Algolith Dragonfly Reviews - Page 2  

There is never a best. There may be a good, but there is always a better out there somewhere. :)

Thanks for that Greg. That's what I was hinting at. Just didn't want to come right out and say it. Heck...you guys wanna get together and do a power buy?
Javry

Agreed, Mark. :)

Back to this AudioVision review for a minute:

See the bolded part at the end? I'd sure like to read that or know what kind of problems they found with the noise reducer? I trust they're talking about the NR built in to the Dragonfly, and not the seperate Mosquito unit?

No problem:

Quite scary, isn't it? Imagine watching the Fifth Element and seeing the eyes of the priest staying at the same location, while the head moves. <shudder>

Now I don't know whether this has anything to do with the Mosquito. It's a review of the Denon DVD player, which uses the Realta chip, but no Algolith chips.

I don't think you can apply the Denon issues to the Dragonfly. While Denon is using the Realta and HQV algorithms it does not mean that they are using the same algorithms and the same number of them. Also Denon's physical implemtation of the two are no doubt different than Algoliths.

Having said that one could surmize that the Dragonfly could be worse than the 5910, but I would wager that it won't be. The Dragonfly is too focused a product and Algolith too focused a company to allow that. I'm not saying that it can't and won't be without issues but if there are problems like that discussed on the 5910 they will address those with firmware and on a timely basis.

Just to make sure: The problems mentioned in that article all occur only with enabled noise reduction. The means the deinterlacer/scaler is not the guilty one here.

One thing I'm not sure about right now: The Realta guys have noise reduction algorythms. The Algolith guys, too. Now which algorythms will the DragonFly use? A mixture of both? In that case it might happen (or not), that it will show the same problems as the Denon player. If the DragonFly doesn't use any HQV algorythms, but only Algolith algorythms, then there might be other problems, but not exactly the same ones as AudioVision experienced in their Denon test.

If you use the DragonFly together with the Mosquito, you'll probably use zero HQV noise reduction algorythms (I guess, or am I wrong)? So in that case you can forget about the problems mentioned in the Denon test. Maybe the Mosquito has its own problems, but that's a different topic.

Or did HQV take over some of the Algolith algorythms, so they the Denon might actually use some Algolith algorythms already?

Hmmmm... You see, I'm a bit confused right now... :confused:

Anyone have one of these yet?

Thanks for the clarification, gents. Interesting reading.

Mike from Algolith told me I'd have mine between the 25th of this month and the 10th of July. Should be fun..

Anyone know yet what algorhythms the new DVDO will use?

ABT (Anchor Bay Technologies) algorithms.

Thanks! :)

"In some movies that we played for test purposes, we found unwanted and quite irritating effects, which are:
- "fifth element", first german edition, chapter 6: The priest is moving his head, but his eyes stay at the same position.
- "rambo", beginning with the 6th scene: John Rambo walks along the street, wearing a uniform. Head and uniform are not moving synchronously, but they're moving "against each other".
- "rambo 2", opening scene with mountain explosion: Smoke, mountain parts and background behave as independent layers, which are moved into each other and so create a confusing overall image."

I'm having a hard time visualizing what they are describing here, for example, how does someone's head move but not their eyes...?

That would seem more like an error in MPEG2 block copying or something. You can see that kind of thing when there are those types of decoding errors, since temporal compression is trying to reuse blocks that look similar from the previous frames and if the decoder gets confused, some blocks can sometimes either move incorrectly or not move when they should.

I had a funny one happen with a D-VHS recording of LOTRS, in the scene with Sam and Frodo in the corn field, and somehow the blocks for the corn got confused with the blocks for Sam and Frodo and there were these corn people walking around the screen.

Well, I've translated that from German, perhaps I've not done it well.

Anyway, as far as I understand it, the head is moving/turning, but the eyes stay at the same position. Which should look very odd, or even scary.

P.S: Interesting comment, Dean. But AudioVision only reported these issues with activated DNR. So I'd strongly guess that without noise reduction they didn't have these effects. DNR can't confuse the MPEG decoder, or can it? I mean DNR is running on the already decoded stream, right?

Perhaps, Children of the Corn was encoded subliminally on the tape? :D

I think I grasp what they are saying, but that would seem to be an extremely gross error in the decoding, I've never seen anything like that from what I can remember, but that's not to say it doesn't happen...

Typical noise reduction problems, no MPEG issue. Bad algorithm.

Just checked my Download section on Algolith's site and my "SLA" no longer grants me access. I bought my Mosquito about 1 year ago. Are they going to start charging for firmware updates after the first year?

Give 'em a call and find out. Let us know!

I got my access back but didn't get an explanation although my mail server was acting crazy. In the very beginning (1 year ago) they did plan to charge for software updates after the first year. Most likely they have changed the policy.

I had a chance on Monday afternoon to stop at Algorith offices to get a demo of the Dragonfly. I work for a Audio Video Magazine based in Quebec. My friend will review the Dragonfly and Mike Poirier agreed to give us a special demo. He won't be able to provided us with a Dragonfly for more than two weeks so the purpose of the visit was to get some technical discussion with the chef engineer and Mr Poirier about the soon to be release scaler.

