Darbee Darblet - Page 4

Finally a good review:
http://www.avforums.com/reviews/DarbeeVision-Visual-Presence-DVP-5000-Darbee-Darblet-Video-Enhancement-Device-Review_352/Review.html

The color issue wasn't fixed yet?

Cons
Makes Images deviate from accepted Industry Standards
Can make pictures look over-processed and unnatural
Expensive for a one trick pony
Colour space issues with some kit
It can introduce chroma upsampling errors

I now know how this filter works.

None applied:


Bug:


How it should be:


Excellent example how to simulate the filter:
http://abduzeedo.com/photoshop-quick-tips-3-enhancing-photos-high-pass-filter

If I apply too much, it goes to this:

Edited by Gradius2 - 8/10/12 at 4:48pm

I just hooked up my Darbee to Sim2 Lumis HOST. Haven't done any critical viewing yet as I was busy configuring iRule to control Darbee, as all of my equipment is in a separate room and I would have to walk out of theater every time I wanted to use darbee remote. I have shared my Panel and My darbee device codes in irule - username is mani and device would be Darbee-mani, if anyone wants to use irule to control it. ( the available Darbee codes in irule user databse didnt work for me, so used Global cache iLearn to get the codes of the Darbee remote and added them to my device codes. )- I think with quite a few theaters with separate equipment rooms or projection rooms, the Hex codes should be available on Darbee's website to painlessly configure universal remotes or automation systems .
Just did few seconds of non critical viewing- effect seems to be small and picture does look over processed even at 40% of darbee, with sharpness on Lumis set to 7 and noise reduction set to 24. Will do some more viewing over next few days to see if I will keep it in the chain.

mani

With my Sim2 C3X 1080 I turned the sharpness down to 0, left noise reduction where I had it at 24, and I really like the Darbee set in HD mode at
50 most of the time. Sometimes I may lower it, sometimes I may increase it a bit. But I played around with different settings on my Sim2 projector and
for whatever reason I didn't like the Darbee when I had the sharpness on some or when I turned the projector noise reduction down or off.

But I really luv the Darbee as I've set it. Live with it and play with it for a bit, I think you'll see.

I think really well filmed and mastered high budget movies make a better argument for not using anything that alters the image than the average movie or TV show. In the end if something looks better to the eye, then who cares about the other stuff so much. Hence, the lighting in the average movie really isn't all that sophisticated, it's often cheap looking compared to the high-budget movies. This article says that they can easily fix all those issues, but it's all about budget, so obviously it's not easy. Take for example the dark scenes in a Harry Potter (super-high budget movie) and compare those to some generic average movie's dark scenes. I seriously doubt the DIRECTOR's INTENT in the average movie is even the EXACT director's intent much of the time, as they are on a budget and a deadline. Any company that has to do with movies is going to charge an arm and a leg, so I think this article missed the mark partly. When it says they could have just done this or that, well not on the given budget much of the time (try re-shooting a scene with a bunch of actors standing around, or try sending something to a company to have it re-mastered again), these are EXPENSIVE things to do. Sure Joe Blow can even do it at home, but they don't send it to Joe Blow, it's sent to a company charging thousands of dollars per hour or more.

I do think some people pull off that artistic touch in the post-mastering of movies, but I think just as often they mess up the image. This may come off sounding negative, but I think some guys that are involved in lighting decisions and camera work need to be taken out and given a good beating sometimes. They love colored lighting (especially yellows and oranges and blues) and they way over-do it sometimes to the point where it becomes very bothersome and takes away from the movie more than it helps.
Edited by coderguy - 8/10/12 at 10:13pm

LOL! Some people gladly spend $250 or more on a 6 foot HDMI cable promising image enhancement that does absolutely nothing yet we scoff at the price of the Darbee that does make a visual improvement in some material anyone can see?

OK so it produces artifacts in a zone plate. What image processor doesn't? If you have a pristine Bluray, then turn the Darbee off. Just good Bluray, then use it at 20-30%. Satellite or cable TV, run it at 40 or 50%.

For $250 this thing is a great bargain. And I have worked with broadcast / mastering grade image processing gear over the years costing in excess of $100K.
Edited by Glimmie - 8/11/12 at 12:26pm

Which standard(s)?

So what? You don't have to use it like that, it's got a wide range of "levels" of processing that you can adjust to suit your preference.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has spent a lot more for less difference/improvement, namely a projector.

I thought it was a fair review pointing out the good and the bad, but in the end they stated that it basically becomes a preference and they prefer not. The reviewer touched on the subjective and the objective. This is similar to blu-ray transports that manipulate the picture. Some like it and some don’t. To each his own.

I agree it's a preference thing, but I still want to know what standards it "violates".

