Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on February 04, 2005 at 20:06:33

In Reply to: Too good to be true? posted by Jon L on February 4, 2005 at 10:44:34:

I'm not endorsing this player as the next greatest thing, just throwing it out there for people looking for a player that has a VGA output and for those people curious about new video gear.

1080p upsampling over component and HDCP non-compliant??
I've asked elsewhere to confirm this, but I believe there may be a "catch phrase" with this model. If you look at the 7th bullet point in
the Tech Specs section, it says "in high definition mode". Now, does that mean no HDCP when playing one of the HD titles from Asia or no HDCP when upsampling to an HD resolution with a regular DVD via HDMI?

Do you know which scaler, deinterlacer chipset it uses?
It uses the new Amlogic chip (www.amlogic.com). I don't know if this chip does scaling and deinterlacing or just scaling. If not deinterlacing, it might use a solution from Sony as the phrase "With latest per pixel based de-interlace technology" is very similar to their marketing terminology from 2 years ago. Just a guess though, as the Amlogic chip may do both to meet the price-point.

I would pre-order it, except I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that it will exhibit some of the usual problems with hot new DVD players including:

Black crush when DVI->HDMI cable is used
Don't know at this time.

I think you mean when using an HDMI --> DVI connection, as there is no problem when using a DVI --> HDMI connection (provided the player uses the correct digital video levels, not the incorrect digital PC levels).

Color and/or Lumens standard mis-implementation when going from HDMI to component
Don't know at this time.

You don't go HDMI to component. Do you mean when using YCbCr over HDMI in upconverting mode (the wrong color-space issue)? Using digital RGB mode should fix this.

Stretching 4:3 material to 16:9 if upsampling is used?
It says it will pillarbox a 4:3 frame inside of a 16:9 frame, so no stretching.

Screen cropping issues
Various white-crush issues and just plain poor PQ issues
Don't know about either at this time.

Macroblocking issues
No Faroudja FL23xx chip used, no macroblocking issue. Since the Amlogic is doing (at least) the scaling, they're not using a Faroudja FL23xx chipset -- which does both deinterlacing and scaling.

Plain old mechanical problems including poor disc drive, PS, etc
Don't know at this time.

Still, I'm hoping this is a good one. IF it can deliver on its promises at this price, it would be awesome.
Quite nice indeed, for many people.