AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Video Processors › CMS for VP50 Pro coming?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

CMS for VP50 Pro coming? - Page 2

post #31 of 216
12/26/08 at 10:54am
yes, that is why this sucks, DVDO has the best PQ of them all

-Gary
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #32 of 216
12/26/08 at 1:14pm
What aspects of the picture quality are better?
Reply
Reply
post #33 of 216
12/26/08 at 4:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glimmie View Post

I did an extensive shoot out between the VP50pro and the Lumagen. The VP50pro was clearly superior in many areas.

Can you elaborate? Which areas?

Quote:


There's another way to look at constant firmware upgrades. Some manufactures get it right before it's shipped. Others ship a half assed implementation then fix the bugs with monthly firmware updates.

The firmware upgrades for the XD constantly bring in new functionality. If you look at the XD's updates page, 8 out of 12 of the latest updates bring in new features. Along with yes, bug fixes. This is bad because?
Reply
Reply
post #34 of 216
12/26/08 at 5:54pm
myself I have ditch my DVDO Vp50Pro and upgraded to an DVDO Edge w/ firmware 1.1 (with the xmas special at 600$ it was an easy decition to make).
I see no difference in PQ from my directv feed, and my Panasonic BD55 on my Sony 52XBR2. I have done the color calibration with CalMan 3.2 and a X-Rite i1Display 2 Colorimeter on the LCD and not on the DVDO, so all inputs gets the same treatment.
The migration to the Edge was a breeze as all remote code for my Harmony are the same, all that was required was a little bit a tweaking of the audio inputs. My vp50pro is now up for sales on ebay.
Reply
Reply
post #35 of 216
12/26/08 at 5:55pm
I've seen the VP50 and the Lumagen Radiance side-by-side, and I can say that the scaling on the Lumagen was clearly superior. I wasn't doing an extensive "shoot out" between the units but I own both and could provide more info if it were requested. I don't know if the scaling algorithms on the VP50Pro are different than the ones in the VP50, but the VP50 did produce significantly more ringing than the Lumagen. Like I said, if people want more details I can certainly do some more extensive A/B-ing.

Plus, as was pointed out, the Lumagen gets constant firmware upgrades to fix bugs and add functionality - something that DVDO has never done on a regular basis.
Reply
Reply
post #36 of 216
12/26/08 at 8:09pm
"Some manufactures get it right before it's shipped. Others ship a half assed implementation then fix the bugs with monthly firmware updates."

And some don't get it right before its shipped and then never fix it.

Shawn
Reply
Reply
post #37 of 216
12/27/08 at 4:04pm
I simply don't understand this....but.....isn't this the same thing as the VP50Pro?
Reply
Reply
post #38 of 216
12/27/08 at 4:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by reg152 View Post

I simply don't understand this....but.....isn't this the same thing as the VP50Pro?

yep, it has code written in the firmware that allows the flip of a switch in the menu to correct the RS1/2 color issues via CMS, it is not adjustable as far as I know, merely a setting of sorts

-Gary
Reply
Reply
post #39 of 216
12/27/08 at 9:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Murrell View Post

yep, it has code written in the firmware that allows the flip of a switch in the menu to correct the RS1/2 color issues via CMS, it is not adjustable as far as I know, merely a setting of sorts.

This is quite right. It offers a preset that remaps the RS1/2 gamut to a SMPTE-C gamut. However, this at least tells us that DVDO has done work in this area. Whether they choose to include a user-adjustable version of this technology in their flagship processor is a marketing/business question that only they know the answer to.
Reply
Reply
post #40 of 216
12/27/08 at 9:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomHuffman View Post

This is quite right. It offers a preset that remaps the RS1/2 gamut to a SMPTE-C gamut. However, this at least tells us that DVDO has done work in this area. Whether they choose to include a user-adjustable version of this technology in their flagship processor is a marketing/business question that only they know the answer to.

Given the extreme variations between units (not mentioning over time within the units themselves), I don't see how a fixed setting would come even remotely close to being useful/accurate.
Reply
Reply
post #41 of 216
12/28/08 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomHuffman View Post

This is quite right. It offers a preset that remaps the RS1/2 gamut to a SMPTE-C gamut. However, this at least tells us that DVDO has done work in this area. Whether they choose to include a user-adjustable version of this technology in their flagship processor is a marketing/business question that only they know the answer to.

