Darbee vision darblet - Page 86

I suspect the problems HDMI wise might be do to differing HDMI output chips rather than the basic processing chip in the processor. The basic processing chip will have more of effect than any other thing in the processor and it shoud be note that the Lumagen's do not rely on everything in the Gennum (old name) chip but rather use a great deal of their own algs loalded into large scale field gate arrays.

Hopefully my darbee gets here tomorrow. I have a question on hooking it up. All hdmi connections. Comcast cable HD receiver, Panny 210 Blu ray, to hdmi in on the Denon 1712 hdmi out to Darbee, hdmi out to Epson 6010. I’m sorry haven’t had time to read all the post here. Sounds like a simple hook up to me. So this is all I have to do?

Use a 6 ft HDMI from ceiver out to Darbee and then it will likely depend from there on the length and quality of the HDMI from the Darblet to the 6010. If there is a problem, try putting the Darblet at the projector and use that 6ft HDMI to go from the Darblet to the 6010. Feel free to call me if you have any questions or issues.

The Epson's SR does create ringing when it's set high but it still looks more natural to me and sharper then the Darbee does at 50% HD. The best result I found so far is setting the SR to 3or4 and the Darbee to 25% HD maybe 30 depending on the content. The Darbee doesn't make a big difference but enough I guess to justify keeping it, that and the cost, if it was more expensive I'd consider sending it back.
Edited by nirvy111 - 8/22/12 at 9:37am

I do realise those things are factors, setup and personal taste plays its part. I think I'll be happy with it set to 25%.
Edited by nirvy111 - 8/22/12 at 9:36am

Everybody is talking about sharpness. To me it lifts a haze...especially in the background of images... that gives the image more depth which does help make it look sharper but its more depth I see. That is different from a sharpness control that just enhances edges and even out of focus edges which doesn't look right.

Try it with 3D and wow does it add to the 3D effect. I don't think the Darblet helps my 720p DLP projector that much in 2D but in 3D WOW...a ton more depth and the higher you set it the more depth you get! It really doesn't look all that sharper with my 720p DLP. Now with my JVC RS1 in 2D its like I bought a new projector and all I need is between 40-50 in HD mode. Usually end up at 43 as my default to start with. With brightly lit sporting events I can use the pop mode at about the same levels of 40-50. I am Looking forward to football season this year.

Oops...got me. I missed the news from '08 http://hd.engadget.com/2008/02/14/sigma-designs-acquires-gennums-vxp-image-processing-business/

Go here and get the user manual http://darbeevision.com/assets/documents/DarbeeVision%20Darblet%20User%20Guide%2020120426a.pdf
It will provide about as much info as you need on connections and how to setup features, especially the advanced features. Key here is to have a working HDMI cable to go with the Darblet and checking into your color space settings throughout the chain, if you get any weird colors.

Really interesting to see the impact choices made by film makers has on the Darbee effect. Watched an older film "The Name of the Rose" on Blu-ray and there was very little that the Darblet was doing with the picture. This one takes place in some 15th century monastery, so there's lots of doom and gloom (speaking of haze). Rather a flat color scheme and the opposite of sharp images. I think this was clearly the DP's intent along with the cinematographer. So, manipulating the Darblet either in mode (Hi Def to Pop) or degree didn't have any real positive effect.

On the other hand, watching a high quality video broadcast over the air (as you indicate with sporting events) can take a huge Darbee level with Pop mode without doing real "damage" to the image.

Using the Darblet in my system is like going to Starbucks. How much milk and cream I add to their swill is highly dependent on how much they've over roasted their beans...

Don't think gamma is in play here. Seems to have more to do with apparent depth perception. Here's a bit from an earlier post or two:

"THE ONE EYE DEPTH TEST - "A Father's Day Gift" to all you Darblet customers!

This is the experiment that I would like everyone who can possibly put their eyes on Darbee to do. We call it the "One Eye Depth Test."

Cover one eye and compare any standard image to the Darbee processed version, exploring the image with only your one eye.

The difference you will notice between the non-Darbee image and the Darbee image will be the result of the added information that we put into the image.

With only ONE eye, it is impossible for your two eyes to converge in the image. Converging would normally, very quickly, allow your brain to determine that the image does not possess real depth, because without being able to converge your eyes, the depth cues available with one eye, are only the monoscopic sort and normally fall far very short of compelling the brain to think that the image possesses real depth.

So, the difference you will see between the normal image and the Darbee image will be the difference in how the monoscopic information is presented. Monoscopic depth information (detail, contrast, shape occlusion, relative size, blur, etc.) can be strong or not strong depending upon the content and what processing is available and applied.

Darbee Visual Presence puts 3D depth information into 2D image information. In doing so, it embeds a collection of monoscopic depth cues in a manner that will not be attained by any other means.

The One Eye Depth Test will confirm this fact.

