If Realta with the NR at high still doesn't produce an acceptable image then chances are the Flea won't either. It sounds like you may be better off switching providers.

The thing is, the DNR setting on the Realta makes little to no difference. I am checking with the HQV 2.0 Blu-ray test patterns specifically for noise reduction, as well as highly compressed HD sports like NFL football.

I agree. I would go to DirectTV or back to Fios if you can.

FiOS is restricted to Verizon neighborhoods, I moved to an AT&T area.

i mean, the Flea does a very good job, but I have no idea how Realta is implemented in that unit. A good Realta implementation is fairly comparable to the Flea, I think. Flea might be better.

I have never seen Uverse, but I have yet to read it is known for its quality. Content, yes, not quality as much.

i mean, the Flea does a very good job, but I have no idea how Realta is implemented in that unit. A good Realta implementation is fairly comparable to the Flea, I think. Flea might be better.

I have never seen Uverse, but I have yet to read it is known for its quality. Content, yes, not quality as much.

Based on my experience, the Realta in the AVP does a fine job with scaling and deinterlacing, but Noise Reduction doesn't seem to work on any noticeable level. It only has a setting for DNR (Off, Low, Med, High) as well as Enhancer (which adds considerable ringing at the highest setting).

From what I've read in the Flea HDMI owners manual, there seems to be substantially more settings related to noise reduction.

http://www.algolith.com/fileadmin/user_upload/legacy/3014-8001UG-202.pdf

yes, the Flea is a lot more flexibility.

U-verse uses MPEG4. I thought the Flea was specifically designed to work with MPEG2?

Anyway, their SD is very good, but their HD is atrocious. Going from FIOS HD to theirs must be a hell of a shock.

FLEA has a bug with RGB signal and YCbCr 4:4:4 signal.
It works well only with YCbCr 4:2:2.

U-verse uses MPEG4. I thought the Flea was specifically designed to work with MPEG2?

I thought about that. Mosquito noise is my worst problem, I'm thinking that would be the same problem from either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4.

Anyway, their SD is very good, but their HD is atrocious. Going from FIOS HD to theirs must be a hell of a shock.

Dude, you have no idea. It's like eating at the best restaurant on the planet, then be forced to eat moldy cat food for the rest of your life.

FLEA has a bug with RGB signal and YCbCr 4:4:4 signal.
It works well only with YCbCr 4:2:2.

Good to know. I'm pretty sure U-verse is putting out YCbCr 4:2:2, but I will double-check.

Well, I bit the bullet. I guess next week I'll be able to compare to see how well a Flea HDMI does on U-verse's MPEG-4.

I'm not ruling out switching to DirecTV, actually.

Well, I bit the bullet. I guess next week I'll be able to compare to see how well a Flea HDMI does on U-verse's MPEG-4.

I'm not ruling out switching to DirecTV, actually.

Flea HDMI is comparable to Realta. In fact, I prefer the NR of Realta as it seems to do little or nothing to the rest of the image. This assumes of course that the implementation is similar in your AVP as it is in the 602ci.

I'd be surprised if the u-verse box utilizes 422 YCC. Most cable/sat boxes use RGB.

I'm happy with D*. I can't compare to anything else other than OTA.

Flea HDMI is comparable to Realta. In fact, I prefer the NR of Realta as it seems to do little or nothing to the rest of the image. This assumes of course that the implementation is similar in your AVP as it is in the 602ci.

The Realta DNR in the AVP really has no effect on the image. I tried HDMI as well as 1080i component.

I'd be surprised if the u-verse box utilizes 422 YCC. Most cable/sat boxes use RGB.

I can verify for certain when I get home in a bit. So what happens if it's RGB? Is the Flea HDMI totally ineffective?

FLEA has a bug with RGB signal and YCbCr 4:4:4 signal.
It works well only with YCbCr 4:2:2.

Well crud, my box puts out RGB 4:4:4. What is the bug?

RGB is converted to PC levels instead of video levels.

This will create a picture that seems "darker" than it should be. You can adjust brightness (black level) to partially compensate. You may also need to adjust contrast (white level) as well. This can also increase banding (false contouring) due to the non-integer expansion of 16-235 to 0-255.

Be sure you have i/p scaler "on" on the AVP otherwise there won't be any NR applied. It should make a noticeable difference, mostly in random noise but also with mosquito noise.

I'm going to put the Flea HDMI before the AVP. Now, when I run U-verse through the AVP, the HDMI status shows RGB 4:4:4->RGB 4:4:4 even though in the AVP, under HDMI setup, I have Color Space set to YCbCr. I also have a setting within the AVP for RGB Range to choose Normal or Enhanced. I normally have this on Normal.

