Bandwith required for 1080i video?

[Vader]

Hi all,

I am currently prepping my system for a Blu Ray player (hopefully the Panny 50) , and am limited to component video. Right now, I am running the video directly into my display (Mitsu WS65511) via Beldon 1694A component cables (sweep rated at 4.5 Ghz - Wow!). Since my display has only one 1080i component input (currently taken up by my Onkyo HD805 HD-DVD player), I need to use my Denon 2105 AVR as a switcher. I know the Beldon cables are not a problem, but the Denon will only handle up to 100Mz. Is this sufficient? Thanx!

[no. 5]

I could be wrong, but I think 40MHz is enough for 1080i.

[MatrixDweller]

100MHz is the high end for component signals and pretty much all AVRs state the 100MHz rating. Remember too that that's 100MHz x 3 so it's plenty good enough for 1080i or 720p. 1080p60 is possible too, over short distances, but most Bluray players will not support this because of the fact component does not have a copy protection scheme. You won't be able to to upconvert DVDs above 480p also over component.

[thewire]

It doesn't take much. I know many are not to happy about comparing screenshots (not accurate) but I thought this could be a decent example of how little it actually takes.

Here is a very bad transfer of DVD upconverted to 720P over component with my XA2 into a Focus enhancements CS-2 on my NEC 6PG+ projector. I'm having a difficult time watching this and the quality is about like watching SD cable television. I have seen some alright upconverted DVD but this is not one of them. It is a made for television movie called 10.5 Apocalypse and the only audio is even worse.




Here is Tranformers on HD-DVD with my very low bandwidth display. :/ My projector is ancient but it looks alright to me. It would look much better calibrated which I plan to give a try at sometime soon.



Bandwidth.



click for larger images

[Vader]

Thanx,All!

[MatrixDweller]

thewire wrote:

It doesn't take much.

What brand of component cable do you have and how long does it stretch?

[thewire]

For DVD:

XA2 Monster Cable component cable to the transcoder (pass thorugh) to a Monster Cable component cable out to the scaler. The Scaler uses a RS RGB cable extention to a Better Cables RGBHV cable into the projector.

For HD-DVD (or Blu-Ray if that will work also)
XA2 Monster Cable component cable to the trancoder (converted to RGBHV) out of a standard VGA monitor cable into the scaler. (VGA pass through) to the RS extention RGB cable to the Better Cables RGBHV cable.

I could skip the VGA Pass-through on the scaler or even skip the component pass-though on the trancoder but it would mean moving connections. For switching purposes it makes it much faster, and I did not notice any difference in the quality.

The VGA is 6ft also. The RS VGA extention cable is 10ft I think and the RGBHV cable is something like 20ft or 25ft but I would have to look it up to be sure.

Each component cable is 6ft. I used the SWE2 THX optimizer and test patterns in my scaler for calibration of the pj (also prior to mounting) currently. I also checked with projector central which I had to make some last minute screen purchase changes for. I was going to get a 1.3 gain screen but I instead got a 2.8. My previous screen was melamine board painted with BEHR brilliant white 92" diagonal. My current screen is a Dalite 106" High Power.

The images above were taken with a Samsung 4.0 Mega Pixel camera using a tripod, timer, and manual exposure by removing my hand from the camera a spit second during the start of the exposure. I resized them in Photoshop.

[MatrixDweller]

Does the XA2 actually upconvert the 10.5 Apocalypse to 1080i? My HDA2, when using component, shows a message on any DVD I've tried stating that upconversion is not available. For upconversion of DVD you need to use HDMI because of HDCP. If that's the case then that would probably be the reason for the sub standard PQ.

Even though the original content has a big part to play the XA2 would probably do a pretty good job at scaling the image. That's one of the 'money' features on the XA2.

You do mention that you are using a dedicated scaler. The CS2 would not do as good of a job as the XA2 would at upscaling.

[bobgpsr]

A backup of a DVD will upscale by the HD-XA2 on component video.

[thewire]

MatrixDweller wrote:

Does the XA2 actually upconvert the 10.5 Apocalypse to 1080i?.

No just 480P that I upconvert using the scaler.

bobgpsr wrote:

A backup of a DVD will upscale by the HD-XA2 on component video.

I will do an a/b comparison sometime to see if upgrading my projector might be worth using the XA2 to upconvert. I suspect it will not justify the cost for upconversion alone. My scaler is made for the industry and I don't understand how it is going to look less good than a consumer product but this is the reality of advancing technology I guess. I currently use Netflix (4 at a time) and/or a movie rental store but only buy a movie to keep if it is HD-DVD. I have seen alot of movies.

[MatrixDweller]

thewire wrote:

My scaler is made for the industry and I don't understand how it is going to look less good than a consumer product but this is the reality of advancing technology I guess.

It boils down to the chipset used. The XA2 is a pretty high end player and brand new was fairly expensive. Your CS2 was released over 4 years ago and uses the Silicon Image Sil504 chip. It was the best back then. The XA2 uses the Silicon Optix Reon chip which is considered one of the best currently. The Sil504 still isn't bad, the Reon is just better. The CS2 is better in one respect as it will upconvert anything passed into it, rather than the XA2 only doing the discs that are played within it.

You might also want to avoid upscaling to 480p in the XA2 first and just pass the raw unscaled video to the CS2. Scaling twice could introduce problems from what I've heard (maybe).

You might be able to find a good deal on a 1080i/720p projector. I bought my Epson 550 off Ebay for $500 last August. It would be hard to match the PQ of a CRT projector though. With Bluray set to take over in 2-5 years I wouldn't see the point unless you went 1080p.