Here's the ultra amazing thing. With many types of content, when viewed with one eye, the Darbee processed version will appear 3D! Why?? Because when the 'collection' of monoscopic depth information is presented in the right way to the brain, your brain has to make a decision as to what it is seeing. The easiest thing for your brain to conclude is that the image possesses real depth. If sharpening, global contrast boosting, edge enhancement or other conventional image processing methods were the same as Darbee Visual Presence, you would be able to turn them up and get the same effect. You can't, as you simply end up ruining the picture trying. Most every CE company that we have showed Darbee Visual Presence to, has tried to do exactly that. They boost the existing enhancements in their products to try and attain the same result and they always end up destroying the fidelity of the image.

Do the One Eye Depth Test on all kinds of content, with all kinds processing, on all kinds of equipment and you will never get a stronger depth sensation with one eye, than with Darbee Visual Presence.

The take away from this test is...Darbee is not a 3D image presentation for binocular viewing with glasses, yet it adds strong, elegant and compelling qualities of depth enhancement for 2D viewing, that other monoscopic enhancements cannot achieve."

And this:

"Depth cues can be interpreted as artifacts. HD mode provides the hardest clamps on depth cue "artifacts" and is the result of 18 months of feedback from other companies. Gaming mode was created by releasing some of the clamps we use in Hi Def mode. For CGI and gaming content, the image is often clean and can take more depth information. Gamers also want the depth cues as they indicate that it helps them perform and win more."

I decided to try this unit out and purchased one from SS on Amazon. Just shipped yesterday but won't arrive till next week. I'll have to wait until next weekend to really have time fiddling with it on my Elite PRO70X5FD.

The only time I've seen the Darbee at 50%hd improve the image in the two days I've used it was when watching The Lorax both in 3D and 2D which happens to be a squeaky clean cg animation film but non of the live feature films I've seen like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Sucker Punch etc have performed well with that setting, it always looks kind of worse to me, I have to lower it to 25% to avoid the negative effects I see at the higher setting.

Have you set up your A/V receiver to cleanly pass the DTV HDMI signal?

Thank you. I've said this so many times I may get written off as a fanboy. Fine....I proudly admit to being their biggest fan. Many years ago while thinking about some specific plans, I used to hold Arizona Highways' fabulous scenery photographs, printed on that beautiful stock they use for the magazine......12-16 or so inches from my eyes and think that if it could be projected large size proportionate to the viewer....it would look almost 3 dimensional. Because of the quality of the awesome photographs themselves and the rendering of the fine detail in the prints. Back then there was no such projection capability, save for largest film stocks and theatrical projection like iMax and 65-70mm wide screen presentations.

Then in the past 5-7 years digital projectors capable of being used in the home have gotten good enough to now actually accomplish that impact I was hoping we would get to some day. Great images could now in fact look more dimensional than run-of-the-mill images in 2D.

19 months ago I was talking on the phone with Mark H. at AVS ordering a lamp. And he was telling me about what he had seen at CEDIA 2010 with this new DarbeeVision technology and how you never chose the unprocessed side in A/B ing back and forth and how much he liked it. Of course my ears perked up and have been staying abreast of everything since then plus bought 2 of the Darblets.

And yes, if you have a great, clean HDTV signal with sports and specials I do the same thing and go for the Depth. You can go higher in Pop and have it look great. Just can't do it even in HD if you have much of any type of noise or block artifacting going on. DUH! Hello: McFly. But some people in the interest of "testing" the Darblet and reporting back will run a sporting event signal with artifacts in that particular program.... and place all the blame for the not great result on the Darblet. Really? Could not find anything clean to look at? If so they need a better provider.

Depth is very cool
Edited by RonF - 8/22/12 at 12:52pm

I have no problem with any Sports, Baseball, Football ,Hockey, basket ball, etc. Most are live, some are replays of games.Tennis reruns on now also. Darbee is at HD55%.Fios tv to monoprice HDMI switcher, to darbee to TV,Pioneer Elite pro 111fd in day isf setting.

Here's some more good info from prior postings by DarbeeDR that might warrant another look on how best to use the Darblet when viewing really clean sources:

"Signal to Noise...
When "noise" has enough structure, it might fool DVP's "don't look at noise" detectors.
Artifacts of compression and even grain can all become "interesting" structure.
The movie 300, might be best left alone for this reason (highly stylized artistic intent reason too).
Hi Def mode has detection that does the best job of causing the DVP algorithm to ignore "noise" structure.
The vast majority of video frames where there is nothing of interest in part of the frame: sky, wall, flat smooth surface, etc. DVP will not process that area at all. You can pause and A/B most frames and see this to be true (pretty fancy AI goes into selectively NOT processing the entire frame). That being said, there will be pathological cases and we apologize for not being perfect...yet.