Is there even a LUT in the VP50Pro?
Reply
Reply
post #42 of 216
12/28/08 at 8:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomHuffman View Post

This is quite right. It offers a preset that remaps the RS1/2 gamut to a SMPTE-C gamut. However, this at least tells us that DVDO has done work in this area. Whether they choose to include a user-adjustable version of this technology in their flagship processor is a marketing/business question that only they know the answer to.

Per Josh (in the main thread), JVC did all the work on this (and not DVDO), but it certainly shows that the Pro can handle some extra duties.... SJ
Reply
Reply
post #43 of 216
12/28/08 at 11:22am
The quality comparision I did was strictly SD to HD upconversion. I was feeding component to both for the tests but the VP50pro does have an optional HDSDI/SDI input available where as the Lumagen does not. I guess you can get an SDI to HDMI converter and use that IF the Lumagen can accept 480i on HDMI inputs.

Look at brick walls, pin stripped suits, or anything else with fine detail. The Lumagen produces somewhat "busy" looking patterns here where as the VP50pro was much more natural.

From my tests, the VP50pro has less ringing than the Lumagen. Now I beleive the Lumagen claims to reduce aperature correction (EE as it's called here) but that assumes it's already present on the input signal. The Lumagen however seems to ring more which is a sign of insufficient filter taps.

Until October of this year I have never seen a consumer grade scaler that I liked. I used Dscaler since 2000 as I could tweak it. But I gave the VP50pro a try and was very impressed.

P.S. These are my findings and opinions as much of this is very subjective. The Lumagen is a great product too. I don't wish to start a debate as to which is better. Only the end user can really make that call on their systems.
Reply
Reply
post #44 of 216
12/28/08 at 11:28am
Why not make this a paid upgrade? Say $500? It's not a fix but a powerful feature enhancement. Furthermore some projectors have this function built in so not everyone needs or wants it.

I know this seems like flame bait but these manufactures have to make money to survive. You honestly can't expect to buy a product once and get free feature upgrades for it's life.

Note a feature upgrade is not the same as a bug fix. Bug fixes should be free for the life of the product.
Reply
Reply
post #45 of 216
12/28/08 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glimmie View Post

Why not make this a paid upgrade? Say $500? It's not a fix but a powerful feature enhancement. Furthermore some projectors have this function built in so not everyone needs or wants it.

I know this seems like flame bait but these manufactures have to make money to survive. You honestly can't expect to buy a product once and get free feature upgrades for it's life.

Note a feature upgrade is not the same as a bug fix. Bug fixes should be free for the life of the product.

Nahhh, why would you think that?
Reply
Reply
post #46 of 216
12/28/08 at 1:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glimmie View Post

Look at brick walls, pin stripped suits, or anything else with fine detail. The Lumagen produces somewhat "busy" looking patterns here where as the VP50pro was much more natural.

From my tests, the VP50pro has less ringing than the Lumagen. Now I beleive the Lumagen claims to reduce aperature correction (EE as it's called here) but that assumes it's already present on the input signal. The Lumagen however seems to ring more which is a sign of insufficient filter taps.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HogPilot View Post

I've seen the VP50 and the Lumagen Radiance side-by-side, and I can say that the scaling on the Lumagen was clearly superior. I wasn't doing an extensive "shoot out" between the units but I own both and could provide more info if it were requested. I don't know if the scaling algorithms on the VP50Pro are different than the ones in the VP50, but the VP50 did produce significantly more ringing than the Lumagen. Like I said, if people want more details I can certainly do some more extensive A/B-ing.

HogPilot, can you do a comparison akin to what Glimmie is describing? From what I can tell, the scaling is the same for the VP50 and VP50Pro. Thanks.
Reply
Reply
post #47 of 216
12/28/08 at 2:03pm
Quote:


Now I beleive the Lumagen claims to reduce aperature correction (EE as it's called here) but that assumes it's already present on the input signal.

Err, no. Typical scaling produces ringing, which is different from EE (edge enhancement), a compression artifact - although the two do look similar. I have no idea what aperture (I assume that's what you meant) correction has got to do with it.

Anyhow, ringing has absolutely nothing to do with "what's already present on the input signal." Given the same image, a Lumagen vp will produce less ringing when upscaling it than any other consumer vp, regardless of the source.

