New DVDO iScan HD - Page 2  

You're absolutely correct that an HDCP-protected 480i signal cannot be processed by the iScan HD. It's a bit too early to say exactly how this will all pan out since DVD players with HDMI outputs are not yet commonly available. Certainly, some of them will have all signals on their outputs protected with HDCP. However, like the Bravo (and other) DVI-output players available now, not all of them may be copy-protected. (The HDMI license may prohibit such players, however.) Others may protect only discs marked as requiring protection. Additionally, we may yet see players with 480i DVI outputs which do not do encryption.

There will be other video source devices with HDMI, however, such as STBs. A large amount of program material will not require copy protection, and so could be processed by the iScan. Again, I think we'll find that there is quite a bit of variance across many products. Some of them may simply encrypt everything with HDCP because that's the easiest thing to do. Others will do this on a case-by-case basis. We simply don't have enough available devices or experience yet to tell for sure.

- Dale Adams

Damn HDCP :rolleyes: At this point with DVD's it almost borders on the ridiculous as anybody with a PC can decrypt a DVD and remove macrovision and region coding. A more reasonbly price solution other than SDI for transmitting 480i digitally sounds very desirable, but not at the price of adding HDCP. I hope DVDO is looking into the possibility of a developed branded or repackaged solution that may address this issue.

Thanks again, Dale.

Dale,

I am confused about the HDCP statement.... If you are connected to a HDCP compliant endpoint, then why can't you scale the source material?

- Dan

Dale,
Don't get rid of SDI. There are too many of us that have SDI and projector DVI input, but no HDCP.

TonyC

We can't scale the source material because we don't have an HDCP license yet. However, even without the license, we can detect that the video source is HDCP-protected and then just pass the DVI signal on to the endpoint to deal with (if it can).

Once we do have the license, we certainly plan on accepting HDCP encrypted data, scaling it, and sending the scaled data to an HDCP compliant source. That won't happen on this verision of the iScan HD, though, because you can't purchase HDCP-capable DVI components if you don't have the license.

- Dale Adams

I hear you. We have no intention of changing our plans to provide an SDI input option for the iScan HD. All the talk about HDMI and 480i over DVI is just an additional input capability, and is not intended to be a replacement for SDI (unless the market dictates this, which it so far has not).

- Dale Adams

Dale: Have you done any testing with LDs? I have a Pioneer 703 and am projecting onto a 7' wide screen; should I expect significant improvement in PQ if I use your scaler ?

Peter

We have done some testing with laserdiscs. What does the rest of your system look like (video processor, projector, etc.)?

- Dale Adams

The box can't do 1080i->1080p, can it?

Dale Adams,

I just seen the new DVDO video processor ad in the latest issue of Widescreen Review mag...wow! It sure called my attention!

These are the sort of "toys" that seem to provide the answers and give what have been looking for to HT fans like me at an affordable price point. Thus as long as it is kept priced below the $1500 mark a greater number of HT fans will be more inclined to chose your new processor over other similar equipped but more costly products.

If it is kept at a $1300 MSRP tag range, I predict that it will simply sweep away all of the competition...

-THTS

"As a rule (if there is a rule) who is going to have more artifacts.. Cox Cable SD or Satellite (Dish or Direct) ??"

The analog cable channels -- if they are clean of reception issues -- will look better than the digital cable channels or anything from Dish / DirecTV.

pciav,

<rant>

Hollywood is great at keeping the burglers out by firing lots of warning shots right into their foot... Not that it really keeps the burglers out, as they can always go around the 1" fence (CSS)...

What they fail to understand is that no matter how convoluted their copy protection plan is, it can be easily enough removed. Look at those 3 red dots (I forgot the official name for them) that they custom imprint on each piece of film they put out and often distracts people as they watch the movie. Anyone who videos the movie, can simply use Premier to remove those few frames out if they really wanted to... But, Hollywood keeps piling on more and more protection which is preventing us, the normal everyday people who spend our hard earned bucks to go to the movies and buy the DVDs. The crooks have it much easier, because they can afford higher quality equipment to remove the stuff we're struggling so hard with...

</rant>

Dale: re LD question above. I am currently using a LT150 projector with no processor (not great for LDs). I hope to upgrade to the HT1100 when it comes out. So I am looking for a processor which will help in the short term and maybe even improve matters further when I upgrade to the new NEC. I would also be running satellite HD and SD through the processor but I understand your previous comments on SD so I am not expecting huge improvement there.