Eg this statement:
Now admittedly I haven't gone through a full calibration with the Darblet installed and enabled, but it does not appear to affect brightness, black level, white balance, greyscale, gamut. Essentially every metric used when you calibrate or measure a projector seems (given what I've seen of my Darblet) unaffected. It doesn't make faces look sunburned, or like martians, or like they're anemic. It doesn't (seem to) fundamentally change any aspect of the picture that any standards I'm aware of specify.

And the review even says as much:
They really seem to come into that review with a preconceived bias that it's a "bad thing".

Then there's comments like this: The effect is entirely up to the individual, you can set the Darblet to produce as natural an image you want, or as "hyper-reality" looking as you want. Now if you want to argue that you can't find a setting you like that produces enough of a "sense of increased resolution" to justify the price without becoming unnatural looking that's a different, interesting, and completely valid argument.

But it seems to me they went into the review closed minded and with the intention of proving all the horrible things the Darblet does to the image, and then upon failing to find any objective measure of the damage (other than the zone plate) they proceeded to crank it up way past what's most here would say is reasonable and then complain about the unnatural/overprocessedness of the image.

Agreed. It is very easy to make images look "cartoonish" with this product. Just crank the setting out of realistic range and you get it.

But, while many would suggest that there is an "absolute" to so many products (video image in this case), this review, when compared to that in Wide Screen Review, demonstrates that reference is really preference. Two supposed experts who come to oposite conclusions. At least one of them is wrong.

I don't want to say one is "wrong", I mean it's perfectly valid to not see a use for the Darblet or to prefer the image without it engaged (or engaged to such a small degree as to make the price not worth it), but the avforums review just right from the outset seems to go into the review/test with the notion that it's a bad thing and then tries to use the rest of the "prove" that preconceived notion, to the point they claim it violates unnamed, unreferenced standards.

For what it's worth, I watched a couple of True Blood episodes on Blu-ray last night, on my Oppo93 & Sony 95ES projector, in a totally darkened room with the week and a half old Darblet set at 60 and the picture was nothing short of phenomenal. The images were the most three-dimensional that I've ever seen without actually being displayed in 3D. Sharpness in the Oppo was set at "1" and set at zero on the Sony. I tried to look for anything negative about the images, but at least to my eyes there were no cons.

This was their main, stated goal to achieve at the outset....a strong sense of 3 dimensional "depth" given to 2 dimensional digital images WITHOUT the need to wear glasses. They accomplished that goal. If the source is good enough and your gear is good enough it's nothing short of amazing. If you feel too guilty to go for amazing or the source does not lend itself to much of anything "additional" ......and instead you run the processing low in HD mode, the side benefits are still the sharper, more clear picture, and it feels like a big upgrade with whatever display equipment you are using, almost universally being reported. The added clarity is likely from that success even at that low level of the added dimensionality & what it took with the chages in pixel luminance to achieve it, NOT just a "sharpening" tool as some try to write it off as. Do they alter the look of selected pixels to achieve this..... of course they do.

Does anyone know if there is a difference between the blue case and black case model or is it just cosmetic?

Has anyone compared the Darbee on DirecTv HD sports content? Football is starting and I'd like to improve the picture quality of the HD football games if possible. I'm using a Epson Pro 6010 on a DaLite 106" screen sitting 10' to15' away. Thanks!

I recently tried the Darblet connected from the output of my Meridian HD621 to the input of my Pioneer Elite 141FD. The Kaleidescape and the Oppo 93, all worked as advertised. However, I could not get a picture from my cable PVR (Motorola 6416 III) and audio is pulsating almost in sync with the flashing green light in the Darblet.

I have the HDMI output of the cable PVR set to 1080i, YCrCb at 4:4:4 and audio to auto. The PVR works fine when connected directly to the Monitor (via the HD621). I could not find a setting on the Cable PVR that would work with the Darblet.

Has anyone else had any issues like this? Are there any suggestions as to what I should try next? I have contacted Darbee support for their input as well.

Thanks,

Wayne

I had problems with the Motorola 3400 and 3416 box. Switched to the RNG110 box from Comcast and no further problems. Another fellow had the same success with the RNG200 box.

Thanks. I don't know what options I have here in BC with Shaw cable, but I'll check it out.

Wayne

Could not agree more on all counts, and I've done at least a few hundred digital grading sessions as a director/dp.

With my JVC RS2, it addresses my main gripe with it -- a mild lack of apparent sharpness/resolution -- with minimal visible artifacts. $250 gets me an extra year or two out of the PJ (was considering the 55), and improves directv dramatically.

rblnr
Would you mind to be asked, as a Director or DP how you view this technology using it perhaps to view one of your past projects? Improved experience? Does it override in negative fashion any specific processing aspects you recall putting some effort into? Often, if yes? Obviously that's a big issue for a lot of people against it philosophically. A lot of us have really wanted to hear from an actual director using one in his own system I'm sure.

