Why we got screwed

Another thing I don't understand is PC stuff is so cheap and can do very high resolution, yet any half decent video scaling equipment still costs many times more than a PC, though the majority of them have chips inside them that are less complex than those driving top of the line PC's...


I can understand that upscaling video and doing it well isn't easy, and the chips are complex, but scaling technology has also been around about as long as CRT projectors, and still costs way too much IMO. I paid over $1,000 for my iScan Ultra when I bought it, and though it has a wonderful picture, they have obsoleted it already with the iScan HD, and it's about the same price. And think of all those super expensive Farouja scalers and such, when a ~$50 PC video card can get about the same picture quality.

I brought this up a long time ago when I went from my recently re-tubed NEC 9PG plus to my low hour AmPro 4600HD. I was disapointed with the change till I figured out that it was not the fault of the display but that of the source. And while we're on the subject of image quality, don't forget about screen material.

Not all (even commercial grade) screen material, even of the same discription are created equal. I have a custom screen frame that is covered with Da-lite cinema vision 1.3 gain material. I picked theirs over Stewart because of price (1/2 the price). Big mistake. One night while discussing screens with jtnfoly, I taped a swath of Studiotek 130 in the center of my Da-lite screen to show him. I could tell buy the look on his face how obvious the quality was. The Stewart was brighter and holds a sharper image. This is way obvious with test patterns. With a crosshatch pattern, the Stewart held nice tight lines where the Da-lite seems to bleed light out of the sides giving the appearance of out of focus. OOOps, getting off topic. Back to source. In short, anyone with any EM 9"LC or even a decent 8" EM PJ suffers from what I call being source challanged.


Chip

Hey Chip,

So which Stewart model did you settle for?

Also could you please tell us where & $$$ you bought it from.


(Sorry for being off topic here)


-Rajiv

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I have not replaced it yet but, it is on my list of things to do, soon


Chip

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While it has been a long time, I think that what most people have looked forward to as far as sources is HD movies on disks. At this point it looks like we are less than 6 months away from that starting (and yes I know that we don't have a final answer on copy protection issues). But even up until now there have been some movies on D-Theater for those willing to use tape and also some very good looking movies from other places (like DIRECTV HD-PPV) for those willing to get those. Although I think DIRECTV may have started downrezzing their HD-PPV recently. Then it looks like Starz is finally going to HD versions of a lot of things, like "The Incredibles" the other day and "Dark City" in a few days. And Showtime-HD has had some nice things too (and OAR).


--Darin

Is it just my setup, or do a lot of OTA HD programs have a nice pq, but are very dim? (I guess if they are dim, then maybe the pq isn't good). Is it varying brightness or gamma that change from show to show, or what? I would think there would be some industry standard for this... maybe there already is.


Football in HD looks great, "Las Vegas" in HD looks pretty dark.


I'm sure Chris, and especially tse have already mentioned resons why for this, but it eludes me presently.



Marshall

Here is something we crters need





http://www.pioneer.co.jp/press/release159.html






Bruce

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Bruce,


You should know never to buy the first release of a new piece of equipment


Eric


(proud owner of the original NeuNeo 1080p DVD player)

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I am certainly no expert on scaling equipment, but....


Economies of scale greatly effect material costs forcing a higher total build cost. Multiply that by all the chains between the manufacturer and the retailer (then add the ridiculous markup by the retailer themselves) and the next thing you know, what appears to be a similar item costs many magnitudes more. Then there is the known fact that enthusiasts will pay a much higher price for specialty items.


Using your example of video cards: You will find a computer in more than 50% of the homes in America. What percentage own any kind of scaling equipment?


I fully agree that it stinks to pay so much more for equipment that doesn't cost a tremendous amount more to build, but that's capitalism and it effects nearly every specialty item within any market or industry.


/end rant/

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Actually, economies of scale only minimally impact the cost of electronics... Scale (which is to say, sales volume) will HUGELY impact how fast the intellectual property (development cost) can be amortized...

It's this nature that causes micrprocessors which only cost a few dollars to sell for hundreds.

A more extreme example (also a microprocessor, and memory) is the industry movement toward Capacity On Demand (IBM is pushing this big time.) Buy a million dollar minicomputer (IBM's new 64 bit CMOS System 390 or iSeries) for $100,000 and "rent" the capacity you need... The 390 has 32 work unit processors and four (IIRC) service processors. Fill all the slots and use software to turn on processor or memory capacity as need arises.