Is SDI output processor independent ?

What Damon is saying I think is that several of the manufacturers that make processors and plan on making an sdi input available have agreed with each other thru Tom to folllow the referenced standard. Unfortunately, this group only consists of a few manufacturers (TAW, Key Digital, Vigatec) (Tom, are these correct and are there more?). Hopefully others will make an sdi input available and will follow the lead of these cutting edge manufacturers. One of the problems with the electronics business is that no one knows what the future will bring. Me, I am spending the $525 with Immersive to have my Denon DVD3300 retrofitted with an SDI output and another $500 with TAW to have my Rock Plus retrofitted with an SDI input. I've seen the improvement sdi makes and it is significant enough to increase my investment in DVD player/processor by 20 percent.

I think it's more a case that the newer players are having to conform to the industry standard SMPTE 259M (as that is what SDI is) rather than them coming up with a new standard.


SDI has been in use in broadcast for at least 15 years, and the Snell & Wilcox Interpolator has had two spare SDI inputs since it's launch about 6 years ago so it's certainly not a new thing.


The bigger question is whether this is the best connection format between units - today it is certainly the best for DVD to Scaler, but the future may hold other options.


Richard Ansell

Snell & Wilcox

Good point. I took a course a Cedia where the various methods (that is, sdi, hdsdi, dvi, firewire etc) were discussed pro and con from a video and audo view point. Clearly, sdi is not the optimal methodology but it seems adequate for getting an interlaced stream from a dvd to a processor. It does not have to handle progressive since the dvd starts out as interlaced. HDSI would be better (alone in that it could handle the hd stream from an HD receiver), but we are talking streams from dvd here and most processor can't process anything other than 480i or so. Having a better digital input would not serve a lot of purposes. Clearly when a processer can scale 1080i, sdi will not help. SDI does in my opinion help big time when processing dvds. I wish I could contribute more here, but the subject is complex and I hate the taste of shoe leather.

SDI SMPTE 259M carries a 480i signal.


DVI carries a progressive signal.


A complete digital path would be SDI in DVI out.



HDSDI has the bandwidth to carry HDTV along with progressive outputs.

This is standard on the Teranex.


Tom is out of state today and will be treated to HDSDI.

This is in the works and will be Immersives next offering!


Stay tuned..some exciting things are coming beyond this topic!


Regarding HDSDI what is unclear to me at this point is unless you have a projector with a HDSDI input ( this is a Chris Stephens specialty) would we see any improvement over feeding the set analog 1080I.


You would under the following conditions.


1. If you were scaling HDTV through a scaler.


2. Your projector had an HDSDI input.


3. If the processor with HDSDI input offered superior processing in the digital domain such as the Teranex to the HD stream.


Otherwise HDSDI will offer no benefit to you.