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Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

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    #1

    Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

    My TV will support 1080p and above (Good old front PJ CRT)

    I use a DVDO VP50 Video Scaler for all my sources. Normally for things like SD DVD I will have the DVD player output 480i and let the scaler upscale to 1080p, as the DVDO is better then the scaler in the DVD Player.

    If i have a native rez from my PS3 @ 1080p I let it pass thru the scaler..

    Question is, I see the vudu will output from 480i - 1080p... What resolution is it really outputting in? If it is doing the scaling in the VUDU box, I would rather pass 480i to the DVDO. It seemed in test that SD movies looked better with Vudu in 480i feed into the DVDO than SD movies @ 1080p.... But then what is the case for HD and HDX movies....

    Thx!

    Scott
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

    VUDU HD/HDX content is 1080P24
    VUDU SD content is 480P24.

    At least that is what the VUDU staff told me last year when I first got VUDU.

    I know I just output everything from the VUDU box at 1080P24(since most of what I watch is HD) to my VP50pro and EDGE processors.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

      I'm sure your scalers do a great job and may do a better job at converting Vudu's 480p content than the Vudu would. Problem is, you'd have to then go and manually change the output setting every time you wished to watch and HD or HDX movie. While that's not impossible, it is a pain.

      Also, be aware that Vudu will only support 1080p/24 (no 1080p/60). From the looks of it, your equipment can probably handle 1080p/24 but I just to make you aware just in case.

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

        I was hoping there was a better way to switch between resolutions on the vudu. Is it correct SD content is 480p/24? I didnt think there was a 24 type output for 480p?

        While I havent checked, does the vudu hold the overscan settings for each output format or do I have to do over scan all the time?

        Is 1080p/60 in the works?

        I guess experimenting will work the best... I watched 'supersize me' in sd last night with vudu output @ 1080p and it gave me a 4:3 screen. When I switched vudu to 480i it gave me the correct 16:9... Weird!

        Scott

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

          @jamsys:

          1.) There is no 1080p/60 in the works. The hardware won't support it. Since movies are filmed at 24fps, it makes no sense to add the pull-down in to convert them to 60fps. 1080i/30 will give the same quality as 1080p/60. There are a number of other threads on this subject in the forums.

          2.) I'm not sure if the SD content is 24 fps or not. I don't think there's a 480p/24 standard so I think it would be at 480p/60 if you are outputting SD resolutions over HDMI or component.

          3.) Overscan setting is saved between resolutions.

          4.) The reason your output changed during the movie was because the zoom settings for SD content were probably changed. Is Supersize in standard (4:3) or Widescreen format? If it's in 4:3, there is a set of settings on the Vudu for how to interpret that with the higher resolution outputs. You can choose a pillarbox view with black bars on the left and right, a stretch mode where the 4:3 content is stretched to 16:9 in the horizontal direction only or a zoom mode where both horizontal and vertical stretching is done to fill the screen. In the case out outputting in 480p, the video will output at the 4:3 resolution and then your TV will take care of stretching it based on your stretch or zoom settings.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

            The SD content is encoded at 480p/24 and the box does the pulldown at playback time to match the framerate of the output resolution (if needed).

            Regarding using a scaler, we've done some pretty comprehensive side-by-side comparisons using our internal scaling and some really expensive external scalers and I think you'd be hard-pressed to see a difference. Our enginers have done a fantastic job customizing the scaling and filter settings for our content. If you want to try it, set the VUDU to 480p out and let your VP50 scale to 1080p for our SD content. Of course, it's not really simple to switch resolutions on the fly, so you'd either have to downscale all of our HD content or live with our SD scaling, which I think you'll find is more than adequate.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

              Originally posted by Patrick View Post
              The SD content is encoded at 480p/24 and the box does the pulldown at playback time to match the framerate of the output resolution (if needed).
              Thank you for clearing that up.

              Is there a way to display 480p/24? Not that I'd want to, but I doubt there are any sets that support it since all 480 sets were based on the 30 or 60 fps standard...

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                Originally posted by NA9D View Post
                Thank you for clearing that up.

                Is there a way to display 480p/24? Not that I'd want to, but I doubt there are any sets that support it since all 480 sets were based on the 30 or 60 fps standard...
                It's encoded at 24fps but never output like that since there aren't any display devices (to my knowledge) that support it. The masters we get are 24fps and there's no need for us to waste bits (and lower video quality) encoding frames that aren't actually there when we can do the pulldown just fine on playback.

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                  Originally posted by Patrick View Post
                  The SD content is encoded at 480p/24 and the box does the pulldown at playback time to match the framerate of the output resolution (if needed).

                  Regarding using a scaler, we've done some pretty comprehensive side-by-side comparisons using our internal scaling and some really expensive external scalers and I think you'd be hard-pressed to see a difference. Our enginers have done a fantastic job customizing the scaling and filter settings for our content. If you want to try it, set the VUDU to 480p out and let your VP50 scale to 1080p for our SD content. Of course, it's not really simple to switch resolutions on the fly, so you'd either have to downscale all of our HD content or live with our SD scaling, which I think you'll find is more than adequate.
                  Thx for the clarification on this. Is there any different rez between HD and HDX? Also, in the output setup of vudu, for my situation it said preferred resolution 1080i. If the HD output is 1080p, should I let vudu output 1080i and let the VP50 upscale to 1080p?

