CMS for VP50 Pro coming? - Page 3

it was a horrible move IMHO, I deal in high-end setups and all my customers are in that area, HD-SDI has caused Lumagen to be left in the dust and allowed the DVDO and Crystalio units to make it into hundreds if not thousands of high-end videophile systems all over the world

if the Lumagen Radiance had HD-SDI I would have one right now as would tons of other videophiles that demand the best video via SDI for SD and HD sources

Lumagen also screwed themselves out of professional customers as well

maybe we will see some HD-SDI inputs for the Radiance in 2009 from outside sources

-Gary

same as my previous post

hardcore videohpile HT enthusiasts have HD-SDI and thus no Radiance in their system it's not the customers or retailers fault, it is Lumagens

-Gary

Hi Gary, I have a Radiance and an SDI modded DVD player. I'm using the Black Magic SDI to HDMI convertor. It does a great job, no messing with the signal. The Lumagen guys tried one out and found it did what it's supposed to do, just convert the signal without messing it up. It has 2 inputs aswell, one is a "backup" if there's no signal on the main input, so you get 2 inputs for the price of one. It does HD-SDI too. So now you can get a Radiance!

Why are we even discussing the Radiance?

Glimmie,

You clearly have a background that more than qualifies you to speak on the subject of video processing, and I think everyone here would benefit from your continued positive contribution to this thread.

Specifically, I'd really like to see what we're doing differently - either in VP setup or system setup - that we're seeing opposing amounts of ringing with our ABT and Lumagen scaling solutions. The general sentiment based on side-by-side observations is that Lumagen offers superior scaling to ABT, but obviously you're experiencing something different and I'm very interested in why.

If you have to choose between a CMS and sdi, and you choose sdi, that hardly makes you a 'hardcore videophile'. Quite the opposite.

Ouch. This is getting rich! Let me grab my popcorn!!

This is hardly controversial. Ask any ISF type guy or installer on how they'd get the best possible picture for their clients, and what they'd choose between an hd/sdi connection and a functionning CMS with 3D palette and 11-point gamma/grayscale calibration. We *are* talking about pq, right?

Gary not to discount what you're saying, but doesn't a significant amount of your business center around adding SDI and HD-SDI mods to equipment? If so that would certainly skew the numbers that you're quoting pretty drastically.

Besides, how much modding does it take to transmit copyrighted DVD and BD material over HD-SDI, and is it legal? With most of the industry heading towards using DRM in commercial media, it seems that HDMI has pretty much taken over as the de-facto standard for digital audio and video transmission because it supports HDCP. I'm not saying it's the best solution from a quality standpoint - Glimmie listed several possible shortcomings earlier - but it's what's being supported by major commercial A/V electronics manufacturers.

I'd have to agree with Dave G, I'd rather have the CMS, gamma, and greyscale correction capabilities (not to mention the flexibility) of the Radiance in lieu of a lesser solution just for the sake of having HD-SDI. If the VP50Pro gets those capabilities, I still don't see there being a very big shift over to HD-SDI.

So how do you and others without an SDI modded DVD player feed your scalers?

I don't know of any stsndard DVD players that output 480i over HDMI. Sure you can buy upconverting DVD players but don't they only output 1080i or 720p?Even if they did 480P youy are still doing processing inside the DVD player which would be better done in a high performance scaler.

Then there's component video. Yeah, a DtoA conversion in the player and an AtoD in the scaler. Talk about ringing problems and bandwidth loss. The DAC analog filters in a DVD player are hardly of good quality and the comsumer scalers ADC analog filter are not much better.

So how do you feed a non SDI modified into a scaler and maintain a pure digital path?

Now this issue becomes much more gray with BluRay. The quality difference between HDSDI and HDMI is very close if not in many cases identical - that is for BluRay disks. But remember a BluRay player playing a standard DVD is performing upconversion, deinterlacing, and posssibly other "enhancements" internally. So whats the point of your high end scaler if the BluRay player is doing all the work for SD DVD with mediocre technology?

We decided that it would be much more cost effective to use an external HD-SDI to HDMI converter with the Radiance. You get the same quality using the external converter.

Randy Freeman
support@lumagen.com

There's a list of players that do it in this thread.

I've found out for myself that the Denon 2930 does not actually have a "clean" 480i output over HDMI. However, the OPPO 980 (and other listed players I'm sure) do have a "clean" 480i output over HDMI.

Well I was using component input so in all fairness the ringing could be the fault of the ADC analog filtering. But overall I just liked the picture better on the VP50pro.