FWIW, I compared the Toshiba XA2 upscaling against the XD's. (I don't have a dvdo vp). The XA2 is supposedly one of the best upscalers out there, yet between the two the XD's picture was noticeably better, less ringing, less harsh, more film like. That was all over hdmi (the XD takes in 480i to 1080p60 over hdmi, btw, so no need for sdi). Have not tried component, but I doubt it would be any different.
Reply
Reply
post #48 of 216
12/28/08 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SJHT View Post

Per Josh (in the main thread), JVC did all the work on this (and not DVDO), but it certainly shows that the Pro can handle some extra duties.... SJ

I believe that this is the relevant post

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=2172

It also indicates hat DVDO is at least thinking about providing CMS functionality to the VP50 Pro. Now whether they will actually do it. . . . ?
Reply
Reply
post #49 of 216
12/28/08 at 9:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomHuffman View Post

I believe that this is the relevant post

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=2172

It also indicates hat DVDO is at least thinking about providing CMS functionality to the VP50 Pro. Now whether they will actually do it. . . . ?

I have the VP2 and talked to Josh and JVC tech's. Josh knew a lot more than the techs regarding it and I also got the feeling that DVDo did all the work, though Josh would not comment on JVC's product.
Reply
Reply
post #50 of 216
12/28/08 at 10:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TomHuffman View Post

I believe that this is the relevant post

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=2172

It also indicates hat DVDO is at least thinking about providing CMS functionality to the VP50 Pro. Now whether they will actually do it. . . . ?

I'll keep my fingers crossed.... Having a full CMS would be great since I have a JVC RS1 which could use some tweaking in this area... SJ
Reply
Reply
post #51 of 216
12/29/08 at 11:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave G View Post

Err, no. Typical scaling produces ringing, which is different from EE (edge enhancement), a compression artifact - although the two do look similar. I have no idea what aperture (I assume that's what you meant) correction has got to do with it.

Anyhow, ringing has absolutely nothing to do with "what's already present on the input signal." Given the same image, a Lumagen vp will produce less ringing when upscaling it than any other consumer vp, regardless of the source.

FWIW, I compared the Toshiba XA2 upscaling against the XD's. (I don't have a dvdo vp). The XA2 is supposedly one of the best upscalers out there, yet between the two the XD's picture was noticeably better, less ringing, less harsh, more film like. That was all over hdmi (the XD takes in 480i to 1080p60 over hdmi, btw, so no need for sdi). Have not tried component, but I doubt it would be any different.

Aperture Correction is the correct term for what the consumer iondustry calls "Edge Enhancement". Yes, poor scaling produces ringing and that the Lumagen appears to have less filtering and thus more ringing in my tests. Aperture correction is simply artifically sharpening the rise times of transtions ovber a certian amplitude. This action does increase the high frequency contect of the signal and therefore may overload a filter upstream.

If there is "edge enhancement" already on an SD image AND the upconversion filtering is not of sufficuent bandwidth, there will be ringing. The VP50pro seems to deal with this better.

Like I said I am not trying to organize a debate over which is better. But I will say this. I have been around digital processors since the days when they were fabricated entirely from TTL chips and consumed 5000 watts of power and took up a full equipment rack. The Vital Squeeze Zoom in 1978 and the Quantel DPE5000 in 1979. These were only 2D scalers. The Ampex ADO was the first real time NTSC 3D image manipulator introduced in 1981. Designing any scaler from scratch is no small electrical engineering feat. Now DVDO has designed and built there own scaler from scratch. They now use an FPGA instead of twenty or more 17 layer boards with TTL chips , but it's still the same skill set that was needed in the old days of TTL chips. I.E. you had to know how to build filters. Lumagen uses the Gennum VXP chip. A good product but they did not really build the scaling engine such as DVDO did. They are locked into the feature set Gennum provided. Therefore it would seem DVDO has a much higher engineering skill base than Lumagen. JMO
Reply
Reply
post #52 of 216
12/29/08 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glimmie View Post

Aperture Correction is the correct term for what the consumer iondustry calls "Edge Enhancement". Yes, poor scaling produces ringing and that the Lumagen appears to have less filtering and thus more ringing in my tests. Aperture correction is simply artifically sharpening the rise times of transtions ovber a certian amplitude. This action does increase the high frequency contect of the signal and therefore may overload a filter upstream.

If there is "edge enhancement" already on an SD image AND the upconversion filtering is not of sufficuent bandwidth, there will be ringing. The VP50pro seems to deal with this better.