Thanks for your thoughts
Peter

No. It's an SD scaler, not an HD scaler (regardless of what the name of the product might imply). It will scale and/or deinterlace 480i, 576i, 480p and 576p, but not 720p or 1080i.

- Dale Adams

Well, we're going to (just barely) meet one of your pricing targets. The official MSRP of the iScan HD is $1499.

- Dale Adams

Re: Ofer <Rant> *Sigh*
It's very frustrating. I guess from my distorted viewpoint, piracy of DVD's makes no sense since they are so affordable to begin with. It's actually cheaper for me to buy a new release than for me and my wife to go the movies and for the most part, the experience is better because I do not have to listen to anyones cell phone ringing, kids crying or kicking my seat, out of focus projectors, poor sound... etc. Thanks for ranting with me, Ofer.

OK, so Dale has listed the MSRP as $1,499. Assuming they release the SDI upgrade as planned and follow along the lines of others that offer it, the added price is probably somewhere around $300 - $400 (Dale?) making the MSRP $1,899. If you already own and SDI DVD Player and a non-compliant HDCP display, then the iScan HD seems to be an extremly nice solution. If you do not already own an SDI DVD Player then add another $600 - $1,000 depending on what you buy (check of JVB) and you are into $2,500 - $3,000 range and now we are talking about a whole other territory.

For those that don't own any SDI sources and have non-hdcp compliant displays, including myself, finding a 480i non-encrypted dvd source from HDMI or DVI to mate with the iScan HD would certainly make things more affordable and on par with those who already own SDI equipment. Hopefully, somebody will output 480i from a future HDMI player as I think this is the best chance for an SDI alternative.

First of all, the iScan HD should easily interface to your projector. The standard XGA resolution provided should work okay, although you may need to set the colorspace and sync settings to what the LT150 likes.

The iScan will certainly have much better scaling and aspect ratio conversion than the LT150. Aspect ratio conversion may not be important to you right now since LD and the LT150 are both 4:3 native (unless you have some of the very few 16:9 laserdiscs or are using an anamorphic lens), but everything you watch on the projector has to be deinterlaced and then scaled from 480i to the native XGA resolution of the projector. The scaler quality in the iScan HD should definitely help you out here.

I'm not sure what deinterlacer the LT150 uses, but the 504 in the iScan should do a fine job on laserdiscs that were sourced from film. If the LT150's deinterlacer does not have 3:2 PD detection, then you should notice a big improvement in image quality due to the iScan's film-source detection.

Laserdiscs tend to have a fairly high chroma noise level. Switching on the iScan's chroma filter should help some one this, but it won't be a huge improvement. (As I recall, the 703 player has some type of DNR, but I don't know how well this works.)

When you move to the 1100, you can switch to the iScan's DVI output to drive the projector. This should give you a performance boost since it eliminates a pair of analog/digital conversions. If your STB has a DVI output, you can use that to feed the iScan, so you'll maintain an all-digital signal path from the STB to the projector. I would imagine the scaler in the 1100 is much better than that in the LT150, so you may not see as much improvement with the iScan's scaling there. I haven't heard much yet about the new deinterlacer in the 1100, so I don't know how that compares to the iScan.

Now, I haven't actually seen any of these equipment combinations, so this is to some extent speculation on my part. What really matters is whether it looks better to you. I can guess, but only you can tell for sure.

- Dale Adams

We haven't set the price of the SDI module yet. The price range you mention is reasonable and we'll probably be very close to that.

- Dale Adams

Dale,

Fantastic news! Been waiting for this to come out. Only one question...Will the there be a trade-in policy for the iScan Ultra? If so, how much?

Thanks,
Chimay

Dale: Thanks very much for your useful comments on LD and my setup. I am certainly looking forward to the release of your new product.

Peter

There will in fact be an upgrade available to the iScan HD, which should operate in much the same manner as our current upgrade to the Ultra. Exactly how it works and how much it costs is still under discussion. We plan to make an announcement on this within a week or two after the first product shipment, so stay tuned. . .

- Dale Adams

Dale,

On HDCP, let me see if I understand this. For non-HDCP sources, iScan HD will do the magic we've been discussing in this thread. HDCP sources will be passed through unprocessed. Later down the road (iScan HD v2 or what have you) HDCP sources will also be processed. Have I understood?

