Yesterday I brought my XD over to my friend Wayne's (funlvr1965) place. Wayne's theater is going to be featured in the March issue of Electronic House, and you can see the article online here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=966319). Cool place to say the least!

We didn't really have a shootout in mind to start with. Wayne wanted an opportunity to check out the XD (he's thinking about getting one), and since I'm pretty familiar with the XD by now, I was curious about checking out the D2's menus for comparing functionality. I'm NOT thinking about getting one, I was merely curious :).

As far as video processing functionality is concerned, the D2 doesn't even come close to matching the XD. The XD has multiple input AND output configuration memories, each with its own set of adjustments (including a now fully functional CMS). The Gennum processor in the XD is a better and more recent version of the one used by the D2, and on top of this Lumagen uses its own algorithms for a lot of the XD's functionality (in fact the Gennum in the XD is only used for deinterlacing and image enhancement features, everything else, including the 'no-ring' scaling, is done in a separate processor programmed by Lumagen). The suite of internal test patterns offered is more extensive in the XD. Etc. Now, keep in mind the following:
- the D2 is also a world-class preamp. Obviously the XD is not, you will need a separate receiver or preamp.
- even though the XD has the D2 beat in the video processing department (see below), that doesn't make the D2 a slouch. Far from it.
- the D2 is far easier to use. Seeing Wayne navigate the menus, I think anybody with a modicum of AV experience would be able to pick up on the functionality and do a basic setup pretty fast. Not so with the XD - don't count on getting anywhere without reading the manual first. This is partly due to the flexibility mentioned above; it does come with a price.

We first tried to figure out how to configure the XD for Wayne's 2.35 scope screen. His theater sports a BenQ 10000 + anamorphic lens, I have no such setup so never tried to figure out how to configure the XD for an anamorphic setup in the first place. Fortunately that wasn't too hard, and once we figured it out an obvious advantage of the XD over the D2 became apparent; the XD automatically detects the aspect ratio of the source and scales accordingly, the D2 doesn't. Once the D2 is setup for 2.35, 1.78 material is cropped at the top and bottom. The D2 just doesn't seem ideal for this type of setup, or at least not as convenient as the XD.

Now if you're not familiar with anamorphic lens setups, the goal is to use the full panel of the projector and project onto a 2.35 AR screen. This is done by a processor (external or within the projector for those that support it) stretching the 2.35 picture vertically and then the lens stretches the image horizontally to fill the screen. So scaling is involved.

We put in "Live Free or Die Hard" (BR) in the PS3. We settled on an early scene in the movie, where McLane pulls a guy out of a car and starts arguing with his daughter. In this scene the point of view moves around the car and at some point focuses on McLane and the other guy. They are behind the car, and the background is filled with buildings. We paused right there, and started to switch between the XD and the D2. The problem here is that it wasn't a quick switch (Wayne was behind the rack rearranging the connections), making it difficult to do a real A/B, but after a few times back and forth, the differences between the two became clear. The silhouettes of McLane and the guy were noticeably sharper with the XD than the D2. In fact with the XD they were very distinct from the background, whereas they tended to blend in with the D2. The XD gave the scene a much more '3D' look which was also apparent when playing (not just pausing). And that's with a pretty noisy source material! (And out-of-the-box settings for the XD.)

Now don't me wrong. As I said above the D2 didn't look bad, far from it. It's just that the XD looked better. Also note that the difference may or may not be apparent in every setup, but Wayne's BenQ is sharp as a tack, which I think accentuated the difference.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to compare the other features (deinterlacing, noise reduction, etc). A shootout wasn't really what we had in mind anyway, but this little test made me feel that much better about the XD :). I haven't been able to really get a feel for the no-ring scaling so far because the XD doesn't output to the native resolution of my plasma. Also testing a DVD would have been great for comparing the scaling, but again, no time. Maybe next time!

Thanks for the observations.

I never have enough time to devote to these shootouts. I have all sorts of stuff that I can compare, but never enough time. Plus there is always the temptation to just keep watching instead of comparing.

Dave was kind enough to bring over his Radiance XD, which I have been thinking about purchasing in the future, first a little background. I initially had a sony ruby quite some time ago and used it with a lumagen HDQ which I purchased from AVS, at the time the HDQ was the box that lumagen had put all the goodies in and I thought it worked great. I ended up selling the Ruby and purchased a Marantz vp-11s1 which sported the new gennum chip (9350) which was the next generation of processing chips, I sold the HDQ since lumagen at that point did not have a gennum solution but it was in the works with no immediate time frame, as a matter of fact the original processing chip was to be Realta but was later tossed in favor of Gennum. I figured I would use the gennum inside the Marantz for all my scaling and deinterlacing and it worked extremely well. At that time my audio processor was an Anthem D1 which is provides fantastic multichannel audio, fast forward to some months later when Anthem announces the D2 which would essentially be a D1 but add a gennum video processor and hdmi switching. An upgrade path was made available for D1 owners and I took advantage of it and again things worked out very well, however since I had some experience with the extensive features in the Lumagen HDQ I found the D2 features to be lacking however at the time it was the only piece like it at the time. Lumagen has finally caught up and is making strides towards releasing a production piece, beta testers are in place and updates are being applied as needed and or requested. At this point Anthem announces room equalization to be added to its existing and future D2 processors, here is where I start thinking that I might want to move to an external videoprocessor such as the Radiance, you see room equalization requires a lot of processing power and my feeling is that after this room eq upgrade is only a matter of time before they introduce a D3. first let me tell you that the video processing in the Anthem is top notch, the reason for looking to the Radiance is that the video processor in the Anthem is not likely to change except in another updated version such as the D3, that and the fact that the lumagen is a more futureproof solution which in my opinion adds value just based on the fact that the company is always updating and refining the product, my past and recent conversations with Pat and Jim convinces me that they will support this box for years to come. As Dave said this was never to be intended as a shootout, my goal was to see if the radiance could pass video through the projector on one hdmi output and audio to the D2 from the second hdmi output, and it did and I noticed no lipsync problems. Next we did some A/B testing which at first proved a little challenging because of the mechanics of hooking and unhooking for both processors but eventually I got better at it and was able to determine for myself what I thought would be the case. The D2 processes video extremely well, the Radiance takes it a bit further and brings out a bit more detail and much more flexibility, In my opinion it scales better which for me is important because of my anamorphic setup, once you select anamorphic mode in the D2 you then have to adust the vertical size in order for the image to fit the screen, this always bugged me whereas with the Radiance once I select anamorphic 2.35 it simply fills the screen, it just seems more anamorphically friendly, I suggested to Jim and Pat that they should include anamorphic test patterns for people with anamorphic setups. In the end I will be keeping my Anthem D2, upgrading to the room eq when it becomes available and looking into going to an outboard video processor such as the Radiance. Special thanks to Dave for giving me the opportunity to see what the new Radiance is all about, from where I sit it looks very promising.

We are planning to add some more test patterns to the Radiance for other geometries. Please send your suggestions for test patterns to support@lumagen.com

Best regards,
Randy Freeman

Thanks Randy I emailed my suggestion for 2.35 geometry setup patterns, focus patterns for 2.35 would also be nice