[miguel.silva]

Hello,


I university student called Andrew Dowsey in the UK programmed a scaler called ProjectTV which he claims has better quality than dScaler.


The document can be found at:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ajf/Teachin...drewDowsey.pdf


And the software and source code can be downloaded from:
http://keeper.warhead.org.uk/awd97.zip


Has anybody tried this software and what are your opinions? Is it really better than dScaler?


brgds,


Miguel

 

[JohnAd]

This is indeed a very interesting project for which Andrew deservedly won a prize.


There are some interesting approaches he tries out and the DScaler team hopes to learn from them. Andrew recently posted to the DScaler list outlining the shortcomings in his code which he left out of the paper. Also in his paper he uses a very old deinterlacing method for his comparisons.


I haven't tried the code yet as I think it requires a Hauppauge VFW driver.


With a powerful enough machine (1Ghz+) then I would expect the 3D edge deinterlacing method would be better than anything currently in DScaler for video stuff but the lack of film detect will mean lower quality on film sourced material.


Once we have sorted out the copyright issues we hope to add in the code into DScaler for people to try out.


John

 

[tschimi]

Hi,


I have just downloaded it and if it runs on my 848 card I will give you an update on it soon )))


So long, Torsten

 

[ChrisB]

I just tried it on my computer (XP/VfW Athlon XP 1600) - it does indeed run, a also suffers from the same stereo reception bug dscaler does


The de-interlacing (3d edge detect with 5 pt median) does seem to work very well on video sources. It is slightly better on very small (e.g. mouth moving/talking, etc) interlacing artifacts -but occasionally it seemed to have issues with panning. I didn't run very extensive tests as it's not practical for watching tv (interface, causes error reports/crashes in XP, etc) - which is perfectly understandable as it seems to be intended as a proof of concept.


I did think the noise reduction algorithms worked very well though - they did not give me the same posterizing artificats that temporal noise filter does (even on very un-agressive settings).


All in all it's not really a comptitor for Dscaler, but rather an excellent proof of concept project. (at least that's how it seems to me).



Chris

 

[Soopaman]

even though he claims his application is broader in support than dscaler, i can't get it to run on my ati tv wonder. is it because he hardcoded the application for wintv cards? nonetheless, by reading his pdf, this application does look promising, and hopefully him and the dscaler team can work out their problems and create one kick ass product.

 

[bgosselin]

I will like to install the software but it's not working on my machine. What do I need exactly? Where can I find the drivers needed for that.


Bruno

 

[tschimi]

Hi,


finally I am coming back to this thread. I have tested this software on two machines and I really have to say that I was kind of disappointed. The thing is that on an Hauppauge Impact card it ran but I could not really see major improvements on picture quality compared to dScaler, although he claims in his PDF to use better algorithm due to academic research :-( Anyway, on the second machine I could even not succeed in running it on an IDS Falcon card, 848 base too. A thing I really got annoyed by was that after ending the program it crashed - so far so good, I am used to it. But after restarting windows I had to rebuild the registry :-((((


In sum I really would have liked to test the "best" algorithm available but as you have seen, I could not. Interesting though that on most of my computers I owned and own, I had most problems with "professionel" software. I have no idea why but in my opinion it would be better to focus on the aim instead of bothering whether one way to go is better than the other. If you read the PDF you might get the impression that you were going to watch TV through the program with completely different quality....


To sum up I stick with the famous dScaler team and a software that runs on all my computers smoothly, as long as there is no other real competitor. However, it might be a good idea to let this guy get in contact with the dScaler team in order to figure out how to improve quality further. So far I have nothing to complain about )))))))))


Thanks again to the dScaler team and their fabulous work. That at least saved me 10000$ for the Faraudja ;-)


So long, Tschimi

 

[Timpanogos]

I too want to again thank the DScaler team. I was at the point of selling my third son to get the money to buy a Faroudja, but decided not to when I got DScaler and saw what it could do.


Seriously, the DScaler program led me to sell my Iscan and the performance I am getting is much better in my setup with DScaler, using it with a fixed resolution 1024-768 chip DLP projector and letting the video card scale the progressive video up. The Iscan only output 640-480 I believe, straight to the projector, and the projector scaling wasn't near as good as the HTPC video card Geforce scaling being fed from the DScaler.


In other words, the DScaler team saved me a heck of a lot of money and gave me much better performance at the same time.


THANKS!!!