad. However for most of the "normal" dvds, the pio performs very well.

Would u be able to find another test for resolution to see if this is material dependent ? (i.e. for some strange reason the pio totally screwed up the WHQL test, so its deinterlacer is weak, but it's not a "global" thing)

This not material dependent, I tried it with every cadence other than the mixed ones Silicon Optix tests for. 2-2, 3-2 T, 3-2 Alt, all of them. I used the tests on WHQL and Avia Pro. It didn't matter. This is not a film high detail test. It passes those.

Whatever you're seeing on your test disc doesn't manifest itself during playback of DVDs.

Why, because you don't see it? That is ridiculous. A test DVD is a normal DVD. The only difference is a test DVD can show you what the player is doing at the full resolution range all at once, your "normal" DVDs can't. There IS a problem with this player, that is not debateable, IT IS A FACT.

I have already said NUMEROUS times that this issue doesn't seem to be noticeable so far with movies. I already said that this player looks great from a subjective standpoint, but I will not be conned into thinking or lying about it having no problems and anyone here that says differently is feeding snake oil. Yes this player looks great watching movies, but YES this player does have something wrong with its video processor. And that doesn't matter if you believe it or not, the truth doesn't care.

Refresh my memory if you would. HDMI default setting (1080) to what type of display?

I tested at 480P, 720P, and 1080i at all HDMI output formats (RGB, YCbCr). All had the same bug regardless of the cadence of the test. I used a Sony HS-51 and Sharp XV-11000 for the tests.

I will test the component output tomorrow to see if it is the same at 480P or not. It could be a glitch in the HDMI transmitter, but I don't know yet. I doubt it though since it is not an issue at 480i via HDMI.

This not material dependent, I tried it with every cadence other than the mixed ones Silicon Optix tests for. 2-2, 3-2 T, 3-2 Alt, all of them. I used the tests on WHQL and Avia Pro. It didn't matter. This is not a film high detail test. It passes those.

U mean in Avia Pro there is also a resolution test and the pio failed as well ?

What I meant was, if the pio can't detect the bad edit on the HQV "Film Detail" test, it's probably weak in deinterlacing materials. So I had thought it's just a matter of how gd it deinterlace. For example if it does deinterlacing region by region, it's possible it failed to detect 3/2 sequence at some place, but doing it right at others.

In the normal DVE disk, S&W Mpeg test pattern, under either AUTO1/2, the color wedges have serious flaws (jaggies/color bleeding), but putting it to ON u get perfect edges. However in ON, right hand side the rotating boxes have serious resolution errors, which will not show in AUTO2. So apparently the video processor is doing things differently with the material.

If the pio is losing resolutions at *all* material, can all of us try to spot it on normal dvds ? I'm sure there are materials with high resolutions, let see if we can spot them...

If the pio is losing resolutions at *all* material, can all of us try to spot it on normal dvds ? I'm sure there are materials with high resolutions, let see if we can spot them...

OK...so maybe if someone were to try some sports movies (with bleacher shots), or better yet, our ubiquitous SB Fifth Element (we all can relate back to that, especially with some A/B pictures compared to other players).

Kris, thats great that you guys were able to confirm the fault with another player. I will be eager to hear about component analog results...but I bet it will be OK. I now wonder if it is the 10bit DAC over HDMI (since the 59avi doesn't do 10 bit)...I would love someone with a Marantz 7600/9600 to try these same tests and see if they come up with similar results (since they reportedly have same Pioneer guts and also do 10bit over HDMI).

This not material dependent, I tried it with every cadence other than the mixed ones Silicon Optix tests for. 2-2, 3-2 T, 3-2 Alt, all of them. I used the tests on WHQL and Avia Pro. It didn't matter. This is not a film high detail test. It passes those.
If you're using the tests I think you are (e.g, WHQL moving wedge tests and the AVIA Pro cadence tests) then they absolutely are 'high detail' tests. Those test patterns have very strong levels of vertical high frequencies and lots of vertical aliasing. That's probably what's tripping up the Pioneeer deinterlacer's cadence detection.

The question is, do you see this on 'normal' program material (i.e., not a test pattern) that also has very strong vertical detail, particularly approaching the Nyquist frequency? The SuperSpeedway bleachers scene is an okay test here, but a better test is the execution scene from 'The Killer' where the roofs of the buildings will moire like crazy if the deinterlacer is not in cadence lock. Some sections of the tile roof tiles literally have an every-other-pixel on/off pattern. All Faroudja deinterlacers that I've seen will not lock on this, although they will on the WHQL moving wedge test. I've also seen cases where the 5910 will not maintain lock but the venerable old SiI504 will. Does that make the 504 a better deinterlacer? (Rhetorical question here . . . ;) )

In my personal opinion, while you'd like to have the deinterlacer track every scene and test pattern in existence, it's a lot more important what the performance is on real-world program material rather than test patterns. While test patterns have their place, some of them are so extreme or so artificial that their correlation with real program material is close to zero. Have you seen any real-world images where this 'bug' manifests?

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, but I have to question whether the problem is being blown out of proportion. There are many trade-offs involved in deinterlacer design, and nothing is ever perfect. It's very possible to have a deinterlacer algorithm that's good at detecting real problems in real-world images that will also trip up on test patterns. The Pioneer deinterlacer designers may have decided to sacrifice performance on test patterns such as those you're using for better real-world image performance. Then again, the problem may show up on real-world material too. I just haven't seen any evidence for that presented yet.

- Dale Adams

What I meant was, if the pio can't detect the bad edit on the HQV "Film Detail" test, it's probably weak in deinterlacing materials.
Which version of the HQV test disc is being used? The current one which was modified to cause all deinterlacers to drop out of lock, or the original one on which some deinterlacers would keep lock through the 'bad edit' (and yes, this is quite possible with the right deinterlacer algorithms) while the HQV algorithms would not?

- Dale Adams

Which version of the HQV test disc is being used?

1.4, I'm not sure if it's the most recent one..

Thanks for your detailed explanation on the high vertical details! I certainly felt the pio video processor is having some algorithms that just simply fail on some material, and not a global issue. Until today I think no one really know how the pio deinterlacer works (e.g. that same Film Detail test can pass as long as u do not acticate pio's on-screen-menu. how weird is that ? ) However IMHO it doesn't make it a worse deinterlacer. Just different.

I'm not familliar with the The Killer. I would grab one and see the scene u described. Let's see if the pio can pass that :)

EDIT: Is it this one ? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004W457/qid=1136119243/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/103-7760246-9473426?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130

By the way I never did get any thoughts on using the HDMI output over component to my ED Panasonic plasma, would I see any difference between the two even though its not an HD PDP?

Thanks, Bill

Thought I would give this one more shot, I would really like to know if there is much of a difference between component and HDMI/DVI for my PDP.

Would appreciate any input, Bill

I've got the European version of this player the DV989 and have noticed some nasties on it playing Saving Private Ryan via HDMI at any upscaled resolution

Firstly a small step indent appears across the top of the screen, ever present throught the movie

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/165/pioneercrop7fi.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pioneercrop7fi.jpg)

A close up of this

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/299/pioneercrop23hm.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pioneercrop23hm.jpg)

Also along the right hand edge of the picture I have a strange vertical line that appears a few cm in from the edge ???

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8360/pioneerline9ow.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pioneerline9ow.jpg)

I haven't had the player long and it seems to be doing this when coupled with a Sanyo Z3 projector. Other DVD's do not exhibit this problem so far. Nor do I get it if fired through a Sony HS20 projector.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what it might be ?

I just watched about six hours worth of "material" on all resolutions and the player is fine. Whatever you're seeing on your test disc doesn't manifest itself during playback of DVDs. For anyone interested in this player, get it. Unless of course you're primary source material is test discs. ;)

-bd
In my mind, you are missing the entire point (at least the one I have brought up repeatedly). Nobody is debating that the 79ai produces a great PQ. But so does the 59ai! What exactly does the 79ai offer versus the 59ai (other than better build quality, which does not necessarily mean better performance)? If you were in the market for one of these players, wouldn't you be better off with the 59ai, knowing what you now know about them (probably same PQ, without the flaw)?

EDIT: It's not like we're talking here about a budget player with this flaw. IMO, this is not acceptable in a $1000 player. Hopefully Kris can discuss this with Pioneer, and they will fix the problem in future batches (79aiB).

Well I moved from the 868 (59) to the 989 (79) the same EU equivalents.

Biggest improvement is Audio. iLink seriously now rips it. The EU model is tuned by Air Studios so that it sounds fully tuned and refined to top studio audiophile standards. The processing, speed and clarity is a marvel. The 868 was great but the 989 is simply stunning in this respect. Not for musical audio but speciically for video audio purposes via iLink it is sensational.

Analogue component Video is much improved over the 868 as well. The 868 was a bit soft in this regard. Digitally it's much closer and the 989 probably, probably just edges it. However this is the $$$million question, do you want to take the financial hit for this level of upgrade ? I can understand many that won't go down that route and it does make sense.

Build quality again is up on the 989. The 868 I always felt was a bit flimsy and a lightweight for a flagship model. That disc tray was something dug out from a bargain basement spermart model I have to say !

The bottom line is if you have 59 / 868 you won't be going far wrong sticking with it. If you are coming into the market now the 79 / 989 should naturally be the one to go for.

Thanks Dale. You're clarification is most welcome.

If you're using the tests I think you are (e.g, WHQL moving wedge tests and the AVIA Pro cadence tests) then they absolutely are 'high detail' tests. Those test patterns have very strong levels of vertical high frequencies and lots of vertical aliasing. That's probably what's tripping up the Pioneeer deinterlacer's cadence detection.

The question is, do you see this on 'normal' program material (i.e., not a test pattern) that also has very strong vertical detail, particularly approaching the Nyquist frequency? The SuperSpeedway bleachers scene is an okay test here, but a better test is the execution scene from 'The Killer' where the roofs of the buildings will moire like crazy if the deinterlacer is not in cadence lock. Some sections of the tile roof tiles literally have an every-other-pixel on/off pattern. All Faroudja deinterlacers that I've seen will not lock on this, although they will on the WHQL moving wedge test. I've also seen cases where the 5910 will not maintain lock but the venerable old SiI504 will. Does that make the 504 a better deinterlacer? (Rhetorical question here . . . ;) )

In my personal opinion, while you'd like to have the deinterlacer track every scene and test pattern in existence, it's a lot more important what the performance is on real-world program material rather than test patterns. While test patterns have their place, some of them are so extreme or so artificial that their correlation with real program material is close to zero. Have you seen any real-world images where this 'bug' manifests?

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, but I have to question whether the problem is being blown out of proportion. There are many trade-offs involved in deinterlacer design, and nothing is ever perfect. It's very possible to have a deinterlacer algorithm that's good at detecting real problems in real-world images that will also trip up on test patterns. The Pioneer deinterlacer designers may have decided to sacrifice performance on test patterns such as those you're using for better real-world image performance. Then again, the problem may show up on real-world material too. I just haven't seen any evidence for that presented yet.

- Dale Adams


Very good insight about the problem. There is always a tradeoff whether you are writing device drivers for PC graphics hardware, an encoding algorithm for video / audio, or in this case, a deinterlacer algorithm for a dvd player.

I'm not familliar with the The Killer. I would grab one and see the scene u described. Let's see if the pio can pass that :)

EDIT: Is it this one ? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004W457/qid=1136119243/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/103-7760246-9473426?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130
No. The one I meant was a movie starring James Woods, not the John Woo film. Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6304517548/qid=1136129558/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4262125-4555114?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130

- Dale Adams

If you're using the tests I think you are (e.g, WHQL moving wedge tests and the AVIA Pro cadence tests) then they absolutely are 'high detail' tests. Those test patterns have very strong levels of vertical high frequencies and lots of vertical aliasing. That's probably what's tripping up the Pioneeer deinterlacer's cadence detection.

The question is, do you see this on 'normal' program material (i.e., not a test pattern) that also has very strong vertical detail, particularly approaching the Nyquist frequency? The SuperSpeedway bleachers scene is an okay test here, but a better test is the execution scene from 'The Killer' where the roofs of the buildings will moire like crazy if the deinterlacer is not in cadence lock. Some sections of the tile roof tiles literally have an every-other-pixel on/off pattern. All Faroudja deinterlacers that I've seen will not lock on this, although they will on the WHQL moving wedge test. I've also seen cases where the 5910 will not maintain lock but the venerable old SiI504 will. Does that make the 504 a better deinterlacer? (Rhetorical question here . . . ;) )

In my personal opinion, while you'd like to have the deinterlacer track every scene and test pattern in existence, it's a lot more important what the performance is on real-world program material rather than test patterns. While test patterns have their place, some of them are so extreme or so artificial that their correlation with real program material is close to zero. Have you seen any real-world images where this 'bug' manifests?

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, but I have to question whether the problem is being blown out of proportion. There are many trade-offs involved in deinterlacer design, and nothing is ever perfect. It's very possible to have a deinterlacer algorithm that's good at detecting real problems in real-world images that will also trip up on test patterns. The Pioneer deinterlacer designers may have decided to sacrifice performance on test patterns such as those you're using for better real-world image performance. Then again, the problem may show up on real-world material too. I just haven't seen any evidence for that presented yet.

- Dale Adams


Kris said a few posts before this one that it was a "great player" and that the issue doesn't show up with movies or in normal viewing circumstances. I think at this point, if you own the 79avi and are unhappy with it, it is strictly because one of your criteria in a DVD player is that it has to perform well in a testing environment. In terms of "recommending it" or is it "better" than the 59avi, it all depends on what you are looking for. Again, if passing tests is more important nt than build quality than the 59 is your DVD player. If you are only using a DVD player for watching movies, then with the 79 you get excellent PQ as stated by Kris and a noticeable step up in build from the 59. It all depends what you value, I think it is pretty great news that Kris is saying the PQ for this DVD player is excellent for all of us that buy DVD players for watching movies, for those that need it to perform well with testing disks I guess it is pretty bad news.

Hi Dale, glad to see you contributing to this thread.

If you're using the tests I think you are (e.g, WHQL moving wedge tests and the AVIA Pro cadence tests) then they absolutely are 'high detail' tests. Those test patterns have very strong levels of vertical high frequencies and lots of vertical aliasing. That's probably what's tripping up the Pioneeer deinterlacer's cadence detection.

The issue here is the problem is only when the wedges get to certain parts of the screen and the issue "fades in and out" of the wedge. It is not a hard break and recovery.

