The AV market seems to be growing up

Posted by: Don Atkinson on 05 October 2007

The AV market seems to be growing up a little bit.

A couple of years ago I asked a dealer what the resolution was of the High Definition projector he was trying to sell me. After at least five minutes of phrasing and re-phrasing the question he finally admitted it was 576 (or something like that). He knew that the rest of the industry was already regarding 720p as "real" hidef. He lost my confidence and any possibility of a sale - ever. These days, retailers will enthusiastically talk about 720p, 1080i 1080p and up-scaling or down-scaling and pixel count. Then Pioneer launch "Black" (or Kuro if you are Japanese!) and we are all reminded that resolution isn't the be-all and end-all of plasmas. Any more than pixel-count is the be-all and end-all of digicams.

Whatever screen or projector you buy today it will almost certainly have a native resolution of 720, 768 or 1080. I doubt if there are (m)any 480/576 displays on the market these days.

This means that any standard dvd player, such as the dvd5 or n-Vi, is going to have to rely on the internal scaler of the display unit for its visual element. Is this a serious compromise that has put a nail in the dvd5/n-Vi coffin?

On the other hand, a Pioneer/Panasonic Blu-ray deck will presumably map directly to a modern 1080p screen, without the need for any scaler at all. Is this a tremendous advantage?

How good is the Pioneer or Panasonic scaler in their 720p or 768p displays when mapping down from 1080p Blu-ray discs? how good are these scalers when mapping up from a standard dvd disc played in a blu-ray player?

To summarise, which will look best:-

dvd5 (with standard dvd) into Pioneer/Panasonic capable of 720/768/1080p
Pioneer/Panasonic blu-ray player (with standard dvd) into Pioneer/Panasonic plasma at 720/768/1080p
Pioneer/Panasonic blu-ray player (with blu-ray dvd) into Pioneer/Panasonic plasma at 720/768/1080p

Or is it better to buy a stand-alone scaler? do such beasts exist? Am I becoming nurotic?

Cheers

Don
Posted on: 05 October 2007 by David Dever
Standalone video processors are the way to go, especially when you consider what a scaler vendor can do with the software, above and beyond the Toshibas and Denons of this world.
Posted on: 06 October 2007 by neil w
don
im with dave and this is the latest on the block

http://www.convergent-av.co.uk/lu_radiance_xd.html

you can read all 43pages of this although there is still partial non disclosure i believe

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=723537

neil

my money is going on one very soon
Posted on: 06 October 2007 by Allan Probin
I use an external scaler but now I'm considering getting rid of it as part of a streamlining plan I have in mind for my home cinema setup over the next six months or so. The scaler works brilliantly but I actually think it's becoming less and less relevent over time as we converge towards a new set of av standards that have now become established. Don't forget, external processors have grown mainly out of the market that has emerged due to the discrepancy between low resolution sources, ie DVD, SD broadcast, etc. and large high resolution displays such as 1080p flat panels.

I'm seriously considering upgrading my projector for a 1080p device and one that will handle a 24fps input, as most invariably do these days. My blue-ray player will output 1080p/24 direct off the disc, so in the case of Blu-Ray playback my video processor would just be running in pass-through mode.

As soon as the new EP35 HD-DVD player is available I'll be upgrading my HD DVD player to one of these or possibly the XE1 (and taking advantage of the seven free HD-DVD disc offer!). The EP35 (and XE1) will both do 1080p/24 direct off the disc, so again, my video processor would just be running in pass-through mode with HD DVD and is beginning to look like a rather expensive switch box!

This still leaves a couple of sources to cater for - SD DVD played via either of my high def players and 1080i/50 from high definition satellite, e.g. BBC-HD

At some point over the next six months I'll probably look at getting an AV Amp / processor with HDMI inputs and capable of handling multi-channel PCM and decoding the new audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio. These devices typically have about four HDMI inputs (and a HDMI output to the display) and many incorporate some form of video processing. The better ones include high quality video processing chips such as the REON.

If I got rid of my external scaler and instead plugged all my sources into one of these new AV processors then for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD it would simply route the signal in pass-through mode to the projector (decoding Dolby TrueHD, etc on the way). For SD-DVD it would need to process 480i/576i up to 1080p and this is where I'd need to do a bit of investigation to see how well this is handled. However, SD DVD constitutes only about one-third of my movie watching (and falling) so I'm maybe not going to be quite as critical as I once was. The difference between good SD DVD processing and excellent SD DVD processing is going to be so small compared to the difference between SD DVD and HD DVD that it's probably insignificant in comparison.

That just leaves 1080i/50 to sort out but it's such a trivial job (in comparison SD DVD) to convert this to 1080p/50 that I'm quite confident that something like a REON processor will be well up to the task.

We seem to be at a stabilisation point now in terms of video and audio standards. It's a bit like when DVD first hit the market 10/11 years ago and everything consolidated around 480i (576i in Europe), Dolby Digital and DTS. We all had to go out then and replace our dolby pro-logic processing with dolby digital, better video quality meant larger screens were feasible, etc. We're now back where we were 10 years ago, at the start of the next set of standards that will see us through for possibly another 10 years. The starting gun has been fired again and it's clear that our next set of standards are going to revolove around 1080p, 24fps, Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio and HDMI
Posted on: 06 October 2007 by Don Atkinson
Dave, Neil, Allan,

Many thanks for you links and your posts.

Its good to see a divergence of opinion - it makes you think very carefully!! One man opting out of external scalers whilst another is opting in!!!!! (Fortunately you don't live more than 20 miles appart so you might ba able to do some sort of deal together????)

To a certain extent I am going to be forced into buying AV gear whether I like it or not. The (Sony) telly is 15 years old and irritatingly has to run off the VCR tuner. The VCR has died so is only good for its tuner section. At least I don't have to actually buy today, but it won't be long, and Mrs D keeps pressing.....

At the beginning of September I went to John Lewis' intending to buy (really!!) the best Panasonic 42" plasma tv for under a grand - knowing it would be at best a 768p model.....sure enough there was one at £899 and another at £999....end of story????........

But I noticed a 42" Panasonic 1080p model at £1,299 nearby, so mosied over to have a look. Better picture altogether. And only £300 extra. Much better value alround. Hand on the old wallet when, round the corner I spy....

...a 42" Pioneer at £1,799, but only 768p. There must be something wrong here. How can Pioneer expect to flog 768p models for £500 more than their arch rival's brand new 1080p model?? - well, the picture don't half look good, and it says 24fps and....so the old wallet stays firmly in the pocket.

Let's wait for the Heathrow Hifi show and find out a bit more.

Pioneer were there with their 42" 768p Kuro and their 50" 768p Kuro AND their 50" 1080p Kuro and a 60" ....but now I KNOW I'm getting carried away....And the 50" 1080p Kuro is £3,500

Allowing for a descent table and a few interconnects and I am now three-times my original budget....hypothetically, cause the wallet is now firmly in the pocket.

OOOpps....Mrs D has just called dinner, so I must go!!!

Cheers

Don