Low Quality, Low Resolution Video...
Bad video contains artificial structure in areas that you would NOT normally be looking at, which can be tempting for the DVP algorithm, as Full Pop mode does not have the detection mode engaged. So Full Pop Mode will sometimes attempt to process "interesting noise." The issue of that happening will come and go depending upon the content.
On the other hand, bad video contains so many problems already, that the eye/brain will accept some of the DVP errors, because the content needs so much help. DVP artifacts are often trivial compared to what the eye/brain has to deal with given the artifacts of compression. Also, DVP artifacts are often hidden in low quality material, due to all the other artifacts.
Full Pop Mode is the best mode to use on low quality low resolution material because it forces DVP into the image strongly enough that you often get a change that your eyes/brain notice and thank you for.

High Quality, Hi Resolution Video...
Very clean video (CGI and end to end HD with good encoding bit rate for playback media) will absorb an amazing amount of DVP Full Pop, particularly if it is hi fidelity with organic structure content. Round shapes and textures of all sizes, object separated in many depth planes. Avatar is a good example of all that mix.
Higher levels (60-90) of Hi Def mode will be tolerated and the virtually artifact free result can be seen to its fullest.
The greatest example I have witnessed is uncompressed D5 tape (DVP post processed on movie frames then encoded to uncompressed video) of a feature movie test segments (A Knights Tale) on a studio reference monitor at FotoKem. Astonishing!, and too bad we all cannot have that quality in our homes.

Medium/High Quality, Hi Resolution Video...
This is where many are in their living rooms, families sitting around and wondering why you won't stop A/B'ing the image or why you won't turn that damn sliding line off.. Use judicious amounts of DVP, Full Pop in low 30-60 settings or Hi Def or Gaming Mode 40-80. Hi Def and Gaming Modes you have noise/artifact detectors engaged and you will have a wide range of settings to play with, or set and forget just below a level that you feel causes some artifacts to creep through.

High quality compression codecs are appreciated by DVP and with enough success maybe DVP will contribute its own."

So, it seems again to come down to just what source material you're sending through the Darblet. I don't think the idea of set it, forget it -- even if you're only using it for a single source device will be satisfying all of the time. Just too much variation in how the content is captured and delivered. Even in a single film like Michael Mann's "Collateral", where he uses both film and high-def camera, may pose a challenge in finding the right mode and degree of Darbee to use (gotta' load that Blu-ray up and test).

Let me start by saying I am pleased with the performance of the Darbee. It does seem to have no downsides at the percentage I am using 50%.

Now, I am trying to track down an issue I am having with my HDMI connection. Is anyone else running an AV7005 with their darbee? I am getting some weird audio problems now. It is almost like something in the chain is "telling" my processor that it should be in stereo mode. It started about when the darbee was installed, but I also did a firmware update from Oppo. So I don't know what unit could be causing the problems. Any ideas?

UPDATE: After another extended tweaking session and some input from a fellow forum member (who will get credit in a later post), I figured out what my problem was in maximizing (and fully appreciating) the benefits of the Darblet. In short, I can now stand tall as a Darbee convert who has just seen some truly remarkable images out of his home theater. I'm redacting some of my posts as a result.

I've already noted that I think the Darbee tech is extremely intriguing, so the following comments shouldn't be taken as an anti-Darbee argument AT ALL. But I think Darbee does itself a bit of a disservice with the depth information and 2D/3D arguments. To my eyes, it reads rather "snake oily" for a product that can improve perceived image clarity.

It appears to me that the Darbee tech is reading a matrix of adjacent pixels and then making a decision to raise or lower luminance values of a pixel based on the comparative luminance levels of the surrounding pixels. If the differences in luminance are gradual (as they would be in a slightly out-of-focus background), the Darblet makes little or no change to luminance values. If the difference is more pronounced (as it would be in a sharply-focused foreground object,) then it maximizes the contrast by increasing or reducing the luminance of the current pixel. If my speculation is correct, it probably is fair to call these differences "depth information." To my eyes, though, calling the result a more three-dimensional 2D image is really a bit of a stretch.

Based on what I saw in my system, the initial Darbee algorithm for making these decisions is good but could (I think) be made even more sophisticated and, therefore, more effective. For example, the Edge Enhancement adjustment in the software attached to the NVidia ION chip (current drivers) also increases detail and texture clarity without adding "sharpness" halos. In fact, as you crank it up, you can see it apparently recovering film grain without significantly adding noise or making obvious luminance changes (which are VERY obvious with the Darblet.) A combination of the Nvidia technique--whatever it is--and Darbee's luminance tweaking could be a potent combination.