As for the high detail tests. It locks on with both the original SuperSpeedway bleacher scene and the Silicon Optix one, but it will not hold through the loop. So far I have only tested two de-interlacers that will hold it through; the Gennum VXP and I think the National Semi-conducter one did too. I also know the one you have in development will as well.

I also have the scene from "The Killer" when they are about to hang him with the roof top. The Pioneer passes this as well but you can see that it is struggling to hold on. No moire though, just a bit of movement in the pan.

I did find a scene that does show a bit of the bug though. The high detail scene in Gladiator when they are panning across Rome and then over the colisseum. As they are panning over the roof tops the bottom right corner shows some of the bug.

If you have the Avia Pro disc Dale, when the resolution wedge goes to the right side of the sceen after it starts speeding up it breaks up with a fade in and out on the very right side. It can't hold the resolution at all when the pattern starts moving vertically. It takes it about 30-40 seconds before it cleans up. So it may very well not handle high detail but it is selective about where it can and can't handle it then. Essentially the far ride side of the screen, the bottom of the screen and pretty much any vertical motion fails.

Well Chouca brought over his player and we tested it. Verdict is, it is a problem with ALL 79AVi's. His did the exact same thing. I showed him what the tests should look like with my Denon 5910 then I switched to the 79AVi I had. He was quite surprised with the issues and how dramatic they were. Then I plugged his in and did the same tests and the exact same things showed up. So it looks like the new processing that Pioneer is using here has some bugs. Whether this translates to viewing normal material is debatable, but there is no doubt that fine detail will be compromised with moving images in parts of the display, regardless of whether you can see it or not.
Great job Kris and Chouca !

Not only did you determine that this finding was not associated with an aberrant player but you guys really expedited the testing of a second player. What was that, less than 24 hrs. since Chouca posted his offer to hook up? Congratulations to both.

At this point, in order to add to a data base to determine the significance of this finding with “real world viewing”, I personally would find it most helpful if people with the 79avi listed the following parameters to keep everything in perspective…..

1. What titles (DVD’s) have you viewed with the 79avi and identified no problems.

2. What display are you using and what the heck is the screen size ???????

3. What is your eyeball is screen distance in feet ?

4. If you know that your visual acuity (either corrected or uncorrected) is anything more or less than 20/20 please let us know. For example, I have 20/15 (corrected) and my Dad who suffers from glaucoma has slightly worse than 20/20 and he can’t see nearly as much fine detail as I can when viewing our display.

Otherwise simply saying that *I watched a bunch of stuff and didn’t see nuthin wrong so buy the player if you’ve got the coin* doesn't mean much to me because I think it may be like mixing apples and oranges.

Just my opinion.

What exactly does the 79ai offer versus the 59ai (other than better build quality, which does not necessarily mean better performance)
I’m soooooo glad that somebody finally has mentioned that. :)

If only for the fact to relieve car manufacturers that went to aluminum block engines and for the people that fabricate the bodies for F1 race cars. :D

I agree with you BillP.

The issue here is the problem is only when the wedges get to certain parts of the screen and the issue "fades in and out" of the wedge. It is not a hard break and recovery.
That's very odd, as I haven't seen any deinterlacer do something quite like that before. The behavior you describe would imply that the Pioneer deinterlacer either is doing cadence detection on a pixel by pixel basis (and is having trouble with a few portions of the image), or that it's mixing in the 2-field weave and a motion-adaptive generated frame based on some internal criteria. Have you seen any indication that it might be doing per-pixel cadence analysis?

I also have the scene from "The Killer" when they are about to hang him with the roof top. The Pioneer passes this as well but you can see that it is struggling to hold on. No moire though, just a bit of movement in the pan.
That scene has some very strong aliasing in it. Even if a deinterlacer is in solid lock on the image it will appear to 'struggle' based on the behavior of the aliasing. This effect all occurs on the rooftops - is that where you're seeing the problem?

I did find a scene that does show a bit of the bug though. The high detail scene in Gladiator when they are panning across Rome and then over the colisseum. As they are panning over the roof tops the bottom right corner shows some of the bug.
That scene also has a lot of very high vertical detail. The roof of the building in the lower right corner probably has the highest level of vertical detail in the scene. It does have a vertical 'on/off' pixel pattern in the roof tiles of that building. This makes it especially challenging to detect a 2:2 cadence for the 50 Hz version, but the 3:2 cadence in the 60 Hz version shouldn't be too hard.

I would guess at this point that the Pioneer deinterlacer has some sort of post-processing on the cadence detection based 2-field weave which looks for deinterlacing artifacts like combing, and then filters the image where it thinks such artifacts are present. If this type of filtering is done on a per-pixle basis it could explain what you're seeing.

If you have the Avia Pro disc Dale, when the resolution wedge goes to the right side of the sceen after it starts speeding up it breaks up with a fade in and out on the very right side. It can't hold the resolution at all when the pattern starts moving vertically. It takes it about 30-40 seconds before it cleans up. So it may very well not handle high detail but it is selective about where it can and can't handle it then. Essentially the far ride side of the screen, the bottom of the screen and pretty much any vertical motion fails.
I have the disc, but I don't have a 79avi to try it with. From earlier comments in this thread I assume that it won't do this on my 59avi.

- Dale Adams

Have you seen any indication that it might be doing per-pixel cadence analysis?

No, but I have some tests that may show if it is. Not even the Realta truly does "per pixel" as Stacey has shown with his tests. I think on his test disc he has some scenes that have different windows working at different cadences and this would kind of determine that issue. He also has a test at work with the clip from SuperSpeedway working at different times that would show that as well. I'll see if I can do some tests with that.

This effect all occurs on the rooftops - is that where you're seeing the problem?

That is exactly where I'm seeing it.

The roof of the building in the lower right corner probably has the highest level of vertical detail in the scene.

That is where it is probably the worse, but the bug carries on the whole time. You can see a lot of noise and artifacts even in the outside walls of the colliseum as it pans over. But it only does this as these things get to the bottom of the image, they are fine on the top/middle.

Are these the type of things that can be corrected by a firmware fix?

Dale

I tried out the DTS sequences that are on Stacey's test disc. The ones with the windows doing different things and the Pioneer combs all of the place, but I don't remember if the windows actually have different cadences than each other. Do you have any suggestions for testing per pixel capabilities?

Dale

Using Faroudja's "per pixel" motion adaptive tests the Pioneer does just fine. There is a bit of a breakup in the lower part of the screen with the mad onion clip though.

I've had my 79 for a week and I am very happy with it, I'm currently using the component not HDMI, but will be trying that tomorrow. The biggest difference I've noticed is the audio (this is my first 4 figure player, wow), I bought this as a universal player and use it as one, while I'm sure there are better specific cd,sacd,dvd... players I feel this player does everything well, if not great and the only other player i could get that does "everything" for this price is the Denon 2910, and I feel this is a better player...IMHO

Not even the Realta truly does "per pixel" as Stacey has shown with his tests.

Interesting, do you have a link to any articles that explain this further? If the Realta doesn't do 'per pixel' then what DOES it do?

Kris,

Have you tried to duplicate this issue over component?

Thanks, Bill

Just a quick semi-off topic. I ordered the WHQL test disc ($58 shipped) and will test my 79AVi when I pick it up this week. So, expect an additional data sample :)

(Now that I'm a few pages behind, I have some reading to do..)

Watched Gladiator and Killer to look for the affected scenes. Killer is not a good transfer and picture doesn't look great anyway but I guess I could see what Kris and Dale are talking about but exactly the same "moire" happened when I played the roof scene on my Sony 9000ES. I could not see anything unusual with the Rome scene on Gladiator but I believe my eyes are not trained for that. If the resolution on the bottom right side is different from the rest I really can't see it. That's probably what make professionals like Kris and Dale different from normal users like me. I am not challenging their finds, just think they are not easy to see .

Sergio

That is where it is probably the worse, but the bug carries on the whole time. You can see a lot of noise and artifacts even in the outside walls of the colliseum as it pans over. But it only does this as these things get to the bottom of the image, they are fine on the top/middle.
Okay, that's pretty weird. Definitely sounds like a bug. I could understand if it does this at certain features in a video sequence, and if those features move so would the effect. But that it does at the same location regardless of changes in the program material sounds like a fault of some sort to me.

The only explanation I can think of is some sort of subtitle or scrolling text (e.g., alerts or stock tickers) filter for sources which have video or 2:2 text overlaid on top of the base 3:2 pulldown program. The bottom portion of the screen is where this normally happens. There isn't any type of user control for something like this, is there?

- Dale Adams

No user control, and it doesn't just do it on the bottom but also on the right side all the way up.

Silicon Optix has a scrolling test that uses a ticker of sorts that I haven't tried yet. I could look at that.

Have you tried to duplicate this issue over component?

Yes, I tested the component this morning and it does the exact same thing at 480P.

Interesting, do you have a link to any articles that explain this further? If the Realta doesn't do 'per pixel' then what DOES it do?

When you talk about per pixel de-interlacing in the sense of what Faroudja tests for it DOES do it. Stacey and I had a conversation about this when I went to see him at Microsoft a few months ago. He had a test that had basically six windows up on the screen each with the Super Speedway clip going at different intervals. Now technically if the de-interlacing was done on a "per pixel" basis instead of a full field or frame, this shouldn't be an issue to show without hangups. But it won't, it couldn't hold all of the windows. Dale would probably know way more about this stuff than I do since he designs video processing algorithums. I am sure the specifics are far more technical.

I tried out the DTS sequences that are on Stacey's test disc. The ones with the windows doing different things and the Pioneer combs all of the place, but I don't remember if the windows actually have different cadences than each other. Do you have any suggestions for testing per pixel capabilities?
The problem with looking for this is that you have to be able to clearly and unambiguously distinguish between motion-adaptive processing for the whole image and different cadence lock for different portions of the image. Normally, this requires special video scenes which are chosen to clearly show when the processor is in video mode. The SuperSpeedway bleachers scene is a good example of this type of material. I don't know of any specific tests which are designed to show just this. I know that Stacey was working on something but I don't know if he has anything ready yet.

Some other possible sources to look at:

1) The chapter selection menu from the first Austin Powers movie has six moving video clips per menu screen. These six small video windows are all 3:2 pulldown but are not in phase with each other. Unfortunately, it may not be easy to tell if the processor is in video mode for the whole scene or not. Also, the beginning portion of the credits from this same disc have vertically scrolling text in 3:2 on the right, and an out-of-phase 3:2 video window on the left (although it's not really valid 3:2 either, but rather is a somewhat irregular pattern). The scrolling text should make it easy to see if the processor has 3:2 lock.

2) The vertically scrolling text scene on HQV test disc may illustrate if the Pioneer processor is treating the bottom portion of the image differently than the rest for all sources. I haven't found it easy to tell if the video processor has cadence lock on the background image, though.

3) The Star Trek: The Motion Picture sequence on Stacey's disc has mixed video and 3:2 throughout the image. Ideally, you shouldn't see combing anywhere in the image.

- Dale Adams

Using Faroudja's "per pixel" motion adaptive tests the Pioneer does just fine. There is a bit of a breakup in the lower part of the screen with the mad onion clip though.
I would expect the Faroudja tests to work as long as the Pioneer processor has motion-adaptive capability. There's no real cadence to detect in those tests. There are a few Faroudja/Sage tests for mixed source types that have scrolling text on the bottom of the image, but if the Pioneer processor is treating the bottom of the image differently than other parts of the image you may not see anything there.

The Mad Onion clip is straight 3:2 pulldown. One gripe I've always had with this clip is that it seems expressly designed to break a particular mechanism used in the SiI504. The 504 has one cadence-detection algorithm that's very good at identifying many types of 'bad' sources. The Mad Onion test has precisely the right pattern needded to trigger this algorithm, and as a result the 504 will not lock to the 3:2 pattern in this sequence.

- Dale Adams

When you talk about per pixel de-interlacing in the sense of what Faroudja tests for it DOES do it.
That's just motion-adaptive deinterlacing, though, albeit on a per-pixel basis. I believe the early Genesis deinterlacers had a full-frame motion adaptive mode which would look for motion over the entire frame and just weave fields together when there was no motion. This was good for static images and DVD menus (well, early ones at least, as the current discs all seem to have some type of animation), but no good at all for most sources.

Stacey and I had a conversation about this when I went to see him at Microsoft a few months ago. He had a test that had basically six windows up on the screen each with the Super Speedway clip going at different intervals. Now technically if the de-interlacing was done on a "per pixel" basis instead of a full field or frame, this shouldn't be an issue to show without hangups. But it won't, it couldn't hold all of the windows. Dale would probably know way more about this stuff than I do since he designs video processing algorithums. I am sure the specifics are far more technical.
One problem with doing per-pixel cadence detection is that you have to keep a history of cadence for each pixel in the image. Basic cadence detection is done by keeping a record of the correlation between fields 1 or 2 field periods apart (i.e., are the fields similar, indicating they came from the same original frame, or are they different, indicating they came from different original frames). For this type of simple cadence detection it's not that onerous to store a history of such comparisons for each pixel. However, more sophisticated cadence detection schemes use much more data than just a simple record of field comparisons. The more data that's used in the cadence detection scheme, the more data which must be stored for each pixel in the image.

One other issue is that while a determination may be made for cadence for each pixel in the image, that determination is probably not based only on pixel data at that one location. A statistically better decision is made by using data from more pixels - i.e., the area around each pixel is used to determine if that pixel shows a particular cadence. Taken to it's extreme, this method gives you full-frame cadence detection, which is what most deinterlacers do. In general, the fewer pixels in the image that are used to determine the cadence, the less reliable that determination is. Now, that general rule breaks down when you have multiple cadences present in the image. However, it is the case that using a very small number of pixels gives you a less reliable measurement. Using more pixels for the measurement is more computationally intensive, though, and therefore requires more resources, particularly when it is done for each pixel in the image.

- Dale Adams

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, but I have to question whether the problem is being blown out of proportion.

Great post, Dale. And this is all I'm trying to say. I appreciate how seriously Kris takes his results, but if I can't see this "bug" while watching movies at any resolution (and believe me - i tried), then the results are more of a curiosity to me than anything else. What I don't appreciate is the initial acceptance of this player after its release and the resulting clamor after Kris' test results. Like a bunch of chicken littles all of a sudden over something that obviously hasn't manifested during normal viewing.

Bottom line, this is a great player and I'm quite happy I purchased it. If I had a 59AVi, would I upgrade? I doubt it, but I'm not the type that is going to rush out and upgrade $15k worth of equipment everytime something new comes out, either. If you've got a 59AVi and you're happy with it, why upgrade? Unless the damn thing can make coffee or grab beers for you while giving you great PQ and performance?