If you all look at my origional post I closed it with JMO. Just My Opinion. I cannot measure why I liked the VP50pro better. This is analogous to which pair of speakers sounds better. The fcat that ABT desiged their own scaling and deinterlacing hardware puts them higher on my scale of technical ability. That doesn't mean Lumagen can't do that as well but they don't have any physical proof of it yet.

Well if they in fact provide a virgin 480i 422 signal from the MPEG decoder over HDMI, then they should be just as good as an SDI modified player. But can you really be sure there is no extra processing going on with the HDMI output that is not documented?

I can't be completely sure, but I know the OPPO 980 does output a 480i YCbCr 4:2:2 signal over HDMI that doesn't throw off an external processor's de-interlacing abilities. That, and displaying no apparent issues in test patterns and real-world content, is good enough for me.

Then again, I'm not part of the asylum of "hardcore videophiles."

Oh, I don't disagree. I guess that didn't come across...

In all fairness, Lumagen HAS done half of that - they use a scaling engine of their own design. I won't debate the Gennum's de-interlacing as compared to ABT's, but they're both pretty damn good. The Gennum already has great de-interlacing and NR algorithms, so it makes sense that Lumagen didn't want to re-invent the wheel, allowing them to focus their engineering resources elsewhere.

Either way, I think this certainly warrants more investigation, so I'll do a little A/B-ing and see what I can come up with over HDMI using 480i from my Oppo 981.

oh boy, so many things, where do I start

first of all lets please not go down this "is SDI legal road?" please people, enough is enough

yes Hog, my customers are videophiles plain and simple, you get a real good idea of things by talking to these people everyday

Dave, not all systems need CMS, 11 point gamma and greyscale, high-end CRT systems certainly don't in most cases, colors are nearly spot on with color filtering, greyscales usually come out quite well(and many CRTs have extra on board controls to make sure of that) and low end gamma is taken care of via external boxes like Moome, XVue and others, this is not to say they wouldn't be appreciated, but for CRT folks that demand the best PQ in the world, HD-SDI can come ahead of some of these things because gamma and color are not totally out of whack like digital units

the highest end videophile systems still use CRT, well those that care about PQ at least and guess what they want in most cases? a connection as good as(in this case better) than HDMI and RGBHV BNC output, the VP50pro delivers that, the Radiance does not, nor does any scaler because of lack of HD-SDI or HDCP shutting off the RGBHV output or in case of the Radiance lacking both HD-SDI and RGBHV output

I will not get into the merits of HDMI vs HD-SDI, it has been beaten to death, everyone that has owned or seen HD-SDI says it is better, everyone that has not seen HD-SDI says HDMI is just as good, same old same old, I have compared HDMI 4:2:2 1080p/24 vs HD-SDI 4:2:2 1080p/24 and have compared HDMI 4:2:2 480i to SDI 4:2:2 480i, the result is always the same, but remember I am not trustworthy as I have a interest in SDI

I have and others have as well compared the external HD-SDI to HDMI converters and while they are great, they do not match up to the pro and Crystalio when inputting HD-SDI directly, just my opinion

-Gary

Before we go completely off topic, maybe we can at least stick to the scaling discussion, and if a CMS ever does become available in the VP50Pro, we can compare its functionality to the one on the Radiance at that time. I'll admit I haven't helped by responding to even more divergent topics as they've been interjected, but as Gary pointed out, several of the issues - HD-SDI vs HDMI and CRT vs digital - have been flogged to death elsewhere, so no need to unearth those remains in this thread as well.

Ah yes, CRT is where it's at today. Jim @ Lumagen must indeed be a madman for not catering to the needs of a market that's a niche within a niche within a niche.


Sure. Also, you think there's a 'night and day' improvement when your receiver decodes dts hd-ma as opposed to your player.


You crack me up.

Anyhow. Will dvdo come up with a cms for its vp50pro? I hope so, it would put even more pressure on Lumagen to add features to differentiate themselves (although frankly their stellar customer service is second to none). And according to Glimmie that should be no sweat at all for dvdo, since they've already come up with scaling and deinterlacing algorithms thanks to their 133t skillz!

I'll just add this though; I wouldn't be shocked if dvdo came up with a (working) cms. I would be if they put it on the vp50/pro instead of a new model.

