It's November where's my Dragonfly??  

Welcome to the Video Processor market, where nothing ships out on time :D

Don't they all ship in two weeks from the current day's date? :D

I'm waiting for a DVDO VP30. Be interesting to see who gets theirs first, Algolith or DVDO customers.

Dan

The Dragonfly seems to be still flying and is yet to land.

Read the thread on the Vantage-HD. In a nutshell, Silicon Optics had to make firmware changes to the Realta chip, these changes took quite some time. In turn, these changes require the processor manufacturers to rewrite portions of their own software. That process requires validation, which of course discovers problems and additional software rewitting. Calibre has admitted that it s stilling rewriting its software and I think it is very safe to assume that Algolith is still in the software rewriting and validation process as well. Thus, the delay is not the fault of the processor manufacturers or your friendly internet shipper.

Great race Dan. Let's see who will get across the line first. The VP30, a package of old technology (clearly most of the other guys will beat the VP40 which I think will be truly competitive with the new stuff), versus the new technology stuff. I know I could go to my grave with the satisfaction of getting existing quality deinterlacing/scaling in the VP30 say 2 or 3 weeks before the superior stuff. Yes Sir. Not.

Algolith told me November delivery a few weeks ago. Jason said the same. No specific date, just Novemeber.

Mark, what's your thoughts on this situation pointing to a need for Algolith and Calibre to have to do early software updates not to improve things, but to fix errors. Having owned DVD players from manufacturers that put out frequent updates I don't mind doing it, but a lot of plug and play consumers aren't going to want to do this. No pun intended, but this situation seems to be ripe for the DF to be a buggy product at first.

Mark. I'm not sure that your assumptions / conclusions about SO and the firmware are necessarily correct. The firmware is not necessarily an SO product. In response to previous requests by you and others, for example, Tim has responded that -- and I quote -- "the current firmware does not support 1080p50 or 1080p60 input . . . that firmware has not yet been written . . . Our intention is to add 1080p50 and 1080p60 DVI/HDMI support as a future firmware upgrade, it is quite likely we might even get it done before we go to market with the product."

And from the Vantage HD product brochure: "Together with expertly designed hardware and firmware from video processing specialist Calibre . . ."

That doesn't sound much like he's talking about SO firmware. Sounds to me like Calibre firmware.

Cheers.

Algolith preorders (before 9/30) are going to ship starting in November and finishing in December. That is what they are still on target for. I just talked to them Monday of this week. The Digital Mosquito beta units have shipped, so actual production units will be shipping around the same time as the DF.

I will be in touch with everyone closer to when I have firm dates.

Thanks all for your patience!

They are not necessarily correct, but they are indeed correct.

And notice that Tim didn't respond that I was incorrect about anything.

SO's non disclosure agreements probably prohibit any such disclosures.

Tim also didn't say that you were correct. In fact, he didn't respond to your post at all.

What he DID say was that they have had some firmware holdups. It seems relatively clear -- from Tim's earlier posts and from the Vantage HD product brochure -- that firmware for the Realta is created by specific processor manufacturers. That makes sense, too, if you think about the general world of logic chips: they come with instruction sets and register types. Firmware goes into a memory chip (usually EPROM, so you can flash it), not a logic chip like the Realta. That is why firmware can be updated by the end-user.

Just about every processor manufacturer needs to fix bugs not noticed prior to consuer release. There is an aggravation price that early adoptors must pay. Early adoptors are indeed part of the validation process. But you get status here on the forum, you learn a lot, and often feel satisfied knowing you made something good better. Plug and play guys usually should wait a bit before buying.

One small step for man, one giant leap for the processor industry.

Stl. So why distinguish between firmware and software like Tim did?

Well, I don't know specifically, but many devices use both firmware and software. My DirecTV, TiVo, audio processor, computer and cell phone all come to mind. But maybe you are right. All I'm suggesting is that there are alternatives and that perhaps Tim's non-response to your statement shouldn't be read as a validation of its substance.

Trust me. If Calibre was not posting anything, my statements would still be valid. I have many many sources of info other than making assumptions based on Tim's statements. What I have seen and don't like is attacks on manufacturers who have been unable to make a production date. What I have said it has not been their faullt. Changes to the chip have in fact been made relatively recently and that has caused all of them to have been delayed while they rewrite their software.

Mark,
How bout tapping into those sources to find out what this 11th hour re-write by SO is all about :)

No. I will not do that. I do not know and that is really not my business. Whatever the problems, SO implemented fixes.

My concern would not be those fixes but the actual quality of the deinterlacing algorithms on the chip written by the Terranex folks, some of whom are no longer with SO. How good these are will have to await full testing after product release. Assuming they are less than fully ideal as some who have seen deinterlacing performed by various Terranexes suggest, will SO want to improve them and then be able to improve them and transfer those improvements to the chip. Let's just say certain things on the chip for one reason or another are rumoured to be less than fully accessible.

Have you also some sources which have insider knowledge about the Gennum VXP? Are you seeing similar problems over there? FWIW, PixelMagic still stands by their expected target release around xmas.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the Realta is the worst scaling and deinterlacing chip available to the public, except for all the rest.

I am not saying that. It has been marketed as being the best. I plan on owning several Realta based processors for my own use. Things can always be better and that is indeed part of the marketing hype. Holy grail.

There are competitors. Gennum and Anchor Bay.

We have seen a bunch of early adopters for the Gennum chip. Marantz shoved it in its S4 projector. The chip has been made a lot better (firmware and software) and Marantz is offering a free downloadable upgrade. Quite an improvement. Obviously the chip needed work.

Just as obviously to me, the Realta chip needed some work too. Time will tell if it needs additional work but we do know that upgrades can be downloaded by consumers.

Jason, any more news on the 'fly and Mosquito HDMI?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...48#post6642848

No. Why not? Because, that's why! SO made changes to the firmware on the Realta chip and every processor manufacturer had to rewrite its software causing delays.

I'm wondering: Will every new Realta firmware revision result in that Algolith, Calibre etc will have to rewrite their software again? That would be quite bad...

I doubt it. But I do not know.

Mark: it's Teranex, not Terranex. ;)

"Less than fully ideal"? Teranex's video processing was nothing short of amazing from the very get-go. Don't take my word for it, check out this post from way back in 2001: The New Standard

The original Xantus was an overnight success because it delivered the best PQ to those who absolutely required it (i.e. broadcast, post-production, etc). Teranex actually guaranteed superior PQ and was able to do so because of the Xantus' software-updatable (and fully scalable) architecture. So when Mr. Hollywood Editor discovered a problem, he sent the content to Florida where the Teranex guys looked at it, fixed it, and then sent the updated software right back. Thanks to years of this kind of intensive content verification, the de-interlacing algos have been continuously refined much like what Porsche has done with the 911 (our favorite metaphor).

The Realta was born with these exact same algos which, as you suggested, will continue to be improved upon based on feedback provided by our customers in both professional and consumer markets as well as you guys. Keep in mind that these are improvements to the de-interlacing algorithms. Software updatability (i.e. true programmability versus mere firmware updates) is one of Realta's major differentiating factors.