As Dale referenced, it's all about tradeoffs, people.

-bd

Watched Gladiator and Killer to look for the affected scenes. Killer is not a good transfer and picture doesn't look great anyway but I guess I could see what Kris and Dale are talking about but exactly the same "moire" happened when I played the roof scene on my Sony 9000ES. I could not see anything unusual with the Rome scene on Gladiator but I believe my eyes are not trained for that. If the resolution on the bottom right side is different from the rest I really can't see it. That's probably what make professionals like Kris and Dale different from normal users like me. I am not challenging their finds, just think they are not easy to see .
Actually, they are normally very easy to see. If the deinterlacer is in motion-adaptive mode on these scenes the artifacts are obvious. That's one reason why these are such good test scenes (the other being that they tend to break a number of video processors). The moire effects are very much like what you see on the SuperSpeedway bleachers scene (which can also be found on the HQV test disc).

It sounds like your Sony player had problems with The Killer, but not with the scene from Gladiator. If the artifacts didn't pop out at you, they probably weren't there.

Now, the behavior Kris has described for the Pioneer 79avi is different that what you normally see on these scenes when a video processor does not have cadence lock on the 3:2 pulldown sequence. Rather than the processor being strictly modal - i.e., it's either in film mode or in video mode - it appears that it either varies on a per-pixel or region basis, or that it's blending different modes together in some fashion. The latter behavior in particular may make it difficult to identify unless you know exactly what the particular scene is supposed to look like.

- Dale Adams

Great job Kris and Chouca !

Not only did you determine that this finding was not associated with an aberrant player but you guys really expedited the testing of a second player. What was that, less than 24 hrs. since Chouca posted his offer to hook up? Congratulations to both.

At this point, in order to add to a data base to determine the significance of this finding with “real world viewing”, I personally would find it most helpful if people with the 79avi listed the following parameters to keep everything in perspective…..

1. What titles (DVD’s) have you viewed with the 79avi and identified no problems.

2. What display are you using and what the heck is the screen size ???????

3. What is your eyeball is screen distance in feet ?

4. If you know that your visual acuity (either corrected or uncorrected) is anything more or less than 20/20 please let us know. For example, I have 20/15 (corrected) and my Dad who suffers from glaucoma has slightly worse than 20/20 and he can’t see nearly as much fine detail as I can when viewing our display.

Otherwise simply saying that *I watched a bunch of stuff and didn’t see nuthin wrong so buy the player if you’ve got the coin* doesn't mean much to me because I think it may be like mixing apples and oranges.

Just my opinion.


Perhaps a seperate thread with an extensive poll would be better then here. List 3-5 TV types, scaler,connection,rez,distance, and 4-6 performance opinions with a 5 bullet rating for each. Anything else?
I don't think the eye thing would work. Most don't have a clue where their vision is at a given time (unless they wear glasses with a recent adjustment)

E

Thank you Dale and Kris for explained so many different things to me, One of the things that still puzzles me is the fact that I don't know the difference between leaving the player in AUTO-1, AUTO-2 and ON. The AUTO-2 is recommended by Kris as the best option but I noticed that my player behaves strangely sometimes (strobe effect?) when in AUTO-2 and I am now using AUTO-1. My Mitsubishi 73927 , 1080P DLP, also has a "cinema mode" but I can't see any difference using it or not when my 79 is set to 1080i (HDMI). All these combinations probably have some effect on the picture but I don't know exactly what.

Sergio

Yes - Dale & Kris, very nice exchange.

E

Yes - Dale & Kris, very nice exchange.

E

Agreed. This is a perfect example of how great AVS Forum can be!

Actually it is a frustrating exchange for me. Dale is one of those guys that REALLY knows what he is talking about and could probably figure something like this out long before me. But he lives in SoCal and I live in Northern Washington. I would rather show this to him in person rather than try and describe it to him. Maybe I'll mail him the player................

There is mention of a scene in the Gladiator DVD where the problem is noticable. Could someone tell me at what time on the disc this is located so I could check for it.

Thanks, Bill

Well today I decided to buy the 79AVi and return the Denon I bought. It seems like this is still the best player in its price range and nobody so far has had any complaints watching DVD's. So if there is a problem it probably won't affect me. Im just glad that I won't get the excessive MB that I got with the Denon. Thanks to everybody in this thread for the info and helping me with this purchase.

Just curious, I know its the holidays but has anybody been able to talk to someone from Pioneer? Have they been made aware of this "BUG"?

1) The chapter selection menu from the first Austin Powers movie has six moving video clips per menu screen. These six small video windows are all 3:2 pulldown but are not in phase with each other. Unfortunately, it may not be easy to tell if the processor is in video mode for the whole scene or not. Also, the beginning portion of the credits from this same disc have vertically scrolling text in 3:2 on the right, and an out-of-phase 3:2 video window on the left (although it's not really valid 3:2 either, but rather is a somewhat irregular pattern). The scrolling text should make it easy to see if the processor has 3:2 lock.



A word about the Austin Powers credits. Try the scene above, then flip the disc to the 4:3 side and see even more nonsense. Since the active image is "bigger" in the 4:3 version of the credits, deinterlacers try to lock on to the cadence of the moving images instead of the scrolling credits. As as a result, neither looks right.

The Austin Powers credits do look pretty awful, but that is the case with almost every player I've seen.

The Gladiator sequence does look a bit nasty on my display with the 79AVi, so that is a real world sequence where this player faults. I just wonder how many more people will find over time.

The Austin Powers credits do look pretty awful, but that is the case with almost every player I've seen.


Kris,

Can the DVD-5910 handle this scene without combing?

I'll look tomorrow. I looked at it A LONG time ago so I don't remember right off the top of my head. I can check though. I can also check how the Sil504 and National Semi-Conducter do too. Oh and the Faroudja! Forgot I had one of those around too.

There is mention of a scene in the Gladiator DVD where the problem is noticable. Could someone tell me at what time on the disc this is located so I could check for it.

Thanks, BillSomewhere around 61-62 minutes. It's a "fly-over" scene. First, part of the city and then over the staduim. Look at the roofs, especially right hand side. And, yes, this is unrelated to the 79avi, but I thought it was interesting. My SI503 based player handles the R1 disc just fine. But my R2 PAL Superbit gives the player problems - roofs on the right side and "trim" on the staduim "comb" (is that the correct term?).

larry

Somewhere around 61-62 minutes. It's a "fly-over" scene. First, part of the city and then over the staduim. Look at the roofs, especially right hand side. And, yes, this is unrelated to the 79avi, but I thought it was interesting. My SI503 based player handles the R1 disc just fine. But my R2 PAL Superbit gives the player problems - roofs on the right side and "trim" on the staduim "comb" (is that the correct term?).

larry

Larry,

Thanks for your reply. What player are you using is it the 47avi? I will try the Gladiator scene and see how it looks. If I remember correctly this part of Gladiator is used when testing players in regular viewing, do many other players have problems with this scene? How does the 59avi do on this scene?

The reason I ask is if my 79avi has problems with it I will contact Pioneer tomorrow to see if they are aware of any problems with the 79avi. I am also going to PM Chris Walker to see if he is aware of the problem as well, if he still visits the forum.

Thanks again, Bill

What player are you using is it the 47avi? No. I'm using an Ayre DX-7e. No Pioneer DVD players use Silicon Image deinterlacers (that I'm aware of).

I'm seriously thinking about starting a new thread with DVD player "torture scenes" and results so others can benefit also.

larry

I found a section of Gladiator 58:28 to 58:45 that starts coming thru clouds or fog over the city to where it shows an eagle on top of the coliseum. It seems that this part of the DVD is not very clear to begin with. Is this the sequence in question? I see some break up in some points but it happens very quickly. I do not know if it is caused by my display or the player. I am about 8' away from a Panasonic 42PWD6UY which is connected via component directly to the Panasonic.

Bill

I found a section of Gladiator 58:28 to 58:45 that starts coming thru clouds or fog over the city to where it shows an eagle on top of the coliseum. It seems that this part of the DVD is not very clear to begin with. Is this the sequence in question? I see some break up in some points but it happens very quickly. I do not know if it is caused by my display or the player. I am about 8' away from a Panasonic 42PWD6UY which is connected via component directly to the Panasonic.

BillNope. Past that. Brother ("new caesar") and sister (I forget the names) are talking. Then "new caesar" is playing in stadium "model" with 2 figurines, then comes the fly-over. The scene is taken from the air looking down.

larry

I'll look tomorrow. I looked at it A LONG time ago so I don't remember right off the top of my head. I can check though. I can also check how the Sil504 and National Semi-Conducter do too. Oh and the Faroudja! Forgot I had one of those around too.

Yes, please do check.

I tested with both Faroudja and SiL based machines, neither could handle it.

alright I have another dvd u guys could look at. An old James Bond movie, "A View To a Kill". Right at begining of Chapter 18, when Zorin is making a speech. Look at the windows (or rather, the blinds of the windows). moire all over the place. This is very obvious. (There are lots of windows) Can any one check if the Si504/Faroudja based player has this problem ?

That sequence starts at 64:32 to 64:46. I noticed the roof tops on some of the smaller buildings on the right (and the left) break up but not every one. On one or two of the smaller buildings it does not happen. Also along the top edge of the coliseum it does it as well. But I notice it does this in both areas on the left side of this scene as well as the right. If I recall Kris said this problem was on the bottom right of the test disc.

I tried the same scene on a non-progressive Sony with a 35" Mitisubishi that I have in the cellar and it showed problems in the same areas but showed up more as a rainbow type of noise where on the 79avi/PDP it looked more like digital noise. I know this is not a good comparison but it showed issues on the same disc in the same spots. I will try later today to connect my Sony 900v (progressive) to the Panasonic to see how that looks. If anyone has a 59avi I would be curious as to how this sequence plays without any type of outboard processor. Maybe it is the Gladiator disc that has some problems and not the player itself or any player for that matter.

Just another thought is that some people who own the 79avi are now not watching DVDs and enjoying them but looking for flaws in the picture (myself included). I saw in an earlier post about a scene in a Bond movie that they saw an issue. I think that people will start seeing more and more problems with specific DVDs that might have been there right along but people did not notice them before. It would interesting if Kris or anyone else had a 59avi and a 79avi to do direct comparison on normal DVD viewing.

Bill

It is not a problem with the disc. Dale already covered this earlier in this thread. There is just a lot of high frequency information in those scenes just like Super Speedway. Of course other players are going to have issues as well, look how may players have failed our high detail test in the benchmark. But the 79AVi is showing artifacts that are completely different than those players. It doesn't even look the same.

Also, I said the 79AVi was showing the artifacts across the entire bottom with some areas being worse than others. With a rotating resolution hatch the bottom center until about 230 degrees looks the worse. With the Gladiator sequence I though the bottom right and middle looked probably the worse but the artifacts change as the picture scrolls down. Switching over to my Denon 5910 with this scene doesn't show any artifacts at all.

I told everyone here before that this bug has to affect normal viewing at some point. We've now seen a sequence that demonstrates just that. Since this has to do with high detail informaton I doubt that you will see problems very often, but they will pop up on occasion.

I have not been able to follow this thread that closely, however was wondering if some one can post if the 79 has this issue (that has been discussed last few pages) in both 480i (hdmi out) as well as a with a 480progressive feed. Also if one were to use the SONY RUBY projector, does any one have any advise as to which of the two PIONEER models( 59, or 79) would be the better choice.

CHEERS, TC

It doesn't show it at 480i, only 480P or higher.

Either would work fine with the Ruby.

Thanks for the info. The RUBY has a superb built in scaler, so the 480i Hdmi feed should look very clean into the RUBY.


CHEERS, TC

Kris do you know if Pioneer will be able to fix the bug with a firmware fix?

Have no idea, and the other question is would they if they could. It wouldn't be the first time we've reported problems with their products that go ignored. But I am always hopeful.

Let me put some log on this fireplace. I did some "real world" tests (means not professional) with Gladiator and 2 different sets of gear. The first set was my 79 linked through HDMI to a 73927 Mitsubishi. The second set was a Sony 9000ES linked through components to a 50" Panasonic plasma. Here is the result:

- Using the scene described (aerial over Rome and coliseum at 64:30) :

79 at 1080i - I could clearly see the artifacts over the roof of the first house on the lower right corner. Looked worse than a simple "moire' effect, kind of zebra pattern.

9000ES at 480P- The same artifacts on the same place but not as visible as with the 79. Maybe just the size of the display or maybe the 79 is worse.

79 at 480i - BIG SURPRISE. The exact same artifacts on the same place. If we are talking about the Gladiator to show what Kris has discovered I think we are on the wrong path since he says the problem doesn't exist when the player is at 480i.

Could anybody else confirm it?

Thanks

Sergio

I said the artifact that the 79AVi is generating isn't there at 480i. If you put your player to 480i then your monitor is going to do the video processing. There is a better than average chance that it can't handle high detail clips and would have artifacts for that scene. But they will probably be different than the 79's. Even your 9000ES has trouble with that scene.

The Pioneer handles high detail fine in the normal sense, but this bug it has is something completely new so the artifacts are completely different.

FYI + Help
OK--
I just tried Gladiator at the point mentioned and I did see the wavey lines in the roof top on the lower right hand side of the screen. Put my `79 on pause and the lines were still there.
Took the same dvd and tried it in my DV-09 , and the same results , but with a twist, when I paused it with the `09 the wavey lines went away.
So if I have been following this thread correctly , then is that the problem that it "holds the flaw when paused" ?
Because other than that they ( the `09 + `79 ) play the exact same way.
Are there any other discs that you could suggest to try.
I am bothered by this , but gezz , I must have watched that movie a bunch of times and never once noticed the wavey lines in the roof. I guess I will now.
My main question is if that is the problem , then heck it`s not that bad , even by my standards. And like I said I can find fault in any video source , really.
I have returned countless LD`s because of flaws , even a few DVD`s , and a ton of VHS !!!
But the thing that P`s me off most is owning 2 Pioneer dvd players and have them both turn one at once , ( I only want to use one at a time LOL ).
If anyone has a real fix ( like a code , not unplugging or turning on at source) I would sure like to hear it !!
Thanks,
Gary

Gary,
If you go with a remote like the MX-850 from Universal Remote and a MRF base station, you can assign the IR outputs of the RF base station (each one is numbered) for each particular device. Not the cheapest work around but it would work.