Larry from DVDO told me that a new VP50Pro fw is coming out early next year.
I do not know when exactly (neither did he is my best guess) and I don't know what that fw will bring in.
I think mostly bugs removal, but we'll see.

thats not what we are talking about is it

but if you must, there is a difference, I don't know if I ever said night and day, but it is pretty big

I almost forgot though, digital is digital

so a Crystalio, DVDO, Key Digital or Lumagen all look the same when using HDMI/DVI digital output on the units just as foolish a comment as you are making implying decoding done here or there is equal because it is digital, did you ever read the article of then Dolby employee Brent Butterworth talking about the differences in Dolby Digital decoder qualities in higher and lower priced audio gear? audio decoders vary the same as video decoders, but there is a group of people out there that believe all video decoder chips are identical because it is all digital and that is just plain dead wrong

this has nothing to do with my point and that is that Lumagen messed up big time by not having HD-SDI and RGBHV outputs

I personally know a couple Lumagen dealers and high-end installers who have not sold one single Radiance unit since launch and this is one of the reasons

-Gary

I guess that will be the same firmware they said would be out about 6 months ago. Happy 1st birthday 50Pro v1.02 production firmware, one year old today and still going

None of what you are talking about - SDI, CRTs, Radiance sales numbers - touch on the VP50Pro CMS or even the first tangential topic of ABT vs Lumagen scaling, so I'd say that bringing up audio decoding is fair game at this point!

Please stop mistaking your personal opinions and experience for big picture reality - Lumagen is obviously having no problem selling units, contrary to the dire picture you seem to be trying to paint. We understand your position, you've made it clear as day - just understand that it's your opinion and there are plenty of Radiance owners out there who disagree with you. So let's stop beating a dead horse and move on, shall we?

History is unfortunately repeating itself.

I am not pessimistic .... but not so optimistic either ...

We know that using two FPGA the VP50Pro can get upgraded ... a lot ? Just by a little margin ? We do not know !
Being a beta EDGE user I know that an optimised firmware can be a smaller file still featuring the same fonctions.

Will we have a CMS implementation in the VP50Pro some day ?
I hope we will + better gamma control + input rename + profile rename + color temp adjustment per input + .... so many things !

It is true that DVDO dedicated their whole dev dept to the EDGE. Can't blame them to be honest ! They had very challenging objectives considering the cots of that scaler + the fact some features that where not in the prime spec were included to satisfy users requests (the 1:1 mapping is one of them). Firmware development took too long I was surprised that DVDO could launch the EDGE with just two weeks delay (most scaler get 6 month to 1 year delay) and fw 1.1 took few month to be released and is still the best fw for the EDGE.

So ... stay put ! Who knows ? The best for the VP50pro could be coming now ... or not ...

Implementing a CMS is a little more involved than simply including a LUT. Basically, what you have to do is to rotate incoming RGB values to a new set of RGB values using 3 x 3 matrix math. Then you apply a LUT to "calibrate" the new set of RGB values to the I/O characteristics peculiar to your display device. Implementing this new set of math operations in the VP50pro would be dependent on how much processing reserve is left in the FPGAs. Considering that the VP50pro gets hot enough to "fry eggs", I wouldn't want to add anything more in there! BTW, I noticed that no one responded to my challenge to identify the hot devices and junction temperatures in that other "Glimmee" thread.

With respect to the highjack subject, scaler ringing, I am using a Realta based video processor and see no "scaler ringing" at all. Silicon Optix claims that they are using 16 to 1024 tap adaptive scaling in the Realta, so that probably accounts for the good performance. It is easy to demonstrate, just watch any good quality monochrome material and you will see absolutely no "scaler ringing" at all.

Play back something with chroma in it and the results are highly variable and (obviously) dependent on the source material -- not scaler performance. It seems that some DVDs have what looks a lot of "chroma ringing" in them. Whether this is caused by poor MPEG encoding or by misapplied EE during the mastering stage, is a mystery to me. Maybe someone in the business could comment.

Chroma upconversion (4:2:2 to 4:4:4) is not scaling per-se, since they are completely separate video processing operations. If you don't see any chroma ringing with your Lumagen processor, then it is probably filtering the disturbance out and what you are getting in effect is reduced chroma resolution.

Interesting - I've never heard of chroma ringing. Do you have an example, either screenshots or a DVD title?

Edit: I've heard of chroma upsampling error though - is that the same?

HDMI is a superb signal-transmission standard, which is why all of the connections between equipment in the studios where they master DVDs and Blu-ray disks are all done using HDMI.

Oh, wait. Actually, all of the connections are done using SD-SDI and HD-SDI.

It's only when the signal gets out to the end user that HDMI is inflicted on them.

We have a DVD player with SD-SDI out, a Blu-ray player with HD-SDI out, and (by the end of next week) a scaler with two SD-SDI/HD-SDI inputs. The goal is to provide the scaler with the cleanest video signal possible, and then drive the display in source-direct mode from the scaler to avoid having the display "help" with the signal.