Two screens were place side by side. One feed by an LG DVD player the equivalent of the Zenith DVB318 base on a Faroudja chipset and the other with a cheap DVD player through the Dragonfly. Everything was in analogue for the demo. The Dragonfly will have two HDMI inputs and one output.

The DNR was turn off. The noise reduction of the Dragonfly affect it potentiel for deinterlacing and scaling. Mr Mike Poirier insisted that to get the full benefit of algortith technolgie the Dragonfly should be couple with a Mosquito.

The HQV benchmark disk was use to illustrated the difference between the HQV processing and the Faroudja processing.

The first jaggies test on the HQV DVD was not that jaw dropping. The difference between the LG player and the Dragonfly was there but none of them could play the scene perfectly they were still way better that what I experience with my Momitsu DVD player. The second jaggies test was almost perfect with the Dragonfly but the Faroudja base upscalling DVD player couldn't play it as well. Were the Dragonfly really shine was in Sequence detection. All the sequence detection scene were played perfectly. The LG could play well the 3:2 sequence but had problem with the others. The racing car scene with the empty stand in the background was also smoother with the Dragonfly than the LG.

It would have been better if we could have compare the Dragonfly with a direct competitor, Lumagen, DVDO or Faroudja scaler. Those were not available to us so we would need comparaison from future user to give us a better information.

Algortith seem eager to please it's customers. They will answer popular demand and have 1080p output for JVC 1080p machine and 1080p 24pFs for Qualia owner as well. The scaler will output different preset resolution so should be able to do pixel perfect with most display devices. The chief engineer told me that they could have user custom resolution soon after an official release. My guess is that it would start working on more feature that could be add via firmware after a well deserve vacation. :)

Bruno

It was definitely a bad source data error, with the decoder just trying to do the best it could with it I guess. It was on a recorded D-VHS tape which had various data glitches on it.

I've seen this artifact hundreds of times on my pio plasma with its built-in "DNR"(digital noise reduction) turned on. Its a horrible, horrible artifact. Its not quite like the head moving and the eyes staying still, but its as good a description as I've seen. It really can be bad looking.

Its somewhat source dependant as well. Meaning, the better the source, the less severe it is, but its still there. With DNR off, the artifact is gone(and I mean GONE). No-matter the source.

I don't use DNR because of this, so I live with some digital noise. I was looking to get these units(mosquito/dragonfly) to eliminate this artifact while getting noise reduction.

Now I'm worried.:(

EDIT>>>The whole reason I'm looking to get a video processor is to eliminate the very artifact you guys are discussing.... when getting noise reduction!! Elimination of just this ONE artifact, when using digital noise reduction(on the dragonfly, not the plasma), is worth the asking price, to me. I just hope it works.

Well Wooodrow I think we're all in the same boat and the juries out. I will say this though.. maybe the DNR on the Dragonfly will have this problem? If it does I'm not worried since I plan on turning it off and using the noise reduction of the Mosquito anyways. I'm cautiously optimistic that Algolith will get it right.

kraig, will you get the DragonFly with or without DNR? I mean there were plans for a cheaper DragonFly which doesn't/can't do DNR, right?

If you get the DragonFly with DNR capabilities plus the Mosquito, then of course you're in an optimal position to compare both DNR solutions. If you can reproduce problems with the DragonFly DNR, but if with the identical source material you can't reproduce those problems with the Mosquito, then I think we'll all be happy. I hope you'll have the time (and fun) to test this for us, once you have your brand new devices!

I'm due to get my Dragonfly in a few weeks with DNR. I am loyal AVS servant and will of course be posting about it. I put my new HD2K projector in on Tuesday and it should make quite a pair.

anyone know if short cut on the remote of the dragonfly will be available to get 1080p for our hd2k????
if not how to get it????

bob

Okay guys....I've been avoiding asking this question but I'd really like to know. Fully recognizing that the Dragonfly is not out yet.........Is there some advantage I'm missing out on, as far as you can tell, in the Dragonfly over the Iscan HD+. In other words......is there some synergy that you're supposed to get from a Mosquito/Dragonfly setup that you won't get from say a Mosquito/HD+ setup? Sure don't want to embarrass anyone......but the difference in $$$$ between the two is significant enough to ask the question.
Javry

Javry, there is a lot of interest in the Dragonfly for many reasons. Chief among these is:

- It is one of the first scalers to include the Realta HQV chipset (www.hqv.com).
- Like the Faroudja 1080, it performs motion adaptive deinterlacing of 1080i so it uses the full resolution that is available (Iscan HD+ uses a simple Bob scheme so the picture is probably a little softer). This is a big deal to those of us who spent a lot of money to get 1080p hardware. The scaler shouldn't be a limiting factor.
- It has great cadence correction so it should be judder free or as close to it as anything on the market.

Until it is released, who knows if it will live up to the hype but on paper it looks great.

So is it vauable only to those PJs with 1080p? ...........Like Qualia, HD2K, or HT500?
Javry