And regarding you watching Gladiatior numerous times and not seeing the problem...I think most people won't see problems if they are just kicking back and enjoying a movie rather than watching a movie looking for problems. I always like to set aside some "enjoyment" time in the HT rather than always focusing on "ok, what can I find wrong with my setup today" ;)

Thanks Brian , for the tip :)
I`m the same way , after busting my hump , I just want to relax and watch a movie.
If there is a problem with the player and thats it then , hey I`m not adjusting the color all the time chasing the CUE that my `09 has !!
HDMI ???? I`m not so sure about that, here`s why:
I have a Sony XS955 PDP and tried the THX-Opt. that comes on a lot of discs and the thing that I found most troubling is that every thing is darker with HDMI like the THX background test , I don`t see anything >> I have to turn the brighness up just to see the THX :confused:
Tried the same test with my 09` via component and it checks out perfectly.
So , one on hand it`s good that the XS will allow seperate video adjustments for all connections , but is that the way it`s supposed to be?
Anyway , just wanted to say thanks for the idea , I`ll check it out , and to also mention about the darker picture , more so that normal , both were adjusted the same , component and HDMI and one is darker than the other.
Strange !!
Gary

I realize this is a Pioneer thread, but I've been following it because I was interested in the 79avi. At any rate, I decided to go with the Sony DVP-NS3100ES...mostly because I didn't want to spend $800 on dvd player right now. Anyway, the Sony shows the same flaw on the same rooftop...sort of a wavey set of lines going over the roof. It's not there when paused.

It's funny how critical of components I have become since reading these forums. The only thing I haven't started "evaluating" on a regular basis are my speakers and my sub. Other than those items I am constantly looking for problems. Really takes some of the fun out of having all this stuff. I'm going to hold on to the Sony though, aside from this flaw and some mechanical shortcomings, I generally like the player. I'll at least wait until Kris get's his hands on it and completely tears it up...then I'll feel obliged to get something better.

bri1270.
I had the 3100ES , not a bad play at all , except for the transport and the time it takes to load and eject a disc. In fact I had a few get stuck :( to the point where I had to unplug the player to get the disc out.
Of course , I have no doubt that mine was defective , there has been no mention of anyone getting a disc stuck in there 3100ES ( just my luck , hey LOL ).
Anyway the `79 sure sounds better than the 3100ES, but I have Boston speakers and you kind`a need sunglasses to listen to them LOL they are bright ! But accurate :D
Anyway having the `09 then getting the 3100 I could tell that my speakers needed something to calm them down like Legato Link sound.
My past gear has always been Elite , so my speakers sounded great , still have CLD-99 too.
But the best piece I had was there PD-65 / CD player WOW what a player, the cd went in upsidedown and spun on a wieghted tray. They don`t make them like that anymore :( , and I traded it in for the `09 ( got 500 for it and it was 4yr`s old when traded , but wish I kept it - O well ).
You have a good player and it`s covered by a 5 yr warranty not 2 !!
Good luck,
Gary

Are you guys still plan to keep the 79Avi, even though Kris found the flaw in its deinterlacer?

I just bought the player knowing about the flaw. I have not received it yet. From what I have heard nobody saw anything wrong when watching DVD's until Kris found 1 particular scene in Gladiator that nobody noticed until he pointed it out. If you re-read this thread everybody was extremely happy with the PQ of this player until Kris ran his tests. So I'm going to be happy with my MB free player...I hope!

Are you guys still plan to keep the 79Avi, even though Kris found the flaw in its deinterlacer?

Hell yes.

Kage,
I don`t know , too soon to tell.
BUT i will say this much, SACD`s and DTS cd`s sound amazing.
That maybe reason enough to make it a keeper , I have only had mine 10 days so still need some good `ol fashion quality time with it.
I think it`s a good player , but not a great player.
Like I said for 1k what do you want ? I paid 2k for my `09 that I bought back in `98.
So when you see whats out there , then the `79 is a pretty good deal. It does offer alot of bells and whistles. However like I said it`s way to soon to tell.
But I can say this , I`m not rushing in to HD-DVD`s ;)
I really don`t think alot of people are , I mean gezzzz , look at the collections that people must have and there going to give up on a great format ????
The players today are different , but they are ok.
Nobody builds a player like the DV-09 anymore, and if they did it would cost ( I`m guessing ) about 5 or 6 K maybe more. There are players out there that cost over 50K.
But heck , I`m not buy`n one !!!
Gary

Are you guys still plan to keep the 79Avi, even though Kris found the flaw in its deinterlacer?

I would hope so. Yes this player has an issue with its de-interlacing, but a lot of players have trouble with high detail. I doubt you'll see issues with this much at all. The interesting thing for me is how much different this player handles this stuff compared to others. It is being selective about what part of the screen and what type of artifacts it shows.

Relax and enjoy your players guys, this shouldn't be a problem 98% of the time.

Relax and enjoy your players guys, this shouldn't be a problem 98% of the time.
Tell that to my roofer who specializes in Mediterranean tiles and bought one of these 79 avi's. :)

I would like to know if anyone's compared the Oppo to the Pioneer 59/79avi and what the difference is in terms of picture quality under the same conditions. I want the best pq for my 42" panasonic hd plasma. The Denon 5910 is out of my price range. Comments, suggestions. Thanks, Stu

I tried out the same scene on the 79 and sp1000. The sp1000 does a pretty darn good job on the scene with no hickups to speak of except for some minor jaggies in the curves. With the 79 the roof tops exhibit what looks like moire at first and almost checkerboards then there is significant 'digital noise' or whatever you want to call it as the image scrolls up.

This is in no way as bad as MB though but it will be a deal breaker or ammunition for some. For me the player is on the bubble for other reasons too and I am weighing out my options and I am thankful Kris pointed this out. If I were to watch Gladiator again, for the 3rd or 4th time, I definitely would have spotted this but most likely would have thought it to be a standard deinterlacing issue and not a bug. Overall, this is still a very nice player.

De-interlacing issues aside, I'm looking at buying it as a "low end" player, so to speak, to couple with my DVDO VP30, making it "high end" and near HD DVD. All due to the 480i output and the VP30's superior scaling. Sounds like a perfect combo to wait out the HD/BluRay battle and initial bugs and high prices for a year or so. That's my plan, anyway, since it saves me from buying an SDI output and keeps the HD/BluRay machines at bay for a while.

flint,

you may be seeing my 79 on videogon then soon with 23 months of warranty remaining ;)

I just bought the player knowing about the flaw. I have not received it yet. From what I have heard nobody saw anything wrong when watching DVD's until Kris found 1 particular scene in Gladiator that nobody noticed until he pointed it out. If you re-read this thread everybody was extremely happy with the PQ of this player until Kris ran his tests. So I'm going to be happy with my MB free player...I hope!

I think it is has been pretty much established that the "flaw" matters to those that seek out flaws. It also been also established by the resident expert that the 79's PQ is "excellent". I replaced a Sony 3100 with this Pioneer, the Sony had great PQ but the load/start up time was dreadfully slow, talk about "flaws". There are two camps here, those that are evaluating DVD players based on popping in certain movies or testing disks and looking for the way a particular DVD player handles certain things and those that aren't looking beyond a generally excellent picture. Nothing wrong with being in either camp, it depends on what you have time to do with your DVD player. It also sounds like the majority of the people who are contributing here that actually purchased the 79 appear to be satisfied which is nice to hear. Personally, in addtion to a rich picture, the day to day operation like fast loading/start up, features, sound, appearence all have value to me and I feel that the 79 excells in these areas which is why I think the 79 is an easy recommendation at its' price point.

I found a review on the Pioneer DV-79AVi European version here. (http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/displayreview.php?reviewid=6384) The reviewer noticed the same flaw on the right side of screen and he states that it is display dependent, other wise he gave a glowing review for the dvd player.

just out of curiosity, does that gladiator scene do the same thing with a 59avi? could someone check it out...... that would be interesting!!!!

Geez - I think I see the sun Peeking Through the Clouds.

E

A little on the side here....Do you guys use the Legato feature? I just have it turned to off. I am not sure I understand what it is supposed to add...?

A little on the side here....Do you guys use the Legato feature? I just have it turned to off. I am not sure I understand what it is supposed to add...?

More Hi Freq detail sounds like pixie dust processing to me, but I could be wrong. Nice musical term though (without breaks between notes; smooth and connected)

A slight boost in the Q up top.

E

Thanks :)

alright I have another dvd u guys could look at. An old James Bond movie, "A View To a Kill". Right at begining of Chapter 18, when Zorin is making a speech. Look at the windows (or rather, the blinds of the windows). moire all over the place. This is very obvious. (There are lots of windows) Can any one check if the Si504/Faroudja based player has this problem ?
c722 or others,

I am trying to understand this issue. Please help by describing in more detail what is the "moire" you are seeing "all over the place" on the blinds in the James Bond flick. Is that the same thing as the "zebra" effect someone else in this thread was describing in reference to the roof-tops in Gladiators? I do see that "zebra" effect on the blinds in the scene you mentioned on my Pio 79AVi, but I don't know if that is what Kris' test is pointing out or if this is something else?

Thanks much.

c722 or others,
Is that the same thing as the "zebra" effect someone else in this thread was describing in reference to the roof-tops in Gladiators?

Yes the gladiator scene is similar to the bond flick scene in this regard (i.e. unable to lock the frame correctly therefore many straight lines become "zebra"/"moire"/"checkerbox".) However both scenes are not restricted to the bottom of the screen.

The thing is, no one is really sure what we see are directly related to the problem in Kris's finding in WHQL disk. All these scenes could just well be difficult scenes for which the pio (and maybe others) failed, but then are not related to Kris's findind. What he found on test patterns is that, the pio is doing something wrong on *some* part of the screen. The apparent result of thar is a loss of vertical resolution in that area. Dale of DVDO pointed out there are difficult "real life" scenes with high vertical details where a lot of deinterlacer could not lock. So we started to look around for this.

I'm just curious to see how others perform on these scenes.

Are you guys still plan to keep the 79Avi, even though Kris found the flaw in its deinterlacer?

Yes. I watched parts of Gladiator and Desperado (Hi-Bit) last night, PQ and SQ still are excellent in my opinion. I decided to sit back and enjoy both movies instead of trying to see every flaw. Made it a more enjoyable time to just relax and watch the show!

Bill

I just scanned through the manual and the word "crossover" isn't even mentioned. Can anyone tell me what the crossover point is for DVD-A and SACD? Also, how does this player compare using component outs for video? I don't have a HDMI blade for my Panasonic Plasma yet, and I won't be getting one for a little while anyway.

Thanks

YEY!

I think i fixed the issue guys.

right Kriss try this out, im set in Component out, Auto2, at 480p and i get a solid rooftop in that gladiator scence. with no combing effect but solid detail.
How did i do it, simple.

the key is the Prog motion setting. pause over that scene on the roof in the bottom right corner, Adjust the prog motion setting to fast and you will now see that roof flicker like mad, adjust to middle and is still slightly visible. set to SLOW and its now solid detail,
Play back over the scence and bingo now no weird effect going on. In slow Prog motion its better than the S97 i have, set in middle its worse, set to FAST its a disgrace. but setting to slow Fixes the problem and so far i have not seen it effect anything else. You can test it with your test pattern to see what happens there but it works for gladiator.

Funny thing is i had the player set to slow because it made it easier to take a screenshot in the pause mode. (more stable) and i tried the test in gladiator and it was a ok, and i wondered what you guys were on about as i could not see a problem. so i set everything back to default and then that rooftop shimmerd, combed (what ever one calls it)

But if im wrong i will quite happily fall on my sword for getting all your hopes up.

I have just run the Windows test Annex V3, and if you run the player in anything other than Prog motion set to slow you get bad breakup in the wedge test patterns.

When set to slow the Basic rotating wedge pattern combs(?) ever so slightly in the vertical but the horizontal seems fine.

The alternate pattern combs up a bit more. but this definately is far reduced as there is no break up so i think i have a winner!

Kriss??

"And the crowd goes wild"

I would like to know if anyone's compared the Oppo to the Pioneer 59/79avi and what the difference is in terms of picture quality under the same conditions. I want the best pq for my 42" panasonic hd plasma. The Denon 5910 is out of my price range. Comments, suggestions. Thanks, Stu

I have both of these sitting at home, I hope to try comparing them later this week when I get my Aurora DVI board for my pioneer 503 plasma back. I got the 79avi and oppo both right before christmas only to find out my first production run A303 needed some type of update to make HDMi to DVI work properly.

Cool Dustin, I will check it out when I get home from work this afternoon.

I have just run the Windows test Annex V3, and if you run the player in anything other than Prog motion set to slow you get bad breakup in the wedge test patterns.

When set to slow the Basic rotating wedge pattern combs(?) ever so slightly in the vertical but the horizontal seems fine.

The alternate pattern combs up a bit more. but this definately is far reduced as there is no break up so i think i have a winner!

Kriss??

"And the crowd goes wild"

Sounds promising. Good detective work!

Jedi29,

How would you compare the picture of the 79AVi to the Sony 3100ES??

What is the best setting to have this on anyhoo? I just have mine set to Direct? Am I being a naughty girl?

A break from our normal programming

Finally took a moment to try a CD. A little Jazz (Mike Breaker - Tales From The Hudson) not bad, and my Universal Player Killer - Steve Winwood - Back In The High Life. I have no illusions about universals and their ability to work well with CD, but the 79 was not bad. The Winwood is 20 years old, and you can hear how dated the recording is. On a good player, the midrange doesn't wipe you out. The old analog warm distortion can sound good (assuming you like the music)

I'm getting curious enough to plug the 5.1 direct set and check out some new stuff on DVDA. Might be good?

E

Dustin

Thank you for your research. It looks like you nailed it. I set Prog motion to slow and it almost eliminated any artifact. I say almost because I still can see it but it's about 10% of the original effect. Great stuff but I need to thank Kris again because without him we would not even know that the problem was there.

Congrats!

Sergio

There is a GOD! :p

Audio on this thing is great compared to the DV-38A. The 79AVi is probably one of the best built players available under $2K.

I'm using direct HDMI and I was wondering what setting is best for Pure Cinema? ON/OFF/AUTO1/AUTO2 ??? I'm using AUTO1 right now.

On LOTR ROTK first issue, a poorly mastered disc, I found the 79AVi cleaned up the picture quite a bit. And on a Mits 720p DLP, the rainbows seen on this disc have almost been eliminated. I'm very pleased. The 79AVi looks like a keeper.