                  Last night we watched 'The Dentist' in HD. When Vudu output 1080p passed thru to the DVDO, the contrast was very light. When vudu was set to 1080i and the DVDO scaled to 1080p the contrast was much better. Not sure why on this one.

                  On 'Supersize me' in SD with vudu set to output 1080p it was almost unbearable to watch.. Very soft. With vudu set to 480p and upscaled to 1080p it was much clearer....

                  Now my setup is prob not what 99% of what your customers have. I am running the VP50 to a Barco Cine8 Liq Cooled front PJ on a 110' screen. This may be the reason for some of the softness in the sd? Other then the contrast issue, the HD content looked great.

                  May I ask some details on the scaling engine? Are you using Genum, faroudja etc?

                  Over all I am pleased with Vudu. Hopefully there will be a quick way to switch output resolutions

                  Scott

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                    There is no resolution difference between HD and HDX. Both formats are 1080p/24.

                    As for your other questions, I defer to Patrick as he knows a lot more.

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                      My random data point...

                      I tried a bunch of combinations of devices and output resolutions when I got my Anthem pre/pro (uses Gennum VXP). My relatively subjective assessment was that VUDU outputting 1080i to the Anthem (which is set to upconvert/scale all inputs to 1080p) did look marginally better overall on SD titles than when outputting 480i from the VUDU and letting the Anthem scale (which surprised me, honestly!) And given that our UI is drawn in HD and of course we have HD native titles as well, I just set the VUDU to 1080i and haven't messed with it since

                      On the other hand, the Anthem/Gennum did a much better job of scaling 480i DVDs than the internal scaler on the Oppo 970 DVD player.

                      To take a stab at some of your other questions:

                      Last night we watched 'The Dentist' in HD. When Vudu output 1080p passed thru to the DVDO, the contrast was very light. When vudu was set to 1080i and the DVDO scaled to 1080p the contrast was much better. Not sure why on this one.

                      I'm *guessing* the VP50 was passing through the 1080p/24 output without ANY processing, while with 1080i, even though it was just doing inverse telecine to recover the 24fps, it was applying some chroma processing that resulted in the contrast difference...

                      On 'Supersize me' in SD with vudu set to output 1080p it was almost unbearable to watch.. Very soft. With vudu set to 480p and upscaled to 1080p it was much clearer....

                      It would be interesting to get your opinion on an SD title outputting 1080i vs 1080p from the VUDU - might tell you if the VP50 was just passing through 1080p as guessed above...

                      May I ask some details on the scaling engine? Are you using Genum, faroudja etc?

                      Not sure what the official policy is on describing hardware details, so I'll defer on that (though I'm sure a bit of Googling would find someone who has opened up the box already

                      Anyway, personally I think your best option is 1080i from VUDU, then 1080p from the VP50 to your projector. Since you have a processor that does a good job at handling inverse telecine and (I assume) outputs everything at 1080p/60 anyway, there isn't any reason to use 1080p/24 from the VUDU. (I think the one exception to this would be if the TV/projector can display 1080p/24 (not just internally convert to 1080p/60, but actually display 1080p/24 - which I think is fairly rare?)

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                        Jake,

                        Thank you for your answers, and I will give the suggestions a try. Did some research on the chip and more can be found here (this has already been posted on the forum) http://www.broadcom.com/products/Cab...essors/BCM7401

                        Quite a impressive chip! I dont know if the internal scaling equates to a DVDO or Silicon Optix, but it is upthere with DirecTv. I wonder if Vudu will take advantage of it's horsepower as internet connection speeds get faster.

                        On a bad note, I watched The Forbidden Kingdom in HD last night. PQ was great (1080i out to DVDO) but there were 10+ times of stuttering. The only way to stop it was to pause the movie and advance. The download was fully complete when the stuttering started... Not to happy for a $6.00 rental... Ideas?

                        Thx again to all!

                        Scott

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                          Originally posted by jamsys View Post
                          On a bad note, I watched The Forbidden Kingdom in HD last night. PQ was great (1080i out to DVDO) but there were 10+ times of stuttering. The only way to stop it was to pause the movie and advance. The download was fully complete when the stuttering started... Not to happy for a $6.00 rental... Ideas?
                          I filed this with our content group - if you still have the rental available, and this was reproducible, any specific times (ie in hh:mm:ss) you saw this would help. In any case, if you have playback issues like with a title you can email customer support and they will credit you for the rental.

                          Also, in case it is a software issue rather than content - if you can give me your system ID (from Info & Settings > System Info) we can take a look.

                          -Jake

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                            Is it a relatively reasonable idea to add a setting to the actual box that changed the output resolution for SD vs. HD content? In other words, a scaler on/off switch in the video settings. I'm not sure about what all would be involved in accomplishing this, so I'm just throwing it out there. So?

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: Vudu w/ External Scaler - What Rez?

                              Originally posted by inconspicuous View Post
                              Is it a relatively reasonable idea to add a setting to the actual box that changed the output resolution for SD vs. HD content? In other words, a scaler on/off switch in the video settings. I'm not sure about what all would be involved in accomplishing this, so I'm just throwing it out there. So?
                              I noticed there is a switch on the back for 480i/480p for component output.. Something like that or even a option in software to allow different output rez's for SD vs HD... Been doing more test and my DVDO does better with output @ 480p. For the most part I am leaving vudu set @ 1080i...

                              Comment

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