I would have liked more control over Trigger
1. A remote control button (hopefully discrete access is coming) will help
provide better control over the trigger output.
The
SDI card, which remained the same since the original iScan HD, has now been
superseded by a new, but as yet unreleased, user-installed board. This new
board provides not only two SDI inputs, but also supports HD-SDI. SDI
originally served the processor industry in order to bridge the gap between
the digital nature of DVDs and the poor analog outputs they had. SDI allowed
people to bypass the analog stage of both processor and DVD player and
provide a fully digital means of transferring the data up until the display.
This was before the days of HDMI and HDCP copyright protection. SDI was a
broadcasting and post production standard and therefore incurred quite a bit
of a cost for modifying DVD players to support it.
These days, regular SDI
is not as critical, because HDMI supports passing-through SDTV. This means
only those consumers requiring analog (the CRT projector folks) or unencrypted
digital sources still need SDI. HD-SDI is an even more complex mod to Blu-ray
and HD-DVD players, and I suspect its users will be fairly scant.
The VP50Pro also adds THX certification, which
means it underwent a rigorous testing and verification phase at THX labs
(more details can be found
here).
I'm not really sure that this has any significant impact on VP50Pro's
customer base, but it certainly doesn't hurt anyone to have the THX logo on
any of their equipment.
I'm not one to use a video processor as a
sound switch. Previous units did have audio issues, such as clicks and short
cutouts. During my testing, I did not have any audio issues, but I cannot
categorically state that all audio issues are gone.
The
VP50Pro implements the same Panorama Non-Linear-Stretch (NLS) option that
the VP50 and
VP30 have. NLS is a very difficult algorithm to achieve properly, and I think this
particular one needs a lot more work.
For one, I would like the Panorama
option to be remembered when selecting an aspect ratio (per input). It
should also be applicable horizontally or vertically. Say I have a
2.35:1 movie playing on my 16:9 plasma screen. I should have the option of
using a panorama style feature that will prevent me from having to zoom in
or risk burn-in on 25% of my non-used pixels. The current implementation
results in way too much deformation around the sides of the screen, causing the
image to become too distorted and stretched. I would have liked at least one
more option: to zoom in slightly and reduce the level of distortion around
the edges at the expense of cropping the top and bottom of the image.
Interestingly, the overscan and cropping controls don't really cause the NLS
to change parameters, so you can't really change how the algorithm works. I
would really like for ABT to revisit this feature and improve it
dramatically.
Some of the test patterns in use
on the VP50Pro are my designs. As with all other ABT units, the test patterns
are at least two steps ahead of any other device out there (if I do say so
myself). They are they
pixel perfect and serve to check and verify almost every display feature
possible. However, for sharpness, I would like a simple black/white line pattern
against a gray background to ensure screen sharpness is optimal. Turning on
and switching test patterns is a real treat and could not be implemented any
better. Why can't everyone have this range and bulk of useful test patterns?
The unit is clearly oriented towards digital
audio inputs. There are two sets of digital (SPDIF/coax) inputs, four HDMI inputs
(they can carry sound), but only one set of analog audio inputs (although analog audio is becoming quite rare these days).
The VP50Pro carries the Imaging Science
Foundation (ISF)
CCC (Certified Calibration Controls) logo. This means that ABT will
release support features which will let ISF-certified calibrators better
control the unit. Initially, this means support for ISF day/night profiles
that will let you have control over daytime calibration (lots of ambient
light) vs. night time calibration (little or no ambient light). It also
hints at the possibility that ABT will add more calibration options than
currently offered.
Conclusions
The Anchor Bay Technologies DVDO Iscan VP50Pro
Video Processor is not a dramatic leap from the
VP50, but an evolutionary step. ABT clearly has more features in mind for
the VP50Pro, but as it stands today, not everyone really needs all the
features that it adds. I would state that existing VP50 users might want to
wait until the full feature set of the VP50Pro is announced before
upgrading (unless you come by a good upgrade opportunity).
New purchasers should not hesitate to go with
the VP50Pro. It only has benefits when compared to the VP50 and
is clearly a big step in the right direction.
I think Anchor Bay can be proud of this
unit, but should really revisit some of the features left over from previous
units and consider improving or upgrading them as well.
- Ofer LaOr -
Mr. LaOr is Editor of Hometheater.Co.Il, a Hi-Fi
magazine published in Israel. He is also the moderator for the AVS Forum
Video Processing section.