Dustin,

Great find.
If you're right you deserve to be promoted to top DVDplayer guru here on AVS. :) :)

Nice job Dustin, hopefully someone will do regression testing to make sure that setting progressive to slow did not have an adverse effect on something else :)

Nice job Dustin, hopefully someone will do regression testing to make sure that setting progressive to slow did not have an adverse effect on something else :)

Oh I'm sure I'll cover that ;)

Kris, any chance to test out that Austin Powers credits scene with the 79Avi or DVD-5910?

Thx guys but were all a team right.

Im sure Kris will confirm if my findings work, and so far i have not noticed any side effects. (again Kris be da man for any side issues).

Beats me why they passed a setting that only seems to hurt the image?

Beats me why they passed a setting that only seems to hurt the image?
There are plenty of settings that can be adjusted to hurt the picture.

My question is: What is this setting supposed to be changing? I'm running 480i, so there is no effect. But even reading the manual, it isn't clear what it does.

From the manual:
Prog. Motion – Adjusts the motion and still picture quality when the player is set to progressive video output. This has no effect when set to ON.

Maybe Kris can run tests with different settings to see what changes.

Audio on this thing is great compared to the DV-38A. The 79AVi is probably one of the best built players available under $2K.

I'm using direct HDMI and I was wondering what setting is best for Pure Cinema? ON/OFF/AUTO1/AUTO2 ??? I'm using AUTO1 right now.

On LOTR ROTK first issue, a poorly mastered disc, I found the 79AVi cleaned up the picture quite a bit. And on a Mits 720p DLP, the rainbows seen on this disc have almost been eliminated. I'm very pleased. The 79AVi looks like a keeper.

Wow, a DVD player that eliminates rainbows. Pioneer could have a real winner on their hands :p

The only way it would eliminate rainbows is if it compromised contrast ratio if I understand things correctly. The DVD player doesn't have anything to do with rainbows.

alright I have another dvd u guys could look at. An old James Bond movie, "A View To a Kill". Right at begining of Chapter 18, when Zorin is making a speech. Look at the windows (or rather, the blinds of the windows). moire all over the place. This is very obvious. (There are lots of windows) Can any one check if the Si504/Faroudja based player has this problem ?

I did check that movie materials on the PC (not with a player!) and apparently problem exists in the source.

I did check that movie materials on the PC (not with a player!) and apparently problem exists in the source.

PC's are usually worse than DVD players when it comes to video processing so just because you're seeing it on a PC doesn't mean that it is a source issue.

PC's are usually worse than DVD players when it comes to video processing so just because you're seeing it on a PC doesn't mean that it is a source issue.

Well, I did convert source to uncompressed AVI (without any conversion, deinterlacing or filtering), I guess it's straight forward process. Although bug in mpeg2 decoder is still possible.

On many of the scenes of LOTR ROTK, rainbows were not present when they were prominent before. It could be because of the settings I have on the 79AVi, but on my DV-38A they were more obvious.

I see no reason that some people wish to ridicule my observations!

Kris

I am looking at a new Player.

Which player would you recommend

the 79Avi or the denon 3910.

Yes the gladiator scene is similar to the bond flick scene in this regard (i.e. unable to lock the frame correctly therefore many straight lines become "zebra"/"moire"/"checkerbox".) However both scenes are not restricted to the bottom of the screen.

The thing is, no one is really sure what we see are directly related to the problem in Kris's finding in WHQL disk. All these scenes could just well be difficult scenes for which the pio (and maybe others) failed, but then are not related to Kris's findind. What he found on test patterns is that, the pio is doing something wrong on *some* part of the screen. The apparent result of thar is a loss of vertical resolution in that area. Dale of DVDO pointed out there are difficult "real life" scenes with high vertical details where a lot of deinterlacer could not lock. So we started to look around for this.

I'm just curious to see how others perform on these scenes.
Well, what I see on the James Bond scene is at 480i. According to earlier posts in this thread, we are not supposed to see Kris' issue at 480i. That is why I am confused and may be I am missing the whole point here.

But I also played the same Bond scene back on my two other (albeit much cheaper) DVD players and the exact same "zebra" effect is on the blinds there as well.

I am wondering why that particular scene couldn't be the source material? Is it not possible that the camera panning in that room to film that scene could have captured that efferct as the lighting changed at the different angles around the room?

Well, what I see on the James Bond scene is at 480i. According to earlier posts in this thread, we are not supposed to see Kris' issue at 480i. That is why I am confused and may be I am missing the whole point here.


actually what kris meant was pio at 480i *and* subsequently fed to an external processor who has better deinterlacing, and in that situation the "problem" was not there. So when u fed 480i directly to your display, your display is doing the deinterlacing. If u see the problem, it just means your display's deinterlacing is not the best either. (This is in fact very likely as most displays dun have a gd processor).


I am wondering why that particular scene couldn't be the source material?


actually I had the same thought. The original source is film so the "zebra"ing definitely can't be in the film. But the mpeg encoding may do it badly. After all this is not a great transfer. I wonder anyone with a "better" video deinterlacer can give it a try. (I dun have a RP82 and my HD+ any more, otherwise I could have tried. :( ) Maybe some expert can really look at the dvd in source frame level ?

(btw this bond scene is much more obvious than the gladiator scene.)

c772,

Gladiator scene is fine with SP1000. There is no moire or obvious noise/loss of resolution.

I'd like Rob Tomlin or some other 59avi owner to comment on how it reacts to the scene.

c772,

Gladiator scene is fine with SP1000. There is no moire or obvious noise/loss of resolution.

I'd like Rob Tomlin or some other 59avi owner to comment on how it reacts to the scene.

That could be difficult for me at this time. I have moved and am in the process of building my new HT! :(

Hopefully it will be done in about 5-6 more weeks.

actually I had the same thought. The original source is film so the "zebra"ing definitely can't be in the film. But the mpeg encoding may do it badly. After all this is not a great transfer. I wonder anyone with a "better" video deinterlacer can give it a try. (I dun have a RP82 and my HD+ any more, otherwise I could have tried. :( ) Maybe some expert can really look at the dvd in source frame level ?


I've played some more with movie on the PC. Two different decoders: WinDVD and some based on DVD2AVI produce exactly the same artifarts. I've tried different modes of deinterlace and no deinterlace at all with second one: got no any difference in regard to defect. So I beleive that those artifacts are results of digital transfer. My 2/100.

If you bypass the de-interlacing in the PC, you are just allowing the display to do it. Eventually SOMETHING does it. And whether that something is better or not than the DVD player is something you have to test for. You have to know the whole chain. It isn't as easy as just saying, I tried 480i so it is not what Kris was talking about. You have to take EVERYTHING into account.

I don't have that Bond title but I'll look into it.

On many of the scenes of LOTR ROTK, rainbows were not present when they were prominent before. It could be because of the settings I have on the 79AVi, but on my DV-38A they were more obvious.

I see no reason that some people wish to ridicule my observations!

Maybe the DV-79 adds a bit of speed to the colorwheel? I have a DV-59 and an Optoma H78DC3, and could use a little help myself. A DVD upgrade would be a heck of alot cheaper than a 3 chipper or an SXRD ;)

If you bypass the de-interlacing in the PC, you are just allowing the display to do it. Eventually SOMETHING does it. And whether that something is better or not than the DVD player is something you have to test for. You have to know the whole chain. It isn't as easy as just saying, I tried 480i so it is not what Kris was talking about. You have to take EVERYTHING into account.

I don't have that Bond title but I'll look into it.

Well, my LCD display driver does render and display progressive images only so only my eyes do deinterlace. And I can see a difference by disabling or enabling deinterlacing during conversion but again: it does not affect moire on blindings. But that is not a point, I'm absolutely agree with you that EVERYTHING should be taken into account, including quality of the test patterns. It's not very likely (but still possible) to have errors in specially designed / professional test DVDs but professionals would not use hollywood production as a reference materials (unless it's verified). That Bond movie must be verified before one can claim results.

There are plenty of settings that can be adjusted to hurt the picture.

My question is: What is this setting supposed to be changing? I'm running 480i, so there is no effect. But even reading the manual, it isn't clear what it does.

From the manual:
Prog. Motion – Adjusts the motion and still picture quality when the player is set to progressive video output. This has no effect when set to ON.

Maybe Kris can run tests with different settings to see what changes.
Based on what has been described in this thread, it seems like the Prog. Motion setting actually relates to the inter-frame motion detection (IFMD) threshold used by the de-interlacing algorithm. This value is used as a threshold to determine when a pixel should be considered as static versus in motion. The lower the value, the larger the assumption that the pixels are in motion.

For the Gladiator sequence (with a higher Prog. Motion setting) the de-interlacing algorithm assumes that the pixels on the roof are static and does a field merge (to maintain the maximum amount of sharpness) and hence produces the artifact that everyone is seeing since the roof is actually in motion. When you lower the Prog. Motion value, it assumes that the pixels on the roof are now in motion and hence does some form of intelligent de-interlacing to reduce/eliminate the artifact.

The down side to lowering this value means that any still (or near still) images that contain noise in the image (such as with off-air signals) will be intpreted as motion and therefore product different artifacts.

This setting is really a personal preference and is usually set depending on the type of content that you normally watch.

I hope that this helps.

Based on what has been described in this thread, it seems like the Prog. Motion setting actually relates to the inter-frame motion detection (IFMD) threshold used by the de-interlacing algorithm. This value is used as a threshold to determine when a pixel should be considered as static versus in motion. The lower the value, the larger the assumption that the pixels are in motion.

For the Gladiator sequence (with a higher Prog. Motion setting) the de-interlacing algorithm assumes that the pixels on the roof are static and does a field merge (to maintain the maximum amount of sharpness) and hence produces the artifact that everyone is seeing since the roof is actually in motion. When you lower the Prog. Motion value, it assumes that the pixels on the roof are now in motion and hence does some form of intelligent de-interlacing to reduce/eliminate the artifact.

The down side to lowering this value means that any still (or near still) images that contain noise in the image (such as with off-air signals) will be intpreted as motion and therefore product different artifacts.

This setting is really a personal preference and is usually set depending on the type of content that you normally watch.

I hope that this helps.
Ah, that makes the manual make sense.

Still I wonder why it seemed to have a poor effect on only part of the screen with the rotating resolution wedge test. I don't have WHQL test disc yet, so I've not actually see the pattern that is being used. So I'm only guessing; maybe it is just the apparent speed of the part of the wedge that is at the right or bottom edge of the screen that pushes it beyond the threshold of the progressive motion setting. That changes the player's deinterlacing from smart to field-merge. Field-merge would result in only 240 lines of resolution.

So that could explain the test pattern breakup as well, as it is in motion and the further you push motion to fast the worse the breakup/artefacts get.

the prog motion setting has to be at full slow to avoid the artefacts/break up.
Just one notch away from slow on the settings slider and the image again breaks up.


does Anyone know a scene that is static to see if setting to prog motion>slow causes any side effects because after a couple of movies i havent seen anything out of place. Or perhaps a test pattern that may be of use.??

The wedge teat pattern i have breaks up on the left as well depending on how prog motion is set but its less obvious because you only see the vertical wedge and not the horizontal on that side of the screen, but cant be sure.

Based on what has been described in this thread, it seems like the Prog. Motion setting actually relates to the inter-frame motion detection (IFMD) threshold used by the de-interlacing algorithm. This value is used as a threshold to determine when a pixel should be considered as static versus in motion. The lower the value, the larger the assumption that the pixels are in motion.

The down side to lowering this value means that any still (or near still) images that contain noise in the image (such as with off-air signals) will be intpreted as motion and therefore product different artifacts.


Thanks for the explanation!

In another words the lower the value the more "aggressive" the deinterlacer will be. Sounds gd to me.

and since this is just a dvd player, unlike an external video processor, it doesn't have to deal with common noise in off-air signals. :D So the only issue it will have will be those poorly transferred materials. Well for that I dun mind at all. A poor dvd is a poor dvd.

btw setting it slow does not solve the bond scene. I'm beginning to wonder whether this is really in the source. The blinds are so many I feel it's probably over the limit of vertical resolution of a dvd.

For the Gladiator sequence (with a higher Prog. Motion setting) the de-interlacing algorithm assumes that the pixels on the roof are static and does a field merge (to maintain the maximum amount of sharpness) and hence produces the artifact that everyone is seeing since the roof is actually in motion. When you lower the Prog. Motion value, it assumes that the pixels on the roof are now in motion and hence does some form of intelligent de-interlacing to reduce/eliminate the artifact.
The problem with this scene is that either will result in objectionable artifacts. The scene is straight 3:2 pulldown, and hence there's a correct and obvious way to deinterlace it. Any motion-adaptive approach will yield visible problems.

- Dale Adams

For the Gladiator sequence (with a higher Prog. Motion setting) the de-interlacing algorithm assumes that the pixels on the roof are static and does a field merge (to maintain the maximum amount of sharpness) and hence produces the artifact that everyone is seeing since the roof is actually in motion.

Surely that's the only circumstance when artifacts SHOULDN'T occur, because the deinterlacer is interleaving two fields from the same snapshot in time (ie. a progressive frame source) and therefore they should match up exactly without producing any artifacts. Or am I misunderstanding your statement?

Ok guys..really..what is the setting to have this DVD player on that most of you have found to be the best...all this bug aside? Then I will go from there. Thanks.

Surely that's the only circumstance when artifacts SHOULDN'T occur, because the deinterlacer is interleaving two fields from the same snapshot in time (ie. a progressive frame source) and therefore they should match up exactly without producing any artifacts.
That's true as long as you can identify the 3:2 pulldown cadence and lock to it. If you can't, then you don't want to just weave each adjacent pair of fields together as that will result in combing (which doesn't actually look like 'normal' combing on some of the rooftops in this scene) on many frames.

If you weave 2 fields together without respect to the 3:2 cadence you will get artifacts. If you perform motion-adaptive deinterlacing you will get artifacts. The only way you won't get artifacts is to always weave the correct 2 fields together based on the 3:2 pulldown sequence.

- Dale Adams

Dale, I've assumed the player has temporarily bounced out of film mode.

Unfortunately, I don't have this player to do further testing.

Dale, I've assumed the player has temporarily bounced out of film mode.

Unfortunately, I don't have this player to do further testing.
Based on Kris's description, I don't think that's the case. He described behavior that persisted long after what should be just a temporary loss of lock (e.g., at a scene change), and which didn't encompass the entire image. Now, perhaps the Pioneer deinterlacer can't track the cadence in that scene at all - that might explain at least part of what is being seen. However, based on the description of the player's performance in other scenes there still seems to be something odd going on.