Like I said I am not trying to organize a debate over which is better. But I will say this. I have been around digital processors since the days when they were fabricated entirely from TTL chips and consumed 5000 watts of power and took up a full equipment rack. The Vital Squeeze Zoom in 1978 and the Quantel DPE5000 in 1979. These were only 2D scalers. The Ampex ADO was the first real time NTSC 3D image manipulator introduced in 1981. Designing any scaler from scratch is no small electrical engineering feat. Now DVDO has designed and built there own scaler from scratch. They now use an FPGA instead of twenty or more 17 layer boards with TTL chips , but it's still the same skill set that was needed in the old days of TTL chips. I.E. you had to know how to build filters. Lumagen uses the Gennum VXP chip. A good product but they did not really build the scaling engine such as DVDO did. They are locked into the feature set Gennum provided. Therefore it would seem DVDO has a much higher engineering skill base than Lumagen. JMO

Err - again, no. No, no, no. The XD has an fpga. It uses the Gennum (now Sigma Designs) VxP for deinterlacing - nothing else. Everything else is done with their own algorithms within an fpga. Yes, the XD has one. "Everything else" includes the CMS calculations and the scaling, which is done with Lumagen's own 'no-ring' algorithm that they have created for prior vps (vision series among others) and refined for the XD. Not Gennum's. Your observations go contrary to everyone who has ever laid eyes on what the XD can do scaling wise and your conclusions re: Lumagen's engineering skills are completely off base.

The XD's not a perfect product. It's hard to use and still finicky - the dvdo products might be more appropriate for less-than-hardcore HT enthusiasts and/or those that don't have a complex setup (that the XD can handle quite well). That's fine - as you say to each their own. What bugs me is that you sure *sound* like you know what you're talking about, but I'm not convinced that you do. Lots of misinformation in your post.
Reply
Reply
post #53 of 216
12/29/08 at 2:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fatjulio View Post

HogPilot, can you do a comparison akin to what Glimmie is describing? From what I can tell, the scaling is the same for the VP50 and VP50Pro. Thanks.

Yes I'll try to do that and maybe take some screen shots. I'm busy installing my theater and my buddy's theater amidst traveling for the new year and other stuff so it may be a while, but just keep prodding me every so often if I don't get to it in the next couple weeks.
Reply
Reply
post #54 of 216
12/29/08 at 3:17pm
"A good product but they did not really build the scaling engine such as DVDO did. They are locked into the feature set Gennum provided."

Not even a little. The Gennum does not offer a full 3D CMS for both primaries and secondarys. The Gennum does not offer 11 point grayscale and gamma calibration. Yet the Lumagen has both of those functions. Likewise the scaling engine is Lumagen's own design.

"Therefore it would seem DVDO has a much higher engineering skill base than Lumagen. JMO"

Does the DVDO offer a full 3D CMS for both primaries and secondarys? Do they offer 11 point grayscale/gamma calibration?

Shawn
Reply
Reply
post #55 of 216
12/29/08 at 3:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave G View Post

What bugs me is that you sure *sound* like you know what you're talking about, but I'm not convinced that you do. Lots of misinformation in your post.

And you sound like a talking Lumagen brochure. I don't know the internals of the Lumagen other than what I read. But I do know video processing on the broadcast level. I have been there for 25 years! Reaserch my post record my knowledge base is well respected in this forum. Recall the HDSDI DVHS thread, that's me!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1071057
Reply
Reply
post #56 of 216
12/29/08 at 3:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sfogg View Post

"A good product but they did not really build the scaling engine such as DVDO did. They are locked into the feature set Gennum provided."

Not even a little. The Gennum does not offer a full 3D CMS for both primaries and secondarys. The Gennum does not offer 11 point grayscale and gamma calibration. Yet the Lumagen has both of those functions. Likewise the scaling engine is Lumagen's own design.

"Therefore it would seem DVDO has a much higher engineering skill base than Lumagen. JMO"

Does the DVDO offer a full 3D CMS for both primaries and secondarys? Do they offer 11 point grayscale/gamma calibration?

Shawn

I'm sure they could and isn't that what this thread is all about?

CMS is rather simple hardware. In a 1D LUT it's noting more then a RAM. The table is loaded via the data lines and the video drives the address lines. A 3D LUT is more complicated due to the RGB interaction but the same basic principal. The real complexity is generating the LUT values.

Deinterlacing and scaling are very complex hardware. But if Lumagen is going to the trouble to build out all the other functions themselves, why not the deinterlacing too? That Gennum chip is probably not cheap. I do realize this still may be a marketing call and not an enginering decision.

P.S. Why does Lumagen not support SDI?
Reply
Reply
post #57 of 216
12/29/08 at 4:40pm
They supported sdi on their older units. I assume they dropped it (along with analog outs) on the xd as they didn't feel the demand was there.