Steve

If I understand correctly, then all sources fed to the iScan can be output over a single DVI cable?

That would make for a lot fewer cables running to the projector.

Steve

the only fly in the ointment is if you wind up with more than one DVI source, then you would have to find another switcher of some type.

Yes, you've got it.

Let me reiterate one point, though, just to be clear. The iScan HD will 'process' an SD source from DVI (assuming no HDCP). If the resolution of the DVI input is too high, then the DVI input will convert to pass-through operation.

- Dale Adams

Precisely. The iScan HD can function as an video hub for your display, requiring only a single video signal cable to be routed from wherever your A/V components are located to the display's location.

I think there may be 2 flies, not just 1. You've identified one of them. The other is that a high resolution analog source, 720p for example, cannot be scaled by the iScan and must be passed through. However, passthrough only works between similar inputs and outputs - i.e., analog input to analog output, or DVI input to DVI output.

If you don't have any HD analog sources, then the 2 fly has flown. :D

- Dale Adams

That is a bummer. I wasn't expecting scaling, but conversion to DVI would have been very cool for analog HD sources, enabling users to keep the long cable run digital.

Dale ,

The iScan HD looks like a winner . I can hardly wait to see it in action , probably at CES .

Question , at this stage , are you considering an HDMI interface , in/out , in future releases ? I believe the HDMI spec will , in the future , allow for uncompressed video AND up to eight channels of audio . This and your on-the-fly LipSynch correction would be great in this application too .

Also , in the literature specs , one of the features mentioned was the AutoCUE Automatic Chroma Upsampling Error Detection and Correction . Can you elaborate on how this is done ? This will definitely make the owners of "Bug" infested DVD players very happy but in an odd way will remove some of the onus from the decoder chip makers to improve their products . Oh well , kudos to you and shame on them .

Again , congratulations .

Scott................:)

Absolutely. The HDMI transceivers are currently only available from one source, and have only recently become available. We locked down the hardware at an early enough point that we couldn't include HDMI. We definitely plan to do so in the future.

There is logic in one of our custom video processing chips that looks for the presence of the type of chroma artifact that occurs when 4:2:0 chroma data is upsampled from interlaced fields (as opposed to a progressive frame). Occurrences of these artifacts are accumulated over a frame period and the accumulated sum is used as an indication of whether or not the video source has a CUE or ICP problem. If so, then a vertical chroma filter is automatically engaged to remove the artifacts. Because this process actually detects the presence of the chroma artifacts, the output of a DVD player which does not have the CUE will not be filtered for flm-sourced material, but may well be filtered when a DVD is encoded as interlaced. Essentially, it just means that if the artifacts are there in the signal, then we'll detect them and filter them out.

The user has some level of control over this process. On an input-by-input basis the user can select to turn the chroma filter/detection off, have it turned on in the previously described automatic mode, or turned on all the time.

- Dale Adams

Dale,

Couple of questions regarding HDCP...

You mentioned that the iScanHD will pass unencrypted 1080i via DVI and process SD via DVI if also unencrypted. Does the source player (cable stb or dvd player) have to be non-HDCP for that to work or is it a source material encryption issue? BAsically I have a Denon 3800, want a 5900. The 5900 is HDCP. If a dvd is played on it and sent to the iScan via DVI, will the iScan pass it or not? Also, I know you posted as to not having a HDCP license. Is it in the future?

Thanks,
Chimay

Here is the basic idea: If the iScan can process the signal it will (unless the user manually overrides this), otherwise the signal gets passed through. The passthrough works with HDCP or without HDCP. If you have an HDCP source (and an HDCP display), then the iScan cannot process and will switch to passthrough. HDCP decrpytion should work as normal (i.e., without the iScan inline with the DVI signal) and you get a picture on your display. It won't have been processed by the iScan, but if your display can handle it you will get a picture. If you have an HDCP source and a non-HDCP display, you'll probably just get snow.

So, if the DVD you play on the 5900 results in HDCP protection being applied, then the iScan will pass it through unchanged. If a different DVD results in no HDCP on the player's output (assuming the 5900 alters HDPC protection on a disc by disc basis), then the iScan will process it if it's 480p, otherwise it gets passed through. The iScan will adapt to the presence or absence of HDCP on the DVI input.

We definitely plan on doing this.

- Dale Adams