HDMI/HDCP options

Clarence would be the man to speak to in this regard, as far as I'm aware he's got just about every available product out there for this purpose.

I've had the first gen Moome, and currently have the HDMI Moome and JohnHW cards. They all work as advertised in my setup (G70).

I dont have experience with the HD-Fury, but I own both the moome and JohnHWman ifb input cards.

If you want to run the Toshiba directly into the projector, the moome has a gamma correction option that many people like (I like it). I think his next version (1.33?) allows for adjustment of the gamma which is something some people have seen as a shortcoming in the non-adjustable ones.

John's card also works fine with my HDMI devices, but I had to get a better quality cable to run the 25 feet from my equipment room to the projector. So if you need a long cable run, I'd recommend getting your cable from bluejeanscable to minimize the chance of disappointment with pixel noise.

From the hip, I'd say go with the moome since it offers hdmi, component and the gamma. It would do what you want now, have the component input if you wanted to add another device easily down the line.

I don't think anyone has the Fury yet.

If that is the only criteria, you can run component. If you want a better component transcoder than what is in your PJ, get Kim's.

Dave

BR players can output HD component? I know at least some HD DVD players can, though I thought that wasn't the case with BR players.

Just for your info, John Wyman designed the HD-Fury also.

Kim's RTC-2200 transcoder is known to be the best one out there. It's an excellent product (been using it for a few months now).

If it's gamma you want/need then:

One thing that some have mentioned (Dave included) is that adding HDfury ($150 USD shipped) to Kim's RTC-2200 transcoder ($200 USD shipped) works out to slightly cheaper ($350 total) than Moome's Sony card with gamma ($385 USD shipped). You plug the HDfury directly into the RTC-2200's VGA passthrough to add some gamma boost, and have a component input as well to boot (which also gets a gamma boost).

Price difference is really pretty negligable so it really all depends on your needs and cabling. Some will choose the HDfury+RTC-2200 as they don't have to replace the cabling to their PJ, while others will want other features of the Moome product. (He's got a more expensive one with IR switching too).

I like the HDfury+RTC2200 option (for me) as I don't have to pull new cabling and already have the RTC2200. So to add DVI/HDMI (HDCP) only costs me $150. (Well, it doesn't cost me anything, but that's another story).

I think it's somewhat of a wash and comes down to what someone's needs are ...

Kal

We have a custom internal card that is HDCP ready

Has DVI and HDMI

Our card is internal for Barco only however. Its internal because we upgrade the BW of Port 3 and the switcher card.

We highly recommend to use internal cards because of the BW limitations of external devices. Don't trust me about this, I can send you a demo card and you will see the difference.

The port 3 card on the 909 and 1209s model are the same card designed back in 1991 for the Barco 800. No changes have been made and this card has serious bottle necks to your BW of your unit. They have made a few minor changes to some resistors but the same semiconductors are used.

We have tested external Boxes and they dull or fade the 1080p.


Port 3 on the S models is very poor and not recommended. Use Internal DVI or RGVH only.


Port 3 on non s has some small advantages but excessive ring exists because of the switcher card peaking caps.


The new HD furry is a RE-Badge of the Sil907B chip just spray painted over. So it will have the same performance as the other external transcoders.

The new Sil HDMI chips are out at 225+ MHZ and will provide better HD operation.

Greg

Greg, you don't have to turn every HDMI/DVI thread into a sales pitch. The guy has a G70, give him a break and stay out of his thread.

Oh, but you are right, Jean never claimed a 400% improvement, so there is no way it can be as good as yours.

Either you have not used a good transcoder or the DACs in your device are having problems, you should not have had this problem. But hey, you obviously know more than me, so why listen to someone who has tested just about every DVI device and component transcoder that exists and some of them on a G70.

Hey Kal, Greg always throws out the offer for a demo card, but he won't send me one to compare to all the other options. See if you can get one to compare to the HDFury and let me know how it stacks up.

Tom,

If it matters to you, the Toshiba HD-A1 (and HD-D1) are well documented as exhibiting black crush on the HDMI output, but the component output shows no such error. I am less sure about the HD-A2 and HD-D2, but I believe the situation is the same.

Hence, as long as the ICT flag is not set, the Toshibas will output 1080i on component. So for many of us, the component output of the Toshiba is preferred.

I am less familiar with the output qualities/problems with the Sony line of players.

My 2 cents

Edit: I just went over to the HD DVD Player forum and confirmed that the HD-A2 (and the HD-D2) also crush blacks on the HDMI output.

Hi am offering no sales pitch.

We dont sell any cards for the G70/G90 just Barco.

I think Mommie and JohnW make a good G70 card.

