Algolith Dragonfly & Mosquito HDMI - Issues with HDMI

Greetings folks. I finally received my Dragonfly (ver. 1.10) and Mosquito HDMI (ver. 2.04). My plan is to use both, to process all my video needs. First I wanted to test with HDMI sources, as based on what I read, that is where the most issues have been. Before hooking up Mosquito HDMI, followed by Dragonfly, I attempted to hook up one at a time and I got mixed results.

My HDMI sources are Pioneer Elite DV-59AVi DVD player and Samsung SIR-TS360 DirecTV satellite receiver. My current display is an InFocus ScreenPlay 7205 projector (720p). The DVD player has HDMI output, but the satellite receiver has DVI output, so I'm using a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. The projector has a M1-DA style DVI input, so I'm using a M1-DA-to-HDMI adapter as well. The cable to the projector and (all my interconnect cables) is a Monster HDMI cable. Prior to owning the Algolith products, I simply moved the HDMI cable between the DVD player and satellite receiver and everything worked just fine. The DVD player and satellite receiver were set to output 720p and the projector displayed its native 720p, with no issues.

Now here are my results with Algolith in the mix I have not made any adjustments on the Algolith combo, as I wanted to have the connectivity working first. I have set the Dragonfly to output 720p.

DVD -> Mosquito HDMI -> Projector GOOD
With DVD player set to 480i or 720p; no issues - display looks great.

Satellite Receiver -> Mosquito HDMI -> Projector NO GOOD
With Satellite Receiver outputting 480p, there are HDMI sync issue between Mosquito & projector. The projector and Mosquito continue to negotiate (I can see a picture for a second), but never sync up. It continues to sync up indefinitely, without success.
With Satellite Receiver outputting 720p or 1080i, the Mosquito and projector never sync up, so I can't even see what the status on Mosquito HDMI is.

DVD -> Dragonfly -> Projector NO GOOD
With DVD player set to 480i output, the Dragonfly status says 480i in and 720p out. The projector says 720p, but the picture looks like 480i (no up conversion to 720p). So this looks like HDMI sync is fine, but obviously the up conversion from 480i to 720p is not happening.
With DVD player set to 480p output, the Dragonfly status says 480p in and 720p out. The projector says 720p, but the picture looks like 480p (no up conversion to 720p). So this looks like HDMI sync is fine, but obviously the up conversion from 480p to 720p is not happening.
With DVD player set to 720p output, the Dragonfly status says 720p in and 720p out. The projector says 720p, and the picture looks like 720p. No issues here, but obviously I would like to have the DVD player set to 480i, to let the Dragonfly do its magic.

Satellite Receiver -> Dragonfly -> Projector GOOD
With Satellite Receiver outputting 480p or 720p or 1080i, the Dragonfly correctly scales to 720p. No issues and the picture looks great.

So obviously if I hook up both Algolith products (Mosquito HDMI outputting to the Dragonfly), I cannot get a picture with any of my 2 HDMI sources (based on what I described above).

Before I reach out to Algolith support, I wanted to post my findings to see if anyone may have dealt with these already and can provide some feedback.

Thank you for your help and time,

Zack

So I sent an email to Algolith support. Hopefully they will have some time next week after CES is long over

After playing around for a few days, now I set the DVD player to output 480p (via HDMI) and that seems to work fine going through both Algolith units. Setting the DVD player to 480i (via HDMI) causes the picture to look like 480i through both Algolith units (scanning lines are clearly visible and the jaggies are really bad). The Satellite Receiver is connected to the Dragonfly only, since I cannot get it to synch with Mosquito HDMI.

As far as analog sources all seems to work fine.
Component 480i into Mosquito followed by the Dragonfly seems to work just fine. The Dragonfly converts to 720p and outputs via HDMI to my projector; all is good.
S-Video 480i into the Dragonfly also works fine, being up converted to 720p and output via HDMI to my projector.

So my current two connectivity issues are:
Samsung DirecTV satellite receiver cannot HDMI synch with Mosquito (Dragonfly no problem).
Pioneer DVD player cannot output 480i HDMI to Mosquito without degrading the picture through the Algolith combo. If I set the DVD player to 480p, all is well.

I guess I can live with DVD player outputting 480p, but I would really like to have the Mosquito clean up my satellite receiver signals. Anyone know of a DirecTV satellite receiver that works with Mosquito HDMI via HDMI/DVI connection?

Thanks,

Zack

So I called Algolith and spoke with Anthony. Here is what I learned...

There have been reported issues with 480i via HDMI into the Dragonfly. It is probably a bug that has yet to be addressed. The current recommendation is to output 480p, which is what I'm doing now.

The HDMI synch issues into the Mosquito HDMI has to do with a few items:
- DVI HDCP issues (my satellite receiver outputs DVI)
- Cable length needs to be at least 2 meters

The recommendation is to replace my DVI-HDMI adapter and 1-meter HDMI cable with a single 2-meter DVI to HDMI cable. If that doesn't work, simply use component from satellite receiver into the Mosquito HDMI, or try a different satellite receiver.
So I will try the cable first and if that doesn't work, I will use component interconnects. Stay tuned

As far as future firmware releases (at least for the next month or so)... Dragonfly is staying at 1.10, but Mosquito HDMI will be getting up upgrade that fixes bugs and improves DRS.

Update:

Now that I have had a few more weeks of playing around, I came across the following on page 19 of the Dragonfly manual:

In some set-ups using an interlaced source signal,
Dragonfly outputs a progressive image with a combing
effect. This is a very rare compatibility problem and
may be corrected by changing Dragonfly's field control
setting. In such an event, proceed as follows:
Use the remote control to access the OSD menu and to
select the FIELD CONTROL command. Choose ODD.

After making this change, I'm now able to have 480i HDMI output from my DVD player go through both Algolith units without issues.

I replaced my Samsung DirecTV receiver with a new DirecTV H20-600 model. This new receiver has HDMI output and synchs fine with Mosquito HDMI. So now I have the receiver output Native and the Algolith combo takes care of the rest.

Now to find an ISF calibrator to adjust everything

Anthony from Algolith said that he has seen short HDMI cables give synch issues and using a longer cable fixed it.

I tried a longer cable and still had the same issues until I replaced the DirecTV receiver. I think my original Samgung receiver with DVI & HDCP was the real problem. It worked with the Dragonfly but not with Mosquito HDMI. So now that I have a satellite receiver with HDMI, I don't have the synch problem anymore.

I do find that from time to time, if I switch inputs on the Mosquito HDMI (between DVD HDMI & satellite receiver HDMI) back and forth, I can make the systems lose synch with each other and have to reboot both Algolith units to get the picture back. Hoever once I do get the picture back it stays solid. I can live with this.

My only concern at this time is that I've heard from a few sources that there is black level issue with Algolith implementation. I will have the ISF calibrator check this out and report back.

Thanks for the heads up Dennis.
I just loaded the v 2.5 onto the Mosquito HDMI.

I still unlock the synch when I switch from DVD (480i HDMI) to Satellite Receiver (was outputting 1080i HDMI the last time I tried)... But after playing around a little more, it looks like it is the Dragonfly that actually loses synch. Power-cycling the Dragonfly get the picture back.