Unfortunately, I don't have this player either. So I guess we're both just making educated guesses here. ;)

- Dale Adams

I noticed that the 79AVi doesn't have THX certification. Did Pioneer give this up on the Elite players when the 59AVi was introduced? Once upon a time, THX certification had some meaning to it. I doubt if it is as relevent today.

THX certification in DVD player NEVER had any meaning. They didn't even have a test criteria until recently (which I still don't know what it is). THX said they didn't see the need.

Is it safe to say" stick with my 59" for now. I don't hear anything awesome so far.

THX certification should atleast mandate the proper luminance values at all outputs, analog & digital.

OPPO is a great example of an exellent player which missed this mark early on.

I'm sure you could name many other players which also play a little fast and loose with their output levels.

Is it safe to say" stick with my 59" for now. I don't hear anything awesome so far.
That's what I would do. I generally don't think it's worth it anyway upgrading every time a new model is released (my DLP is 2 generations old, and I have no desire to upgrade it); improvements tend to be more modest than dramatic. Add to that the fact that nobody has posted an improvement in PQ, 59ai versus 79ai, based on a head-to-head comparison, and I would definitely stick with what you have, which is, afterall, a great player.

Is it safe to say" stick with my 59" for now. I don't hear anything awesome so far.

From what I've heard--and I've been following the 79 story very closely--the answer seems to be 'yes' if you're primarily concerned with video performance. The 79's build quality is certainly more sturdy than the 59 (which I find to be just fine, though), and all seem to say that the audio has a significant improvement. But the video seems to be only marginally better, if at all.

I set the progressive motion to slow and it made a big improvement in the "coliseum" scene in Gladiator. It will be interesting to see if changing this setting improves the results of Kris' test. Also thanks to Dustin for his detective work!

Bill

Kris , we need your verdict . Did the progressive motion set to slow solve the problem?

Thanks

Sergio

Kris , we need your verdict . Did the progressive motion set to slow solve the problem?

Thanks

Sergio


I'm sure Kris will post as soon as he knows something.

I like this Pioneer Elite...that will play the soon to be released TFE with uncompressed audio.
Something tells me it may be just a bit better than the 79avi :)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=49173

Yeah, but that player is about 2x the cost of the 79.

Watched T2 and then Wedding Crashers tonight and after setting the progressive motion to slow I saw no problems at all. Wedding Crashers was a pretty good movie but I found the PQ of the DVD to be excellent.

Bill

I like this Pioneer Elite...that will play the soon to be released TFE with uncompressed audio.
Something tells me it may be just a bit better than the 79avi :)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=49173


Nice - like the BR logo

E

Yeah, but that player is about 2x the cost of the 79.

And I will gladly buy one the day it is available!

It would be rude not too

But when is it expected?

And I will gladly buy one the day it is available!

Me too...its cheaper than my sd player ;)

Problem is the Pioneer Blu-Ray doesn't do SACD or DVD-A.

I can not see spending $1800.00 for a player thats format could be on the end of a losing format war. I would wait a least a year till players would be priced lower, to see which format will prevail (maybe both will ), and for more titles to come out. I am quite happy with the 79avi for now.

Bill

Setting the progressive speed to min does not seem to be ideal. While watching Mr. Mrs Smith it intoduced combing at the helicopter scene in the beginning of the movie. It was brief but it was there.

I can not see spending $1800.00 for a player thats format could be on the end of a losing format war. I would wait a least a year till players would be priced lower, to see which format will prevail (maybe both will ), and for more titles to come out. I am quite happy with the 79avi for now.

Bill
I agree with you. And it doesn't even play redbook CDs, let alone high res audio.

Setting the progressive speed to min does not seem to be ideal. While watching Mr. Mrs Smith it intoduced combing at the helicopter scene in the beginning of the movie. It was brief but it was there.

Tried that one, better scene to look at is chapter 1-4. the camera pans left to right over a bunch of skyscrapers. Setting player again to Fast prog. motion makes it worse. but also prog. motion set to slow and Auto 2 is not ideal. Set prog. motion to slow but selcect auto 1 and all the artefacts are gone again (and it sorted the helicopter scence as well). My disc is the Pal version though.

Slow is still the best setting but you need to change the Auto1/2 mode for best results, which is going to be a royal pain in the butt.

I'll try auto 1 tonight.

Let's stick to the 79avi, please.

larry

I tried it with my s97 and on that the skyscrapers just appear to exhibit alot of noise type flicker. So not perfect with faroudja either.

I don't mean to repeat myself but has anyone been in touch with Pioneer about the "bug"? If so, what do they have to say about it? Is there a fix? Is it fixable? Its frustrating when these companies (not just Pioneer) take so long to respond. Atleast they could say they're aware of a problem and are looking in to it.

Brad

Does anybody know if setting progressive motion to slow fixes the problem with the rotating wedges test pattern described by Kris? :confused:

Does anybody know if setting progressive motion to slow fixes the problem with the rotating wedges test pattern described by Kris? :confused:

We don't know. We are all waiting for "the return of Kris".

Sergio

When watching Desperado (superbit) the other night I noticed a lot of noise on a wall that was in the background in a scene in the movie. I went into the video settings and turned up both YNR and CNR to 80%. I replayed the same scene over again and found the noise was greatly reduced.

I played a few more discs where there were scenes where I have seen this problem (foggy or clouds) and found the picture to be much improved. I have read that sometimes these types of noise reduction settings might effect the PQ in a negative way but saw no decrease in PQ with both YNR and CNR increased.

Bill

Oooh, I got my WHQL test disc in the mail today :) Too bad I have to go out tonight. Can't wait to fire up the PJ and do some testing soon.

I'm such a tease.

When watching Desperado (superbit) the other night I noticed a lot of noise on a wall that was in the background in a scene in the movie. I went into the video settings and turned up both YNR and CNR to 80%. I replayed the same scene over again and found the noise was greatly reduced.

I played a few more discs where there were scenes where I have seen this problem (foggy or clouds) and found the picture to be much improved. I have read that sometimes these types of noise reduction settings might effect the PQ in a negative way but saw no decrease in PQ with both YNR and CNR increased.

Bill

How do those scenes look with the different prog. motion settings?

How do those scenes look with the different prog. motion settings?

If I remember correctly the progressive motion was set to slow before I increased the YNR and CNR settings. I really did not expect to see that much of a difference with the different settings but it really helped the PQ. Now whether with these settings would or would not pass the tests that Kris does is another question. But I think the PQ looks excellent in normal viewing.

Bill

Hi,

So I stopped in at BB/Mag store today and the sales man said the dv79avi is in close out status and that a new player the dv94 (he thourgh) si to be released soon to replace it. (It is supposed to be a standard def only player no BR or hdvd)

Anyone else heard this?

God bless...

Mark

I was wondering if you could try the prog. motion on different settings and see if it effected those scenes at all - because from reading before it sounded like noisier transfers might suffer from the slower prog. motion setting. That's all.

Hi,

So I stopped in at BB/Mag store today and the sales man said the dv79avi is in close out status and that a new player the dv94 (he thourgh) si to be released soon to replace it. (It is supposed to be a standard def only player no BR or hdvd)

Anyone else heard this?

God bless...

Mark

This would be surprising if true.

The player hasn't been out very long.

Maybe a DV49 to replace the DV47 ?

So I stopped in at BB/Mag store today and the sales man said the dv79avi is in close out status and that a new player the dv94 (he thourgh) si to be released soon to replace it. (It is supposed to be a standard def only player no BR or hdvd)

Anyone else heard this?
That seems pretty unlikely since the 79 was just released a few months ago, and Pioneer only very recently updated their website calling it the current flagship DVD player. Also the rest of Pioneer's current Elite line is all following the 7x naming system. Not to mention that the new flagship receiver which will also be a 79 has not even been officially announced yet (any day now).

More than likely he was just confused. The 59 is probably being phased out, as it is the old flagship. For a long time now Pioneer has used the x9 model number to indicate the top Elite model. So the 79 would never be replaced with a 94.

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed the DV-47Ai is gone from the Elite DVD comparison page. That is probably the one being EOLed.

What a scarry thought !!!!
Still hang`n with the `79 , ( no smiles made yet ,lol)
New Pioneer reciever 79 ?????
I didn`t hear that , but it would make sence , I bet that price is going to be far greater than the 74, but what else could it have ? Better parts , maybe true HD upconversion for there new 1080p plasma`s ?
O dear , will this never end :D
I hope not , I live for this stuff , now all I have to do is get my wallett to agree !!

Has anyone been trying to optimize the output settings for using component output to a 4:3 analog CRT? I am using an older 36" Toshiba 4:3 CRT (very good picture) and would like to tweak the settings for best picture.

Well my 79AVi came in yesterday. I am replacing a Denon 2910. I must say that to me this player is amazing. I have it hooked up to my SXRD via HDMI 1080i. The picture looks unreal. The colors seem very true to the original source. I watched parts of several DVD's last night and was truly impressed with every one. Also the sound is 1st rate....by far the nicest player I have ever owned. Ohh...and the build quality speaks for itself. Now I am pretty picky about my home theater. The MB on the Denon drove me crazy. However I am not the person who instead of enjoying a movie tries to look for a single flaw in an 8 second scene of an entire movie. I am sure that there are times that this player does not display something correctly but I definitely cannot tell....and I don't even want to try to look for it. Simply put movies look and sound amazing on this player and I couldn't be happier. Thanks to all of your input to help me make the decision to buy it!

Glad you like it Spinn. Knew you would. Enjoy! :D

Well my 79AVi came in yesterday. I am replacing a Denon 2910. I must say that to me this player is amazing. I have it hooked up to my SXRD via HDMI 1080i. The picture looks unreal. The colors seem very true to the original source. I watched parts of several DVD's last night and was truly impressed with every one. Also the sound is 1st rate....by far the nicest player I have ever owned. Ohh...and the build quality speaks for itself. Now I am pretty picky about my home theater. The MB on the Denon drove me crazy. However I am not the person who instead of enjoying a movie tries to look for a single flaw in an 8 second scene of an entire movie. I am sure that there are times that this player does not display something correctly but I definitely cannot tell....and I don't even want to try to look for it. Simply put movies look and sound amazing on this player and I couldn't be happier. Thanks to all of your input to help me make the decision to buy it!

I am thinking hard about getting this player to replace my Denon 1920. So you really can tell a big difference in PQ? That's good to hear... It will probably be an even bigger improvement for me.....

I am not the person who instead of enjoying a movie tries to look for a single flaw in an 8 second scene of an entire movie. I am sure that there are times that this player does not display something correctly but I definitely cannot tell....and I don't even want to try to look for it. Simply put movies look and sound amazing on this player and I couldn't be happier.


Yep! Me 2ski ;)

E

Has anyone tested the 79 for Y/C delay via component? That is my one and only gripe with the 59.

I was wondering if you could try the prog. motion on different settings and see if it effected those scenes at all - because from reading before it sounded like noisier transfers might suffer from the slower prog. motion setting. That's all.

Yes, I can try that tonight or tomorrow. Will let you know, I am curious what changing the progressive motion will do with YNR and CNR settings.

Bill

Has anyone tested the 79 for Y/C delay via component? That is my one and only gripe with the 59.

I will be glad to as I am using component. But I do not know how to test for Y/C delay, if you let me know I will give it a shot.

Bill

Does anybody know if setting progressive motion to slow fixes the problem with the rotating wedges test pattern described by Kris? :confused:


If you read my post for the prog. motion setting you would of seen i tested it with the wedge pattern and it did indeed get rid of the breakup. There is still a touch of combing but it looks 90% better than it did with prog. motion set to default or fast.

Bill Mac,
There's a test pattern for it in AVIA, under the "advanced" stuff.
Thanks!

Bill Mac,
There's a test pattern for it in AVIA, under the "advanced" stuff.
Thanks!

I have DVE but do not have Avia. I will look to see if I can test it with the DVE.

Bill

I've been browsing and searching this excellent thread to find the information that I've been looking for that will help me decide whether to buy this player, but couldn't find the info, so here goes:

1) Does 79avi have a built-in audio delay (to fix lip sync) function? Somebody mentioned getting a felston, but if I am going to drop the money on the flagship player, I don't want to spend another $250 and have another ugly box with more cables.

2) On analog out, does 79avi have any kind of bass management and speaker distance settings for cds, sacd and/or dvd-audio? By this I mean, that if I have 'small' speakers and a subwoofer, will it redirect lower frequencies of sacd, etc. to the subwoofer?

Thanks in advance,
Stan

Stan, short answer to your questions:

1. No but I never had a lip sync issue while playing DVDs with this player.

2. Yes but only for 5.1 analog audio (SACD, DVD-A, Dolby 5.1 and DTS via the analog outputs).

You can download the 79Avi manual in PDF format off Pioneer's website... The manual explains bass management for 5.1 analog outputs among other things.

I tried the Gladiator scene on a 59avi.

It may not directly answer to what Kris sees on the 79avi, but I thought it might be of interest to see how the 59 handles that scene, so here goes: I tested NTSC and PAL discs.

NTSC: on 'Pure Cinema Auto2 and OFF' I clearly see artifacts on the lower right-side rooftop; on 'auto 1 and ON' everything's fine.

PAL: all is fine with 'Pure Cinema ON', and only there, every other setting has problems, even auto1.

Setting the progressive motion to 'slow' does not make it go away, it does lessen it somewhat though. BUT the player clearly goes in and out of video mode every half second or so, and the resolution of the picture varies accordingly.

Problems are moire on the lower right-side roof and the stairs of the roof-temple in the middle of the picture (to be fair: those stairs never look quite resolved in any mode)

I found another very good scene to use right before the panning roof scene, when Ceasar plays with two dolls in a model amphitheatre: the stairs of the model on the right side and most noticably the floor of the model shimmers with moire in anything but auto1 and Pure Cinama ON mode in NTSC and Pure Cinema ON in PAL.

The difference between PAL and NTSC are probably to be attributed to the difference between 2-2 and 3-2 pulldown.

However, the fact that this scene is encoded as a straight 3-2 (or 2-2) pulldown scene, and as such should be correctly assembled by a flag reading de-interlacer, does seem to indicate that the level of detail present in the picture trips up the deinterlacer and drops it into video mode.