Shawn
Reply
Reply
post #58 of 216
12/29/08 at 6:06pm
Since it's being discussed, here's a clip from the Radiance thread where jrp discusses some of the things that the Gennum is being used for (aside from deinterlacing):

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrp View Post

The Gennum GF9450 we use (their latest chip) in the RadianceXD has:
- Temporal noise reduction for SD and HD sources (motion adaptive)
- Mosquito noise reduction
- Block artifact reduction (do not use unless the source is total crap)
- Diagonal edge enhancement (both coarse and fine edge)
- Horizontal edge enhancement (both coarse and fine edge)
- Vertical edge enhancement (both coarse and fine edge)

These are all programmable.

Note that the Lumagen no-ring scaling (TM) has mosquito noise reduction built in, so you may not want to use the Gennum mosquito noise reduction. At least be aware of this and use the Gennum to complement the Lumagen mosquito noise reduction by using as little as you think you can.

The Lumagen mosquito noise reduction is intrinsic in the no-ring algorithm we are using.

All the block-artifact reduction schemes I have seen suffer from the "if you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail" syndrome. If you have a good source, then block-artifact reduction will tend to make it look worse. So, leave it off for decent sources. However, if the source is really bad, it is useful for mitigating the hard-edge-at-8-pixel-block-boundary effect of over compression.

I believe at one time, the idea of allowing the user to choose between the Gennum's scaling and Lumagen's proprietary scaling was being discussed, but I can't remember what came of it.

As to SDI, as sfogg said, its inclusion was discussed early on but Lumagen ultimately decided the demand wasn't there and that the average prospective Radiance buyer wouldn't want to accept the higher price for something they probably wouldn't use. I know an external SDI->HDMI converter box was being discussed, but IIRC it was pretty low on the priority list.
Reply
Reply
post #59 of 216
12/29/08 at 6:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glimmie View Post

I'm sure they could and isn't that what this thread is all about?

So you base your assessment of dvdo's vastly superior engineering skills on the stuff they haven't done (but surely could!) but that the competition has. I see.

Quote:
CMS is rather simple hardware. In a 1D LUT it's noting more then a RAM. The table is loaded via the data lines and the video drives the address lines. A 3D LUT is more complicated due to the RGB interaction but the same basic principal. The real complexity is generating the LUT values.

Yes, a 3D CMS is complex because of the interactions between the primaries and secondaries. That's why the XD's CMS is nice, because the R/G/B/C/Y/M adjustments don't affect from one another. A side effect of their sub par engineering skills.

Quote:
Deinterlacing and scaling are very complex hardware. But if Lumagen is going to the trouble to build out all the other functions themselves, why not the deinterlacing too? That Gennum chip is probably not cheap. I do realize this still may be a marketing call and not an enginering decision.

Love the way you throw those insulting little jabs. Anyhow. Trust me, if there's one thing that Lumagen sucks at, it's marketing. They used the gennum because it was the best available deinterlacing solution (at the time anyway). As you yourself point out, it's a complex function, so why do it yourself if someone else has already come up with a great solution?

Quote:
P.S. Why does Lumagen not support SDI?

Because it has no real world advantage over hdmi in terms of pq? If you really want sdi there are hd/sdi to hdmi boxes out there. But clearly the demand is not there. I'd be curious to know what % of vp50pro users use the sdi connection. Or hd-sdi for that matter, which must be an even smaller number.

Quote:
And you sound like a talking Lumagen brochure.

You mean the part where I don't recommend the XD? Whatever you say, dude.
Reply
Reply
post #60 of 216
12/29/08 at 6:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HogPilot View Post

I believe at one time, the idea of allowing the user to choose between the Gennum's scaling and Lumagen's proprietary scaling was being discussed, but I can't remember what came of it.

As to SDI, as sfogg said, its inclusion was discussed early on but Lumagen ultimately decided the demand wasn't there and that the average prospective Radiance buyer wouldn't want to accept the higher price for something they probably wouldn't use. I know an external SDI->HDMI converter box was being discussed, but IIRC it was pretty low on the priority list.

D'oh! I forgot the the gennum is also used for enhancement functions, not just deinterlacing. I actually do use these for one source - cable. Anyhow.

Also, you're right that Lumagen had indicated they would let the user choose between their own and the vxp's scaling algorithm, but nothing came out of it. I can't see this being done before all the major features are implemented. PiP isn't implement yet, for example.

The converter box is not low on the priority list; it's been scrapped completely. As said above, not enough demand. Also, completely useless if you ask me .
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Video Processors

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Video Processors › CMS for VP50 Pro coming?