HOLO3DGRAPH video processing card

[SteveG]

As some of you may know from my previous posts, Immersive, Inc., has introduced a PCI video processor card featuring Faroudja’s patented DCDi processing. The HOLO3DGRAPH is designed to accept Serial Digital Interface (SDI), Component, S-Video, and Composite video inputs. It combines with your PC graphics card to turn your PC into a video processor. Included on the card are Faroudja’s deinterlacing chip, the FLI2200, a great Philips color decoder, and an FPGA for extra processing of various sorts. The card accepts standard definition sources of all sorts, process them, and then use the graphics card to scale the image to various resolutions. Included with the card is a remote control. The user interface uses a cascading menu system that offers extensive control over picture settings, resolutions, aspect ratio, and video processing parameters that can be memorized on a per input basis. It also has built in support for the Girder PC IR control program. And since the card features dual video paths, it is also compatible with open-source deinterlacing efforts of such as dScaler. The latter can use only the input capabilities of the card, or also its deinterlacing capabilities. And once Microsoft ships DirectX 9.0, additional deinterlacing choices built into many of the newer graphics cards will become available.

I have been one of the beta testers of the card, and we testers have recently been released from our NDA. I have had extensive experience with video processors, having worked with many and owned processors from Faroudja, Dwin, and Focus Enhancements. I evaluated the card with a 19 inch Sony Trinitron computer monitor and my NEC XG85 projector. This card in a very modest PC produces the best image I have seen on DVD, short of the $45,000-65,000 Teranex processor. It has the benefits of Faroudja deinterlacing without the problems and shortcomings of the various Faroudja boxes I’ve used. While PC DVD playback is usually quite good for material originating on film, it is less good on video-based material. This card produces the best picture I’ve seen on video-based material, undoubtedly because of the DCDi processing. The card also has very clean, low noise analog inputs, far superior to any computer capture card. In part this is because its ADCs sample at the correct rate for DVD. Amazingly, using the SDI connection, Cliff Watson has verified that the card has less high frequency rolloff than a PC internal DVD player using the Theatertek player.

The card is not cheap, at $895, but compared to a video processor, the price seems reasonable to me. It offers better performance than any reasonably priced processor I’ve seen. Highly recommended.




Steve Goff

[Gordon Moore]

So as I understand it, you can't use your PC-DVDROM drive with this card unless you pump the image back into the HOLOGRAPH (can you do that)? So, your PC becomes an external video processor that costs less than $2000 - 2500 depending on your rig (and I'm thinking in CDN coinage) but processes as well as 45,000 (almost 70 grand CDN :!: )

I'd say that that's bang for the buck!




"A RONSTER!"

[Steve Goff]

you are correct, the internal DVD ROM can't be used, though an MPEG decoder card is in the works which wouild allow this, among other things. I've done further testing, and find this card amazing, especially for the price. It is giving me the best DVD picture I've ever had.




Steve Goff

[JonMarsh]

IF we wanted to convert my daughter's video setup to a HTPC, this would be the way to go- she's got the only STB's in the house, she inherited my Toshiba SD9000 DVD player, and at the moment she has possession of the Laser disk player, though technically it's not "hers".

I think the combination of the Faroudja de-interlacing chip and high grade ADC optimized for 6.75 MHz video bandwidth (DVD) should be the cat's meow for working with standard video sources, especially in concert with a video card with good scaling and 10 bit DAC's. FOr those into video sourced DVD, it coudl be indispensable.

At $895, it's not inexpensive, but you should still reserve some dinero for a video card with high grade DAC's and output (Matrox Parahelion, anyone? ;-). The drawback, of course, is that it takes an HTPC configuration from approximately $1K to almost $2K. And on top of that, you need to allocate money for a good DVD player- I think $500 minimum, such as for a Denon 1600 free of the chroma bug issue.

Still, it's amazing how good my simple old Athlon 600 running Cineplayer 4.0 through a Radeon 7200 looks on film source DVD, whether it's driving a standard PC monitor or a large screen presentation monitor. Many users have had problems minizing judder or stuttering for software DVD playback; this system is pretty much flawless, though, as is the Immersive Fardoudja board solution.


Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....