Maybe the 79avi tries to improve on this (successfully or not...).

hi there, its the first time i post here,i am from portugal and i dont write very well english so sorry the gafs...
i have the dv 989avi (european model of dv79) connected to the vsx ax4avi ( vsx74txvi) and a panasonic ptae 900 and i have buy these last november. Many tests i have made with the 79 and the panny 900 using thx optimizer only and the eye on many dvd from R1 and R2.my veredict is that the pio 79 is a great machine with a fabulous image.i used before the dv 49 and in comparation the dv 79 is far mutch beter

Welcome drigos - We Agree

E

after many tests, simple ones, not with AVIA or so... i am using these setings:
DV79
HDMI at 1280|720p
Full range RGB
put direct to memory 2 and +1 for detail and +1 for white level
Pure cinema at auto 1

Panny 900
CINEMA 3 with
contrast -1
bright +11
color +2
tint -7
sharpeness +1
color temp +1
Dinamic iris ON
NR on
Lamp power Low

For me these settings are the best i have found with the two conected, but i still have some dificults to calibrate the tint issue because more tint the image became yelow less tint the image became magenta!!!
I found full range RGB better than component 12 bit; beter blacks, beter whites and beter colors.
i would like to put here some photos that i have taken but i dont know how to do it!!!

What are you using to calibrate?

No word from Kris, I was hoping he would have some results of testing the 79avi in slow progressive. Maybe he is in Vegas for CES. I know be patient!

Bill

Okay, its taken 2 weeks, but I got my A303 DVI plasma interface board, back from Aurora with some table update to an eprom and some code reloaded to my board. Now, with my DVI to HDMI adpater, voila! It works. I really convinced early HDMI hardware and early DVI hardware has the occaisonal bug.

I have a neighbor who tells me a friend of his has Sony(LCD proj TV) that won't see his HDMI dvd player period, but it does see his DVI player with an HDMI cable, so go figure.

They claimed it should have worked before, but it didn't. The good news is they reloaded and updated the code in the board and now it does.

SO I can finally compare my new oppo and the 79avi. I also have a new Panaonic 50 inch panel coming next week so I will be busy.

My FIRST questions, being a nut for detail, WHAT settings are you using your 79avi on now and why?

Pio panels use pc rgb settings for anyone who has a panel like that.

Yes, I have read this thread but it seems to be a work in progress so I post looking for the latest info. ;)

BTW on a quick preview on one of the Star Wars discs, I find the video to be MUCH smoother, perhaps a bit soft but then the oppo and the 2910 use the Faroujda chipset which is sharp to the point of being grainy and has MB of course.

I am betting probably 2 types of memory settings should be stored, one for film and one for video.

BTW, even 2 channel audio out of this thing, I can hear expanded range and clarity, it's a dam nice audio player.

So, settings 79avi experts?

Thanks ! :D

i used simply the THX optimode to calibrate the contrast, bright, color and sharpeness; as for tint its my troy horse! since, unfortunatly, i dont have AVIA i used a comun sense calibration or i say an eye sensibility test... i used some dvd with specific senes like people faces, sky´s, seas, flowers etc.. and the result is, in some movies simply terryfic, if i could i put some fotos here you to see...the detail, the contrast and the color its amazing for a 1000 dvd player and 2000 projector. But in some other movies i fell that the tint need better calibration that i have dificult to do it.
The only problem that i found on this dvd player is that if the pure cinema is set to ON or AUTO1 i see some problems in the deinterlacing process in the menus on some movies like ice age. the same problem described on page32 in these forum, but desapears if i put in OFF or AUTO2!!!???? Can anyone explayned these to me???

No word from Kris, I was hoping he would have some results of testing the 79avi in slow progressive. Maybe he is in Vegas for CES. I know be patient!

Bill

Kris and I emailed back and forth yesterday a few times, and he planned on firing up the 79avi this weekend to further evaluate, including audio. He'll post soon, I'm sure. He wasn't at CES to my knowledge.

Kris and I emailed back and forth yesterday a few times, and he planned on firing up the 79avi this weekend to further evaluate, including audio. He'll post soon, I'm sure. He wasn't at CES to my knowledge.

Thanks Ted, I was just being impatient. I have to work on that, I'm sure Kris will give an in depth review as always.

Bill

Well between my Mom's B-Day, my B-Day and hooking up my XBox 360 to live last week, I've been a tad distracted. I will be doing a lot more extensive testing with the 79AVi this week and look for a full review on Secrets very soon.

When I set the 79avi HDMI to any RGB setting the picture looks very blurry for some reason. It looks good on component 12. Is that supposed to be ok for an HDMI connection?

I would only recommend the Component color space anyways if you are using the HDMI output.

Well that's a relief. Thanks

Happy Birthday Kris!!

I would only recommend the Component color space anyways if you are using the HDMI output.

What makes the "Component" color space better? Most recommendations in this thread have been to use the Full Range RGB setting when using the HDMI output in the 79avi. Does the display device matter when making the choice?

The full range RGB setting recommendation comes from the 59AVi setup hints, which should partially be applicable. The 12bit Comp option is new to the 79AVi.

And yes, happy bday Kris :) I hope you have many years of finding flaws in my DVD players ahead of you :p

What makes the "Component" color space better? Most recommendations in this thread have been to use the Full Range RGB setting when using the HDMI output in the 79avi. Does the display device matter when making the choice?

No colorspace conversion in the player, higher bit depth for the output.

No colorspace conversion in the player, higher bit depth for the output.

So, if you're using the 79AVI at 720p/1080i and your display only processes these resolutions with the ATSC colorspace, then images will be incorrect?

I believe Kris meant no YCbCr -> RGB conversion and using YCbCr allows higher bit depth. YCbCr and RGB can both carry the bits of either ATSC or NTSC standards color.

larry

i used the component 12 bits, and maybe this one compare with full RGB as a little more detail, and i say a little, because in comparation the full range as better blacks better whites and better colors and black and white in a projector is very important.maybe if you conected the dv79 on a plasma the component 12 bit is a better choice!?the only problem is that if you used full range RGB you have to calibrate all the setting in the projector, i have to put the bright +11 or you can put IRE of the dv at +7.5, but i didnt like, so for me the first choice is the better one, maintain the IRE at 0 and pull up the bright of the projector,but you know different people as different tastes and different choices,and i am not a pro so i will continue testing other options

All I know is full range and regular RGB just looks really bad on my set through HDMI.

Hi all,

I bought a 79AVi over Christmas from Sound Advice (Tweeter), and have been very impressed with it's performance. I chose this player primarily because I chose to go with a Pioneer Elite VSX-74txi as my receiver, and this player allows me to connect via I-Link for audio. The build quality is way up there, too, and that always helps...at least from a psychological standpoint.

I would say the improvement over my old Pioneer Elite DV-05/ICBM combination has been worth the cost. Regarding audio purposes these components provide a lower noise floor, better dynamic range, and clearer dialogue through my NHT speakers compared to my old equipment. SACD performance is oustanding. For a test of these components capabilities I recommend one listen to Telarc's "Epics" SACD. The "War" cut from the movie "Pearl Harbour" is truly impressive. I found myself turning the volume up, something I never wanted to do before on my old system. The other benefit of this combination is the elimination of a dozen or so interconnects!

The new Aerosmith greatest hists SACD is also very good for two-channel SACD. The cut "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" has never sounded better; so much grime and gook is just...gone...compared to the CD version. Regular CD sound is great, too, but I must admit a little letdown compared to the SACD sound, but that's to be expected. The movie "Glory" soundtrack has great range, and I found myself, again, turning the volume WAY up, especially the "Charging Ft. Wagner" finale. The movie "Braveheart" soundtrack has a cut that really makes the case for mult-channel music. In DTS NEO 6 music mode the cut "The Battle of Stirling Bridge" is simply scary as the English calvary gets closer and closer, and the violins get louder, and louder. Closing my eyes, I felt I was with William Wallace.

Movies are very dynamic through this combination, delivering great weight and dynamics to everything I have thown at it so far. One of my favorite tests is the opening scene of "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring". The battle scequence was incredibly delivered, and at even high volumes, I did not find the sound fatiguing. Dialogue was also very clear.

As far as video quality is concerned the torture test of the Roman Eagle in "Gladiator" was very smooth in Auto 2 mode, and progressive scan set to slow, as recommended by Dustin. Colors are very true, and any limitation I perceive is probably due to my old Hitachi CRT RPTV than anything the player isn't doing.

I would highly recommend this combination to anyone seeking a player/receiver that will tide them over until the hi-def war is settled.

Z

OK all this afternoon i did more tests about the comp 12 bit and full range RGB and i am starting to get a little confused what to use...

Hi all,

I bought a 79AVi over Christmas from Sound Advice (Tweeter), and have been very impressed with it's performance. I chose this player primarily because I chose to go with a Pioneer Elite VSX-74txi as my receiver, and this player allows me to connect via I-Link for audio. The build quality is way up there, too, and that always helps...at least from a psychological standpoint.

Z

I also have both the 74txvi and the 79avi. Could not be happier as are you. Listened to quite a few SACDs this weekend at as loud as+5 and was loving every minute of it!

Bill

I'm currently a Pio Elite 45a owner, and looking to replace it with the 79avi for a number of reasons, not the least of which are HDMi 1.1 (for DVD-Audio bitstream, at least), 480i over HDMI (getting ready for the Anthem D2 with Gennum) and overall better build. Can anyone who went from 45a to 79avi (or 59 I guess) comment on the differences in analog audio? It's mainly my DVD-Audio player; I have a separate SACD player with mods, so it beats the 45a there. I'd love to also understand whether the 79avi converts DSD to pcm so it can travel over that HDMI 1.1 path too.....or does it convert to pcm simply to do bm and time alignment, then back again....Thx,
Ted

I also have both the 74txvi and the 79avi. Could not be happier as are you. Listened to quite a few SACDs this weekend at as loud as+5 and was loving every minute of it!

Bill

+5? :eek:

My God, that's loud! With the "Glory" soundtrack I did get the volume past 0 (I think), but only for a few seconds. My wife would not approve so I only do these crazy things in my quiet, peaceful moments when I am alone, and the neighbors are not home (I'm in a condo). I am waiting for the proper moment to do my two ultimate demo SACD tracks: Telarc's "Carmina Burana" and "1812 Overture".:)

I generally watch movies at -10 to -15. Been a blast! Any suggestions you have with your setup that I could incorporate? As I said, I have the I-Link connection for all the audio needs. For video, I have a DVI adapter attached to the 79 running into the Hitachi RPTV's DVI in. The player is upconverting the signal to 1080i, my set's native rate.

Thanks for the comments, and enjoy!

Z

Guy`s ,
Please , turn it down !!!
Sorry , I don`t mean to sound like an old fart :) , but nerve deafness is a real thing.
I have an old amp ( DSP-A1G with an equally old analog volume control ) and using the old "clock method" , I rarely need to go past 10 o`clock and for most media 9 is fine :D
Just a thought , and a quote from Pioneer " We want you listening for a life time "
Gary ;)
PS:
I must admit that I do take exceptions to that rule , if you really want to rattle a few things try Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" = SACD :) :D
That Velodyne ( SPL-1200R ) is still "A-OK" :D

I'd love to also understand whether the 79avi converts DSD to pcm so it can travel over that HDMI 1.1 path too.....or does it convert to pcm simply to do bm and time alignment, then back again....
The 79 only outputs DSD over i.Link. It never converts it to PCM. It can decode DSD for the analog outputs. SACD played on the analog jacks is not time aligned, but the bass management features still function.

So the brings the question. Is Pioneer doing the crossover work in the analog domain? Obviously the delay is digital.

Someone else asked what the crossover point is. Just watching and listening to the Avia sweep it seems to behave the same as my receiver when it is set to 80 Hz. So that is a pretty good guess.

Hi Guys,
Here`s what happend to me !
I was listening to a SACD and heard my sub almost constantly rumbling.
DAAAA,
I didn`t do the speaker set up thing, so once I changed from the default setting of all large , to mains large and center and surrounds small , the sub souned just fine.
I have really no idea for sure what the cross is , but my guess would be 80Hz with just the mains as large.
I hope this helps,
See you guy`s in the AM -- Goodnight , and don`t forget to dream of either BlueRay or HD -DVD , sorry I just had to throw that in !! :)
Gary

The 79AVi does not convert to PCM and never does time alignment for SACD. A feature that is unfortunately a big oversight at this point in the game in my opinion. Multi-channel playback of music needs to be properly time aligned if your speakers are not equidistant throughout the entire room.

I have yet to hear an audible degradation in sound when DSD is converted to PCM. Hell even the $13K flagship Teac Esoteric Universal player immediately converts DSD to PCM so that they can process the signal properly. The best sounding players I've heard to date all convert to PCM.

The 79AVi does not convert to PCM and never does time alignment for SACD. A feature that is unfortunately a big oversight at this point in the game in my opinion. Multi-channel playback of music needs to be properly time aligned if your speakers are not equidistant throughout the entire room.

I have yet to hear an audible degradation in sound when DSD is converted to PCM. Hell even the $13K flagship Teac Esoteric Universal player immediately converts DSD to PCM so that they can process the signal properly. The best sounding players I've heard to date all convert to PCM.

My point exactly! If PCM from the DSD conversion has no audible degradation, then why can't they throw it on the HDMI 1.1 digital highway just like they do DVD-Audio's PCM. We'd have a full digital solution and no need for the 1.2 hardware/software mess. I fail to believe that no universal out there can do this. Even Leslie Chard, President of HDMi.org, says it can be done, and has been. Weird.

...then why can't they throw it on the HDMI 1.1 digital highway just like they do DVD-Audio's PCM. We'd have a full digital solution and no need for the 1.2 hardware/software mess. I fail to believe that no universal out there can do this.
Why can't they? Licensing. Sony says you can't have the SACD logo, nor can you call yourself an SACD player if you convert the DSD to PCM and output it. Technically the terms are a bit different than that, but it is what it boils down to in the end.

Also not all DVD-A discs are allowed to be converted to PCM, and some only at a reduced sampling rate.

HDMI 1.2 will pass a pure (although encrypted) DSD stream. Sony is OK with that. Also i.Link (which, by the way, is Sony's name for IEEE1394, FireWire is Apple's) supports an encrypted transport mode (originally intended for HD video and used with D-VHS players) so Sony allowed DSD to be passed on it too.

EDIT: I'll correct myself the IEEE1394 mode is not encrypted like HDMI, but copy restricted. Any compatible device must obey the restrictions flagged in the stream headers.

This is the quote from Leslie CHard, HDMI.org President:
"For instance, from HDMI 1.1 to HDMI 1.2, One Bit Audio support was added - the type of audio used for SuperAudio CD. Prior to HDMI 1.2, some SACD players could play a disk in SACD format, and send the audio to an audio amplifier over HDMI, but it could only send the data in the more common PCM format, after having converted from the native SACD format."

