Quote:
Originally Posted by craig john 
So, I put in my "most familiar" piece of content: The Eagles, Farewell One on HD DVD. I keep my HD DVD player in my system *just* so I can watch this disc. It's my single favorite concert disc. I owned on it DVD and when it came out on HD DVD, I bought a player just to be able to watch it in Hi-Def and listen to the DTS-MA track. I've watched it literally dozens of times, having used it as my primary concert video demo disc. I know it inside and out, so it was very easy to see the difference with the Darbee.
Adding the Darbee improved the video significantly! The most noticeable improvements were sharpness in the details of facial features, and the textures of the clothes the guys were wearing, and the grains, textures and wear-marks on the guitars and violins. Also, when the camera does long pans of the audience, the detail in those pans was much improved. In addition, I thought the shadow detail was hugely improved. Usually to get better shadow detail, you need to raise the black level a little. No need for that now. Shadow detail is much better AND blacks are still deep black.
My biggest concern before seeing the device in use was that it would add some EE ringing or other artifacts. I didn't see *any* of that, (unless I turned it all the way up.) Running it at 65 or so just added detail, sharpness and an increase in perceived detail.
Overall, on first blush, I'm pretty impressed.
So, I put in my "most familiar" piece of content: The Eagles, Farewell One on HD DVD. I keep my HD DVD player in my system *just* so I can watch this disc. It's my single favorite concert disc. I owned on it DVD and when it came out on HD DVD, I bought a player just to be able to watch it in Hi-Def and listen to the DTS-MA track. I've watched it literally dozens of times, having used it as my primary concert video demo disc. I know it inside and out, so it was very easy to see the difference with the Darbee.
Adding the Darbee improved the video significantly! The most noticeable improvements were sharpness in the details of facial features, and the textures of the clothes the guys were wearing, and the grains, textures and wear-marks on the guitars and violins. Also, when the camera does long pans of the audience, the detail in those pans was much improved. In addition, I thought the shadow detail was hugely improved. Usually to get better shadow detail, you need to raise the black level a little. No need for that now. Shadow detail is much better AND blacks are still deep black.
My biggest concern before seeing the device in use was that it would add some EE ringing or other artifacts. I didn't see *any* of that, (unless I turned it all the way up.) Running it at 65 or so just added detail, sharpness and an increase in perceived detail.
Overall, on first blush, I'm pretty impressed.
The Eagles concert is the last HD DVD I have in my collection. great concert for visuals and sounds.
I was skeptical of the Darbee device, just as I was when e-shift was first announced. Now it turns out that both technologies combined create some of the best 2D i've seen on my 142" screen.
This is a repost of some comparisons of the darby + e-shift I posted in the DVP thread. it's hard to capture either technique with screenshots, but this is a decent attempt to get a basic idea of what's going on with both technologies. I've used the darby on 4 different front projectors and it looks good with all of them, but it's exceptional when combined with e-shift.
the green shadow on the nose is not misconvergence, it's CA from my camera lens. This is a scene from The Crossroads 2010 tour (excellent video and sound quality)
It's best to download the first 3 and A/B/C with your favorite jpg viewing software. The first 3 are with the camera about 3 feet from the screen.
Darbee off / e-eshift off
Darbee on (35%) / e-shift off - if you A/B these photos, you can see there are changes around the eye, nose, etc. Look at the wrinkle under the eye.
Darbee on / eshift on - it's easy to assume the e-shift 'softens' the image by this shot, but it's actually quite the opposite. From seating distance, there is a noticeable perception of increased image resolution and image depth as seen in the next photos. Notice all pixel structure is gone.
Darbee on / eshift off - Zoomed shot from Seating distance ~14 feet from the 142" 16:9 dalite.
Darbeee on / eshift on - the image is obviously sharper with detail under the eyes, behind the ear and look closely at the hat texture.
Darbee + e-shift (MPC set to 2) at seating distance. Can't beat the 2D PQ with the Darbee + RS55 for under 10K.
JVC demo showing e-shift off/on. The close ups are deceiving, the image is always better IMO with e-shift on at seating distance. I sit ~ 1.25 SW from the 142". The Darbee + JVC's eshift are a perfect combo.