If I pick Enhanced, with the AVP "un-stretch" the 0-255 RGB that the Flea HDMI put out, back to 16-235?

The trouble with all of this, is that you cannot use test discs to see what is going on like you would with a Blu-ray player.

EDIT: I have confirmed, my U-verse box already incorrectly stretches the RGB range to 0-255. So, I guess the Flea HDMI has nothing to mess up?

"Enhanced" should correct your black levels and therefore produce little need for adjustment of brightness/contrast. It will still be at 0-255 however.

I think you'll ultimately be much happier if you switch to D*.

If you have a bd/dvd player that outputs rgb you could run it through the flea for testing purposes.

Great minds!

My OPPO BDP-83 does allow for RGB PC level output. I tried that, and sure enough, everything below about 30IRE and above 230IRE via the Spears & Munsil BD was completely crushed. No amount of messing with the AVP settings could correct for this, or "shrink" the IRE range. I guess that is to be suspected, I suppose. Switching between Enhanced and Normal RGB levels produced no noticeable difference in the Contrast ramp.

So, since U-verse is already hosed at 0-255, can we assume the Flea HDMI is not going to mess that up any further?

D* is still an option, but obviously I'll play with the Flea HDMI for a while before making any decisions. It will be here Monday.

OK gang, my apologies. I tried some additional testing with the HQV Blu-ray (the original, not the 2.0 version I used before) and checked for noise and the DNR setting.

When looking at the purple flowers, there is a lot of almost "film grain" noise present. I can clearly see the effect of the Low, Middle and High with the AVP.

The reason I was mistaken earlier, is that I was using 1080p out of my Blu-ray player to test Sharpness, Noise patterns, etc. 1080p HDMI by passes the Realta picture controls, although when feeding it 1080i there is not doubt all applicable controls are functioning.

I guess my problem is that the AVP does pretty well on this, but it is not strong enough to take care of the mosquito noise and other temporal problems with my U-verse feed.

I quoted this from the AVP owner's thread-- hope you don't mind. It clarifies for others who might be reading.

You need to switch providers. D* sounds like your best available option.

Nah, I don't mind. It is so frustrating to see how good HD can look with FiOS, then to see it so terrible with U-verse. There's several reasons why switching from U-verse is a tough logistical and financial decision, but that's another story.

I still have high hopes for the Flea HDMI!

Telus a company here in canada in the west is basically uverse. I was looking at switching but avoided them specifically when i found out the uverse equipment they use outputs the wrong color space. You could fix it by calibration on the denon i figure, but i just did not want to mess with it.

Oddly satellite providers here in canada do ycbcr. I think more might be switching, my provider is same as dishnetwork equipment, so i assume dishnetwork is also doing ycbcr. It used to be rgb but i think with blue ray now more companies are using ycbcr.

The Flea HDMI arrived.

I spent the past day playing with it. It is very sophisticated, and the firmware version 2.07 has even more features than what is described in the manual, including up to 10 presets for each SD and HD.

The U-verse "splash screen" is a blue, cloudy image with AT&T U-verse verbiage. I first saw the effect of the Flea with this basic screen, which normally has very bad false contouring. Even with default settings, the Flea cleaned this up rather well.

I spent several hours testing using images from Blu-ray test disc (HQV Noise Reduction tests) as well as segments I recorded including HD football, baseball and NASCAR. The Flea seemed to do the best on on random or temporal noise. This is often present is large, single-color backgrounds. It did clean up Mosquito noise as well. However, it was not as effective on block noise. It is my theory that this is because the signal is just so compressed, there is really no way to correct the huge blocks without turning the image to mush. Garbage in, garbage out.

But, the Flea HDMI behaved, and processed the image as advertised. I often used the split-screen comparison. Depending on the material (usually live TV), it wasn't always extremely obvious as to the benefits. But, you could pay attention and see the noise reduction.

It is unfortunate U-verse is so bad. I have pretty much decided to go with Dish or DirecTV. In the meantime, I'm going to free up some funds and have put the Flea HDMI on eBay. I'm sure someone will get some good use out of this pretty neat little device.

I'm happy with D*. Whole home dvr is pretty cool too and all the HD receivers have native modes. The last I knew, some/all E* receivers don't have native.

Yeah, I've had D* before, in 2001-2005. Back then, D* was "HD-Lite"!

If the Flea HDMI doesn't sell on eBay, maybe I'll just hang onto it to use with D*.

Just my opinion, but I would never get Dish if PQ is your concern. Talk about HD lite. I think DirectTV have really improved over the last few years. They have darn good PQ these days. My local Charter feed is still slightly superior, but I wouldn't feel bad if I moved and was forced to use satellite and get DirectTV.