Thank you

I have the same artifact on my Panasonic TC-P65V10, but I've not noticed and similar problem in normal viewing.

The test image is one I think you normally wouldn't find on a Blu Ray or satellite broadcast. I wonder if the effect is similar to the waveform you get out of a digitized square wave on a CD. It has obvious differences from the original, but it's not something you normally find in music.

Ok I am freaking out, can I get one of these in Canada.My goodness I hope so.

Call me this morning. We have plenty in stock and can ship today to Canada by USPS.

I have an action film I shot that would be a good piece to check its effects on, will do that in the next week or two.

Not having done that, my impressions are that the issue is less about altering the artistic intent, and more about addressing possible weaknesses in the playback system. The action film I'm referring to was very carefully color corrected using the latest iteration of the DaVinci correction hardware/software -- the film was actually shown as demo by DaVinci at their booth at the last years broadcasting convention. The colorist does all the Batman movies among many others -- pretty talented guy you might say. We we working with the 4K raw files out of a Red One camera using very good (sharp) glass for the shoot. I say all this just to give an idea of the quality of the source material and subsequent care in post-processing.

The corrected 4K master was absolutely stunning viewed on a 4K playback system. Knocking it down to bluray is obviously a big step back but that's where we're at now. My guess, and I will A/B to confirm this, is that the Darbee will give just a bit of the higher resolution feel of the 4K, without really changing anything else materially -- color palette the same, apparent contrast and tonal gradation, etc. That's an easy net plus to me. It's also just another layer of processing among those already in the playback chain. The bluray player processes, the PJ or TV processes, many have additional processors/scalers in the chain. To me, ad nauseum, I'm getting an apparent sharpness boost w/o penalty. That's good processing. I haven't done the work to A/B it on charts and so forth as some have here, but I gather the consensus is that the effects are benign in real world viewing.

I A/Bd using the new bluray of Jaws (tremendous IQ btw) -- I preferred the image with around 35% or so on the Darbee HD setting vs. zero. My guess is that Spielberg would too and wouldn't view it as compromising intent at all, rather just appearing to come out of a better playback system. I'll point out again that my gripe with the RS2 is a slight softness vs. what I see with some DLP PJs.

Sorry if I was repetitive and long-winded -- did an all-nighter and lack the energy to properly edit myself

Cardoski: I'm in Waterloo/Canada and yesterday returned from vacation to find my Darblet awaiting me at my door.
I purchased from AVS and they processed & shipped my order ASAP.

I'll get it fired up this weekend with my JVC RS65.
I too am excited by all the excitement around this dirt-cheap little box, especially by some of the AVS heavyweights whose opinions I trust over the last 10 years here.

- Andy

Are people using this for plasma screens as well? I'm mostly seeing posts with people who have projectors.

Also, if I run everything through my receiver and then out of it via one HDMI cable, should that cable then go into the DD, and then that goes into the TV?

Finally, do all of my cables have to be HDMI 1.4 for the effect to work/for the Darblet to work in general?

Thanks.

P.S. Does AVS take Paypal?

First Outting:
I watched some Blu-Ray 720p ripped eposides of HBO's True Blood via an Apple TV2 into a Sharp 70"
Each episode is about 50 minutes at 1.5 Gbyte file size.
I experimented at settings of 30-40-50-60-70 ... so easy to jump back and forth, on-off, etc
I certainly noticed an improvement in image sharpness and added punch
As my source content was not pristine, I was plenty happy at a setting of 50-60

I like how they keep the controls and thought process simple.
Your options are either "More Darbee" or "Less Darbee"

... Now if I could only get a power adapter so my Nordost Valhalla power cord would fit onto the Darbee

- Andy

Just noticed that Darbee will be at CEDIA Expo. That's definitely on my list now. And the "intro" price doesn't expire until the week after CEDIA...

I'm a sucker for a good sales pitch, but I wonder if people here would comment about the Darblet in my situation. I have a (relatively cheap) Mits HC4900 LCD projector used exclusively with BD movies and generally love it, but I do de-focus a click or three from perfect lest I see the pj's pixel structure (120" wide screen viewed from about 9 feet). I can do this without any apparent loss of resolution wrt the underlying movie itself.

It would seem that adding a Darblet in my situation would be a waste of processing, as I've already defocussed the pj?

Does AVS Ship to Canada ? I can't seem to
Know where to enter my canadian address on your site. Are the orders taken only via phone communications?

Thank you