Moomie will be a true 225 MHZ.

So I recommend either of the two as the external ones are very poor from my testing. The typical problem is the 75 ohm cable amps needed lower the BW.



I hope that helps.

Greg

Greg. It's an ad (the guy asked about something for his G70), you are obviously trying o drum up sales to anybody reading this that has a Barco, but still your posts present lots of valuable info.

For what's it's worth I have ordered Moome's new dard (shipping in two weeks) and an HDFury (shipping soon) for my 9500LC ultra. I will be receiving my Radiance the end of next next week and it has only HDMI out so I really need something soon. TW I need something to get SDI into the Radiance. I do have the Algolith SDI to HDMI but it won't pass below black.

The black crush occurs with DVI devices. There certainly is NO black crush from my A-1 to Moome's HDMI IFB card.

If you want to play DVD's with the Tosh above 480p, then a HDMI is needed.

Here is a useless post from me

Look at the last two posts and look at their names. pretty close hu

What I have seen when DVI is close to the 165Mhz limit (e.g. 1080p), you need very good cables or you will get sparkles (noise) in the blacks.

One solution is to use an optic DVI cable.

Also it depends on how clean the power is supplied to the DVI chip. The Sil907b needs a very clean supply to process a 1080p picture.

One of the problems I have noticed with external boxes is some do not have a separate power supply and require 5 volts of power from the cable. The 5 volt reference was never really intended to power the DVI chip but its being used to save money and at 1080p the current load is quite high. Noise tends to get into the reference 5 volt that powers the actual decoder DVI Sil907b chip.

Furthermore, most HDMI devices will not supply the full 5 volts. You need to power the chip off of a external supply. I.E. if you use the HDMI to DVI cable you will need to add an external power source.

We did see from our picture testing, black levels and other factors greatly improved when you drove the DVI chips with clean supplies.

Greg

Distant cousin on my Fathers uncles nephews side

Is that because of HDMI, or because Moome's card has the gamma cranked (way too much)? I think you'd have to compare the two without any gamma boost to know for sure. I tried my Moome HDMI card without the gamma daughter card, but it wouldn't work without it.

the problem is only on component input, no issue on the hdmi input
the NEW V1.33 have solve this problem, and have optional adjust gamma.
and for DVI card use DVI chip, there will have black crash problem on some HD source, like sony PS3.

Moome,

Can I return my gamma card to exchange for the new adjustable version? I was going to change the resistors, but I'd like to have the option of adjusting it.

Interesting, this stuff! I'm gonna build a new HTPC this fall (with HD-DVD from the XBox drive, and BluRay when the drives are affordable). But can I still get by with my good old Port 3 cable (Barco 808 non S with HD-144 lenses, very good tubes and better RGB Amps), or should I start saving for something else? I know that the flag for downconverting isn't going to be set for a few years yet. At least that's what I think I know...

There is a small Gama Resistor on the SIL907B. I have added on a variable resistor sometimes to allow people to adjust the Gama if requested, Its typically fixed.


There are ways of adjusting the EDID and Reflashing to change values as well.

I can show you how to mod your current card to have a variable gama pot.

IF you look at the sil 907 spec you can find the pin that the resistor connects to, replace this with a variable pot.

I will post the schematic later to show the pinouts and the resistor to take out. I have to scan the schematic.

Greg

Very interesting.... Hmmm.... There are quite a few other devices with the SIL907B: John's Sony IFB board, John's BG-DVI for Barco's, the HDfury...

I'm assuming this would work on any of them!

Kal

I have to scan the schematic when I get back later today. You can add it to any of them if you are good with a soldering iron.

The CORE ENGINE of all dvi converters is the same, only difference is the interfaces and how you connect to the final device.

I measured the gama of all the external boxes and the resistor was not a constant so its nice to add a pot.

Some use Sync, Video amps, others output right to the device if matching is done well.

SIL907B>Sync Convert + or - (Not gate)> Sync amp>Display
Sil9087B>Video Amp>Display

Most 907b chips fail at 1080p without sync amps ( overheat or overdrive condition) from my testing. The video out of the 907B is less picky and can be biased by a series of resistors to limit the video gain.

I.E. If the gain is too high lower the resistance of the 75ohm resistors to say 50 ohms that will bring the overall video gain down. The spec allows you to do this.

If you use a scope you can measure the video p-p from the chip and balance your resistors acc.

Greg

I'm trying to find the SIL907B engineering spec sheet/white paper on the 'net and am failing miserably... Any links?

So far all I've found is: http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SiI-PB-0026.pdf

Kal

I don't think it is available on the net.

What exactly do you mean by "all the external boxes" Greg?

Kal