Joel,
I replied to your thread:
If you know the nature of how the Faroudja chip works, answer this...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...68#post1083168
But maybe this is a better place for it:
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Kudos an a very informative post, but I am still left with a serious question. On paper, your assessment of whether or not to bypass a DVD players interlacer looks pretty clear, but so far I have never seen the benefit unless using a projector or TV with an inferior interscaler.
For instance, just this last weekend I took my 12SF to the HTA projector shootout held in Austin and they were using a Sony DVP-9000ES DVD player connected via component displaying images from Video Essentials.
First we ran it with the DVD player sending out a progressive signal and there was easily noticeable stair stepping and jaggies in the picture, especially with the scene of the American flag waving in the wind.
We then switched off the progressive mode on the DVD player and VOILA, the picture looked as smooth as silk. The rest of the picture was unchanged, still same level of brightness, color, contrast, etc. The only difference was in the interlacing between what the DVD player was able to do VS what the projector was able to do.
I have made similar comparisons using the following progressive scan DVD players: Toshiba SD-6200, Pioneer Elite DV 36, and Pioneer DV-C603
All had the same effect as when we used the Sony 9000ES.
If what you say is true, then the results should have been the other way around, right?
Any idea why I am getting a far better picture by sending the projector an interlaced signal vs a progressive? All I can think of is that by sending a progressive signal to the 12SF it then bypasses the internal Faroudja DCDi chip set thus I am seeing the difference between the Faroudja and the DVD player's interpolator.
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I may have an idea why you were seeing a change in the "Brightness, Color, Contrast, etc" when you changed the output of your DVD player from interlaced to progressive and vice versa. At least for me, I discovered that the 12SF allows for every type of input to have its own calibration settings. Usually this means that your component input has one setting, the S-Video has another, the DVI yet another, but at least with the 12SF they went one step further. The projector also allows for different settings for the type of signal being fed through an input. In your example, lets say you are using a component cable and you have the DVD player set to output a native interlaced signal. The 12SF recognizes it is a 480i signal and any changes you make in the display settings it will remember to use each time it received a 480i signal through the component input. So lets say you did as I did, and calibrated the settings for that signal. Then when I switched the DVD player to send out a 480p signal, the projector now has a new signal type and thus all the settings for this new type are immediately changed to the default settings. The result, at least for me, was a dimmer looking picture compared to the image I got from calibrating the 480i signal, but once I calibrated the 480p signal they were pretty much the same (except for the fact the DVD player's 480p signal suffered from poor interpolating stair stepping and jaggies).
Now I realize it sounded like you attempted to calibrate the projector and it still wouldn't give you a better picture, and in that event it sounds like you have discovered a strange anomaly.
Due keep us up to date on your inquires as to what may be occurring. At least for me, I have so far always gotten a better picture by bypassing progressive scan DVD players internal processor and allowing the 12SF to do all the interpolating.