ADDITION: In fact, combining the NVidia processing with the Darblet DID produce the results I was hoping for: an extremely sharp image with an increased sense of dimension.
Edited by boblinds - 8/22/12 at 11:42pm

I am using a Marantz pre amp av 8003.My Oppo goes through that and out to darbee. I have it set to process the audio only and by pass the video directly out..This way audio is only available with pre amp and amp on.No problems using it this way.Audio doesn't come from tv in this set up.

The many of us that see this depth with fine, large projected images are what..... hallucinating? "Snake oily"!? What did you watch exactly and on what kind & size of display?

That's exactly what it looks like and it does so by increasing contrast in small areas of the display.


Gamma and color are untouched. I've compared 0% and 100% Darblet settings at 25, 50, 75, and 100% color saturations where luminance was also measured. There is no difference. Mind you these are test patterns and it has been demonstrated that the Darblet makes luminance changes to smaller areas than the patterns. I've spent lots of time staring at pixels.

You bring up an interesting thought: there may be synergistic effects in using the Darbee technology with other "enhancement" technology (others have talked about the JVC e-Shift, for example). But more importantly, there may be other technologies that work against one another when we view the end result. It would be interesting to know what works and what doesn't. If the mix makes me (that's the combination of eye and brain) think that what I'm seeing is closer to reality, then I'll go with it. On the other hand, if I start to notice things I'm seeing as somehow wrong, then I'm either pushing the technology too far or in the wrong direction. This is a lot like cooking. I know when I've added too much of a spice or the wrong mix of things. Really tastes off...

If you would like to see what the Darbee Darblet does just put in Vampire Diaries Blu ray. My wife watches this non stop and causes me to continually turn on and off the Darblet just to get her to finish making dinner. So last night she escaped to the Vampire Diaries menu screen and I kept on turning the Darblet on and off just to piss her off, then noticed the biggest difference with the unit in place. This is the best example I have yet seen in my own setup of how much an improvement the Darblet makes. It makes an image that is already stunning to jaw dropping unbelivable. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

CK

For anyone that doesn't have a Darbee yet, I took some unboxing photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tylerpruitt/7840827336/in/set-72157631198546604/

Got mine two days ago(Thanks Mike)very quick service from the US to Alberta Canada.
My X9 projector is having the fan changed(not even 6 months old).
And I figured since my projectors gone for a bit I'd have my amp led's changed from Gn-Blu.
With the Darbee will hook her up to our ol 52" DLP tv just to see what can happen for now.

It is possible equipment and the drop to 720P and your own physiological perception maybe makes a difference.....not having you see what we are reporting. But you must have also seen many are reporting it.

But the bolded part I don't understand what part of what they have said their goals were and trying to describe to all reading their explanations and watching Paul's now numerous video interviews (with what they are willing to give up in non-proprietary disclosure) ....you would have them change, or what you could think is stretching the truth? Clearly they state this is not true 3D and nothing is capable of coming forward past the image surface....but rather actual, perceived depth back into the images. They actually, technologically accomplished this enhanced 3 dimensional depth with 2D images if the source lends itself to being able to push the settings that far. If not or if one is simply running out of individual preference at a lower level in the least aggressive HD mode for what they like and want from the darbee processing....still there are the side / contained-within-the-attempt-at-that-depth....benefits of enhanced clarity and "apparent" detail. (If the changed luminance look of the picture you don't care for that is a different discussion)


Edit....maybe in fact you have a few sentences you have found here and there, rather than the overall marketing approach, that you would have worded differently and certainly that's fair.
Edited by RonF - 8/22/12 at 3:24pm

This all makes me wonder how the technology will translate to the mass market, you know the folks who left their VCR clocks blinking 12:00. I'm guessing that it will be necessary for the the manufacturers to offer either a default of always on, or a simple on/off switch for this and some basic settings for the most common source material. Ideally the algorithms would need to be enhanced to recognize how to deploy the mode/degree of Darbee and take the necessary action. Otherwise it won't "fly". Comes down to economics as well. If it can't be marketed and shown easily (though I think the Darblet already has that capability) and doesn't add too much to the cost to the manufacturer and pass through price, it won't succeed in the marketplace.

It may be 720p that is taking away from what you see. My Acer H5360 doesn't gain much of a sharpening effect either. It helps 3D depth with real 3D content but very little sharpening. On my 1080p setup is where it really shines.

After reading most of these 2500+ posts I must conclude that this device is aimed at the projector crowd. I've seen a couple of Mitsubishi RPTV's and a few plasma's TV's but I don't recall seeing anyone using it on a LED/LCD display. I'm wondering how the Darblet will do on one of the big screen (70"/80") Sharps.

Was that physiognomy or physiology? If the latter, I may have one on you. It's something to do with the stereoscopic effect, or that I tend to see things in more extreme depth than average. Gets particularly bad when certain strong red and green images appear next to one another in a two dimension space. Just proves that we're all build a bit differently. At least I don't get headaches from DLP colorwheels or go bonkers from listening to digital music...