If one can do it...

By the way, HDMI 1.1 handles ppcm too so DVD-Audio has few (if any) restrictions on it.

This is the quote from Leslie CHard, HDMI.org President:
"For instance, from HDMI 1.1 to HDMI 1.2, One Bit Audio support was added - the type of audio used for SuperAudio CD. Prior to HDMI 1.2, some SACD players could play a disk in SACD format, and send the audio to an audio amplifier over HDMI, but it could only send the data in the more common PCM format, after having converted from the native SACD format."

If one can do it...
And every DVD player could play all region discs, allow the user to push the menu button instead of watching the previews, exclude a MacroVison chip, etc. But they don't because the manufacturer wants to continue making players.

Yes, the limitations of the DV-79AVi are artificial. But they are not placed there by Pioneer. They are just playing by the rules set by the people who hand out the all the little badges that adorn the front of the player.

The 79AVi does not convert to PCM and never does time alignment for SACD. A feature that is unfortunately a big oversight at this point in the game in my opinion. Multi-channel playback of music needs to be properly time aligned if your speakers are not equidistant throughout the entire room.

I have yet to hear an audible degradation in sound when DSD is converted to PCM. Hell even the $13K flagship Teac Esoteric Universal player immediately converts DSD to PCM so that they can process the signal properly. The best sounding players I've heard to date all convert to PCM.

Kris,

Are there any cheaper alternatives to the 79 other than a $13k player which conducts this conversion properly? For that much money, I could buy a Ruby, a 79, and have money left over. :)

Also, hate to keep bringing this up, but when will we hear back on the Progressive Slow/Auto 2 solution posed by Dustin? I have been using it now for two nights, and have not seen any problems using this mode on real program material. Will we have to wait for your review on Secrets?

Thanks for your contributions. I've learned a great deal from your posts.

Z

Please, let's stick to the 79avi. Asking Kris for opinions on other players is topic for another thread or PM. This happens a lot and I've thought about an "Ask Kris" thread, but I don't want him to feel/be obligated. He contributes so much as it is.

larry

Please, let's stick to the 79avi. Asking Kris for opinions on other players is topic for another thread or PM. This happens a lot and I've thought about an "Ask Kris" thread, but I don't want him to feel/be obligated. He contributes so much as it is.

larry

Yeah, I don't think that would go over well. Plus I think there are some visitors on this board that would be more qualified to answer video based questions. Names like sspears and Dale Adams come to mind. But I am glad to help when I can.

Why can't they? Licensing. Sony says you can't have the SACD logo, nor can you call yourself an SACD player if you convert the DSD to PCM and output it. Technically the terms are a bit different than that, but it is what it boils down to in the end.

Also not all DVD-A discs are allowed to be converted to PCM, and some only at a reduced sampling rate.

HDMI 1.2 will pass a pure (although encrypted) DSD stream. Sony is OK with that. Also i.Link (which, by the way, is Sony's name for IEEE1394, FireWire is Apple's) supports an encrypted transport mode (originally intended for HD video and used with D-VHS players) so Sony allowed DSD to be passed on it too.

EDIT: I'll correct myself the IEEE1394 mode is not encrypted like HDMI, but copy restricted. Any compatible device must obey the restrictions flagged in the stream headers.

Actually there are a few players out there that will not leave SACD in DSD. There is no way to actually get a DSD stream out, it is always converted to PCM.

And all DVD-A discs ARE output as PCM because they ARE PCM. DVD-A is comprised of PCM audio that is compressed using MLP. SACDs are comprised of DSD audio compressed using DST. This is similar to DTS and Dolby Digital being PCM compressed with DTS and Dolby Digital. DTS, DD, MLP and DST are all compression codecs, not sound formats per se.

Okay guys, I have bad news. I'm guessing Kris is seeing this as well but hasn't posted yet. My computer at home died last night, so I'm recalling this from memory. Please forgive any small inaccuracies, but on the whole this is what I saw last night.

First, I purchased the WHQL DVD Test Annex 3.0 disc from MS. I checked the moving wedge pattern and verified that my player also have the problem from about 80 degrees to 240 or so. It is a very, very odd phenomena. I also verified that setting the progressive motion setting to slow reduced the artifact to the point where it almost was gone. That said.....

If you have Avia check out the moving Zone Plate (hi bit) and play with the progressive motion setting. I can get the artifact to manifest itself even on slow, and it seems to have issues on the mid and high settings. If I recall correctly, setting it to high resulted in something else that didn't look right.

But, since slow is the best for reducing that artifact, I ran HQV with the progressive motion setting on slow. On the horizontal scrolling text test (left to right), the slow setting resulted in a tearing/fine combing of the horizontally scrolling text. Not good. When set to the mid point of prog. motion the artifact went away.

I also found that I get a sharper image (resolution sweep down low) using 720p instead of 480p, but 720p induces ringing or a scaling artifact. In 480p (with my MT700 doing the scaling) this artifact is reduced by around 30-50% (just a WAG). I actually switched between 480p and 720p several times (scaling artifact vs resolution), but I also found that 480p crops something like 15 pixels on the bottom of the image. I need to go recheck that because I almost couldn't believe it.

Don't shoot the messenger.

That said, I watched several different clips from movies and found them to look absolutely stunning, and way better than my Denon 1920. I even found that the Noise Reduction algorithms seems to work decently (using HQV and real world material) and induce less blur than I saw on the 59avi. One of my personal benchmarks is the opening of Master and Commander for bright to dark transitions, and the in the hold of the ship scene looked the best I have ever seen it.

I'm still very happy with this player, but I have serious reservations. I want to know more about what the heck this player is thinking/doing. Can anyone else verify my findings?

And every DVD player could play all region discs, allow the user to push the menu button instead of watching the previews, exclude a MacroVison chip, etc. But they don't because the manufacturer wants to continue making players.

Yes, the limitations of the DV-79AVi are artificial. But they are not placed there by Pioneer. They are just playing by the rules set by the people who hand out the all the little badges that adorn the front of the player.

Injector,
What is your point, I'm not looking for region hacks or asking to go around copywright protection or macrovision or anything? I'm simply trying to say that there indeed are universals that output SACD PCM, so why not ride on HDMI. Oh, and they DO have SACD logos on them, even the ones that output PCM, like Kris's mention of the TEAC beast. The fact that Kris says the 79avi doesn't do it is enough for me. I'll deal with HDMI for DVD-Audio, and analog in for SACD.

Please, let's stick to the 79avi. Asking Kris for opinions on other players is topic for another thread or PM. This happens a lot and I've thought about an "Ask Kris" thread, but I don't want him to feel/be obligated. He contributes so much as it is.

larry

I apologize. :(

Will not do it again in the future. The only reason I brought it up was that Kris posted a comment using another player as an example of the issue in question. I will PM in the future.

Thanks,

Z

off topic
i am getting clay face sometimeswith my ruby and new 79avi. any suggestions?
projector or player setting?

off topic
i am getting clay face sometimeswith my ruby and new 79avi. any suggestions?
projector or player setting?

Calibrate with Avia and/or DVE if you haven't already. I'd start there.

I apologize. :(

Will not do it again in the future. The only reason I brought it up was that Kris posted a comment using another player as an example of the issue in question. I will PM in the future.

Thanks,

Z No problem. Everybody does it without thinking about it. Most of the time it doesn't matter but this thread is "hot" right now and derailment doesn't help things. In the words of Barney Fife, I'm just trying to "nip it". :)

larry

its been calibrated but still there. anyone had clay face problem before?

its been calibrated but still there. anyone had clay face problem before?Levesque has used the same combo and said it looks great OOTB. You may want to check in the SXRD/LCOS PJ forum for Ruby issues wrt calibration and screen type.

larry

No comments on my findings? Dang...slow night.

Check out this article from PCWorld about cables: The Cable Game (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,121777,pg,2,00.asp)

It is a comparison of various HDMI cables. The irony is that the thicker, heavier cable was the one that appeared to have problems as its weight and stiffness was sometimes pulling the cable loose from the HDMI connector.

I don't think it is an AV79Avi issue at all...

FYI, at CES I spoke with one of the engnieers who designed the HDMI spec, and he confirmed that in their lab tests there is no difference between cables, it's going to work or it's not. Spend as you choose.

If you have Avia check out the moving Zone Plate (hi bit) and play with the progressive motion setting. I can get the artifact to manifest itself even on slow, and it seems to have issues on the mid and high settings. If I recall correctly, setting it to high resulted in something else that didn't look right.



I suspect you are seeing artifacts that all dvd players will exhibit. Have you ever tried the same patterns with other players? I have. It ain't pretty no matter what dvd player you use. If you are comparing the 79 with let's say a 97 or a Si504 based player and you are seeing anomalies in the same area as Kris had mentioned then I'll perk up and listen.

Tomorrow I will compare a sp1000 to the 79avi and try to describe any differences I see.

Don't laugh because I mentioned Sony in this thread... please!

There is a chat in the 3100ES thread that is posing the question about the Value vs. Price of this player over the 3100ES.

At the moment, the consensus is that there is a mild increase in audio and video fidelity with the 79 over the 3100ES. But is it worth twice the price?

Has anyone put these two players side by side and can provide a real comparative review?

Please Help

BG

Or, could there be a Pioneer rep watching who might be able to wrangle a deal for the few of us AVSForum Fanatics who are on the decisionmaking fence... making the difference in price a non issue - (never hurts to ask...)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=589543

I suspect you are seeing artifacts that all dvd players will exhibit. Have you ever tried the same patterns with other players? I have. It ain't pretty no matter what dvd player you use. If you are comparing the 79 with let's say a 97 or a Si504 based player and you are seeing anomalies in the same area as Kris had mentioned then I'll perk up and listen.

Tomorrow I will compare a sp1000 to the 79avi and try to describe any differences I see.

Good point - I will make sure to check soon with my Denon 1920. That said, this artifact looked very much like the one on the WHQL test, and seemed to vary depending on the prog. motion setting. I will have to go back and verify as much when I have time.

Hi

Has anyone done an a/b test with the Denon dvd 5900 and the dv79avi? (I am using a 5900 via dvi, don't see any macroblocking on my crt, and the pic is awesome, but I wonder if the 79 being newer, might give a better PQ?

God bless...

Mark

If you don't see MB, then the 5900 is one outstanding player. I'd just stick with it.

HI Bill,

I tend to agree, but I guess the other issue is that with the new Vantage HD scaler, the hdmi @480i output from the dv79 makes me think it may still be a better choice. (I have no HDCP issue, and this way I don't need the sdi mod for the 5900 and the SDI input for the Vantage) Lots to think about.

God bless...

Mark

Hi,

On another note, anyone have pics of the insides of the 79avi? I'd relly like to see the layout and power supply and transformers etc.

God bless...

Mark

This was posted on another forum. However I thought it might interest you guys.


'Is DSD PCM?'


Here's something about the nature of DSD and PCM Digital I thought you might enjoy reading...


From 'DSD versus PCM', [Digital Audio Explained, p 334] See:

http://www.cadenzarecording.com/


...(Regarding binary PCM digital encoding to store data, prior to development of DSD). A standardized name had not been applied to this method of digital recording over the seventy-plus years that it had been in use, perhaps because it was the only digital recording method used.

'DSD also uses binary PCM coding to record audio, thought the method used is not what would be termed a 'conventional' approach.

Delata sigma modulators and DSD use very high sample rates at very low bit depths to produce a result that provides the necessary dynamic range in the audible frequency spectrum, though the (overall) dynamic range is very low.

The recordings still use PCM encoding per our discussion in Chaper Eight, in that a "1" is represented as a pulse and a "0" is represented as no-pulse. For these reasons , DSD (1-bit, 2.8224 MS/s) is as binary and as PCM as 16-bit, 44.1 kS/s sampling formats.

To call only one of these systems 'PCM' is a misnomer as both of them are clearly PCM. Regardless , the audio market has lent itself great confusion upon he advent of DSD by now calling traditional, low sample rate, high bit depth digital recordings 'PCM' and referrig to high sample rate, low bit depth recordings as something other than 'PCM'.

The implication, here , is that DSD is not a digital signal derived in the same method as more traditional PCM methods, and that the bits represent something different than they do in PCM methdos, which is not correct. Several trade publications have even insinuated that DSD uses delta modulators (a compeltely different recording method than using delta *sigma* modulators) , which it does not.

For the purpose of clarity we will refer to 1-bit recoding methods as DSD, per Sony's coining of the term, and high bit, low frequency, traditional digital recoding methods as PCM, though we need to be clear that EACH system is clearly a 'PCM system'....


It's interesting to note that a popular *working* format for engineering DSD recordings, called 'DSD-Wide' , uses 8-bits instead of one, making it even more 'like' traditional PCM than before. The signal is later converted back to 1-bit DSD.


Taken from 'Is DSD PCM?' thread on Agoraquest


http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?topic=22931&forum=52

i know this is probably a dumb quesion but does the 79avi come with an i link cable i have a 56txi and it didn't come with one thanks

Yes, the 79AVi does come with an iLink cable. I also have a 56TXi and a 79AVi. You are in for a treat because these two units have a real synergy.

thanks for the reply i can't wait to hook both of them up it is going to be sweet i have been using a crappy samsung 841 so this should be a huge improvement visually and sonically

i was navigating on the net and i saw and read that a "bomb" as exploded on CES 2006 - the launch of the new hight def HD DVD and Blu Ray disc formats.i am very sad about this because i have spend a lot of money (more then 5000 euros) on the dv 79 and vsx 74 and ptae900 projector last month and on the end of this year they will be totally obsolete!!!!new hd dvd and blu-ray player and A\V receivers will emerge with resolutions of 1080p and Dolby Digital Plus; Dolby True HD and DTS HD sound with 7.1 discrete chanells of bit rates arround 18 Mbps (Dolby True HD) 3Mbps(Dolby digital plus at HD DVD) 4.7Mbps (Dolby digital plus at Blu-ray), and we are discusting here sound quality at 320kbps and images of 480i......OH GOD MY MONEY!!!

Hi Drigos,

DOn't be too disappointed because 1) The roll out of HD titles will be very slow due to the format war betweent he 2 formats. 2) You would need to buy to HD players to get all movies because some houses will go HDDVD and others only Blu ray. 3) Its better to wait out the format war and just buy one machine. 4) There are 50-70,000 or more DVD's now that play on your dv79, so you will still want a good dvd player.


God bless...

Mark