XA2 noise reduction options

I'm in the same boat!

I'm experimenting with this myself. Only had the XA2 for 2 days, but it's clear that turning on all three filters does filter out a bunch of junk that is not real picture info. Except perhaps for the random noise filter - that filter might remove film grain (bad or good depending on your taste). It's going to take some time with many different SD disks and settings for me to come to a conclusion, but so far I very much like what I see the filters doing. Also the "Edge Enhancement" looks pretty good (still too soon to tell) - it clearly DOES NOT do "Edge Enhancement" - but some sort of detail/sharpness enhancement.

I saw posted here that the NR options are greyed out when watching HD DVD - On my XA2, they are not greyed out and they can be used and do make a difference. Im going HDMI direct to my TV which is a 1080P XBR 2 70" Sony.


Do you guys get the options when watching HD DVD?


With SD, I have edge enhamncement at +1, color at +1 and I leave off the NR features as it appeared to soften the picture a little.

On the HQV test disc the noise reduction did amazing things for the noisy test pictures, without noticably reducing detail.


I noticed at least one case on a real-world disc, however, that the block noise reduction actually *added* the exact type of block noise that it's supposed to reduce.


--

Steve



Quote:
Originally Posted by kanefsky /forum/post/0


On the HQV test disc the noise reduction did amazing things for the noisy test pictures,

Click to expand...

Well I would hope so. That test disc is made by the same people who make the NR chip, and those pictures were specifically designed to demonstrate the chip.

I guess it doesn't hurt to experiment, but according to the manual, these noise reduction features are only effective for standard definition discs.


Larry



Quote:
Originally Posted by Malterno /forum/post/0


I am wondering if you experts here use any of the three noise reduction options that the XA2 offers for the playback of standard DVDs. (Mosquito NR, Block NR, Random NR)


My impression is that they improve the picture quality and successfully minimize compression artefacts, but despite this apparent improvement I am hesitant to use any of them because I am afraid of losing actual picture information.


What do you think? Is it recommendable to enable all three of them or would that smear out the picture too much?

Click to expand...

Now that people have had their players a bit longer. How do people find these NR adjustments? Are they good or bad?


Any feedback would be appreciated!

Thanks!

To my eyes, the random noise filter is always great to use and I haven't seen any negative impact. For some reason and I can't explain it, when I enable the other two filters, the movies lose some of depth and dimension. I have stared at the screen far longer than I care to admit before reaching this conclusion. To me, the image looks best with only the random noise filter enabled.

I would also be curious if anyone has tried more of the filters, it is a month later, and as someone looking to purchase xa2 I am very curious what types of filters people use, please let us know.

So far, I'm finding what AST found. The Random Noise filter doesn't take away from picture quality or detail. Additionally I definitely see the Block Noise filter having negative affecting the picture. I did some testing with various screens on AVIA (yes I have too much free time), and the Block Noise filter really blurries some images. The Mosquito Noise filter doesn't seem to have much affect one way or the other, at least with my tests. Personally I love the Edge Enhancement, I find it makes the picture clearer. But that's probably more of a personal taste.

For standard they might do an okay job but I thought for HD they were useless...



Quote:
Originally Posted by joerod /forum/post/0


For standard they might do an okay job but I thought for HD they were useless...

Click to expand...

Meaing you have to turn them off, or that they simply do not affect the image at all when an HD-DVD is playing? Obviously, it's far preferable if the latter is the case.

When viewing SD movies I set Edge Enhancement to 2, and I enable

mosquito noise and random noise as this seems to provide me with

the best picture. Block noise seems to do more harm than good on the

movies I tested.


Some SD movies have better video quality than others so I always

experiment with the noise reduction options.

Only edge enhancement works for HD on the XA2. The Reon chip is also in the Algolith HDMI Flea. That box is designed to work with HD or SD. It does an excellent job reducing mosquito noise from broadcast HD channels.



Quote:
Originally Posted by joerod /forum/post/0


For standard they might do an okay job but I thought for HD they were useless...

Click to expand...

The edge enhancement works for HD, only the noise filters don't.

I would imagine on a poorly authored or very compressed DVD, enabling the block noise might be preferable, but for most DVD's that aren't highly compressed, I believe it's best to leave that filter off.

So people leave edge enhancement on, even for HD-DVDs? Something doesn't feel right about that, though I can't quite pinpont why.

Then the A2 is a better choice unless you need the analog outs.