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Posted: Friday, 18 Mar 2005 1:49:46 PM -- by Momir Zecevic I suppose that everyone here will be bored to the death, but I will repeat my (updated) opinion here.
Startup class devices:
Meaning you will connect the scala player directly via cable (no longer than few meters) to the display (TV or video monitor which do not have more than 300-400 lines of resolution).
ATI and Nvidia with TV out capabilities of their cards are OK for this purpose.
This solution is visibly better than FETVGold especially if you have content having lots of animations.
In this category I am not talking about any measurements, just visible results.
Direct TV Distribution.
If you have one player and its output feeds several displays (meaning you will have some sort of video distribution), and especially if cable lengths from distribution amp. to the screens are relatively long (20m +) I would consider purchasing middle of the road scan converter (500$-1000$).
I really can not recommend anything in this price range, perhaps someone here will be in a position to tell its own experience.
Cable/Broadcast/...
You don’t have too much choices here. You are limited by standards, FCC, EBU etc.
Choose devices that satisfy standards, then among those chose ones that can be plugged into your system, and then among those pick one that will provide best quality for your budget.
Trouble is, that usually solution space is an empty set, meaning that you will have to adjust either your budget or your quality requirements :(
Regards,
Momir Zecevic
Ars Media
http://www.arsmedia.tv
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Posted: Thursday, 17 Mar 2005 1:21:46 PM -- by John Schilling There really is not all that much innovation in NTSC TV singals.
No Point.
In the last year--over the last 10 years--there has not been really all that much change.
From a "Broadcast Quality" standpoint the cheapest Scan Converter is in the $300-$600 range. Was that way in 1995, is that way today. The FETVvG is really a "ProSumer/Corporate/College-TV" level product for the most part. If you are doing real work--you will pay real money and go with a Magni or a CURIOscan or something similar.
Regards,
--JSS
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Posted: Wednesday, 16 Mar 2005 11:59 AM -- by Jim WedelSince it's been almost a year from the last entry on this thread, have there been any improvements or additions to hardware for getting as close to a "broadcast quality" video output from a Player? Is the Focus Enhancements TV View Gold PCI NTSC/PAL Scan converter card still a good "middle of the road" solution?
Jim Wedel
DigiSigns, Inc. |
Posted: Thursday, 8 Apr 2004 10:37 AM -- by John SchillingBoth nVidia and ATI have done quite a bit with their "TV-OUT" support in terms of "ease of use"--better controls for tweaking the position/size/contrast/etc. in their recent drivers. Both the nVidia v.56.72 and the ATI v.4.3 drivers--current as of April'04--are very nice in this regard.
The actual video circuitry has not changed. The "quality" of these singals is clearly consumer-grade at best.
Any professional application will require the use of an EXTERNAL Scan converter. [a cheap academic/corporate solution might find the Focus Enhancements TVvG acceptable] TVOne/CORIO, Magni, S&W--there is a reason why their prices have not changed in ten years.
Regards,
--JSS
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Posted: Thursday, 1 Apr 2004 9:55 AM -- by Jason CanavanJohn, you said that you have had pretty good luck with the NVidia GF2 and GF4 cards. Is there any updates to what NVidia cards you have had success with lately?
Jason |
Posted: Saturday, 18 Jan 2003 9:20 AM -- by John SchillingYes, the output of the FETVvG, at least NTSC--that's what I have gear to test with--is superior to that of an X@P98--but do you care? These are two different markets: A FETVvG is USD$100+ and you still need a graphics card. A X@P98 is USD$30-50-ish. Since you are going to be using either with a $500-$1000 PC running a USD$2500 piece of software I find this form of discusssion a bit silly. [esp. since in the end its the quality video output that will be the only thing that the entire solution is judged by!]
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc.
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Posted: Friday, 17 Jan 2003 6:28 PM -- by markinsta
They have shovels full of the ATI cards on EBAY. The Play 98 was a decent card. Wonderering if the Tview Gold pci with that fs400 chip is an improvement?
Mark
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Posted: Friday, 17 Jan 2003 10:29 AM -- by John SchillingThe FETVvG is about the best ~$100 solution on the market. It has problems--but its not that bad for the price. [...and the 'Play98 is no longer in production--although you can find them occationally in the Channel--ATI must have made a "Oil Tanker" full of these cards!]
Another option for the cronically cheap:
An nVidia card with the one of the standard TV-encoder parts and a shareware tool call "TVtool", [ http://tvtool.info/go.htm?http://tvtool.info/english/downloa… ]
With the current "WHQL-Candidate" nVidia Reference drivers, v.41.09, I have obtained pretty good results with several GF2MX/GF4MX cards with "S-Video" output connectors.
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc.
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Posted: Thursday, 16 Jan 2003 8:31 PM -- by markinsta
Has Anyone had a chance to scope the difference between the Xpert@Play 98 and Tview Gold by Focus Enhancements? Which is better? Want to know the best internal solution for tv output from a pci slot at this point in time. Enough time may have passed to revisit this.
Thanks
Mark
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Posted: Tuesday, 16 Apr 2002 10:16 PM -- by John SchillingYou will still need a "kludged" set of drivers--but that's do-able.
You'll sell a couple hundred units per year--max. Your competition is stuff like the "PixelLock" board--USD$1500 to $2000 for a Tseng ET4000W32 with 4MB on a PCI card.
Have at it!
Good luck,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc.
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Posted: Tuesday, 16 Apr 2002 4:05 PM -- by Momir ZecevicI was actually thinking about one workaround.
1. Graphic card with DVI output->
2. TMDS Receiver, level translation and transform to parallel D1 or digital RGB or Digital YPrPb ->
3. Digital filtering +encoding +analog filtering.
1 is standard graphic card.
3 can be found trough OEM channels from professional broadcast equipment manufacturers.
Only the part 2 has to be made.
2 and 3 would go in breakout box.
It is tickling me for quite a while. I am just constantly asking my self about the market size.
Regards,
Momir Zecevic
Ars Media |
Posted: Sunday, 14 Apr 2002 11:34 PM -- by John SchillingThe volume is just too small.
The production line setup/teardown costs will kill you.
Given the operating frequencies and voltaages that these boards would be running at--this is not the type of job that can be done by a couple of techs using hand tools. The GPU parts are all BGA--the SDRAM parts are BGA or really fine pitch SMT--this type of board has to be turned on a line with automated equipment. [that is with the assuption that you can do this with a 4-layer board--its very likely that an 8 layer board might be required in order to get the "noise" profile down--and that little change increases the cost of the PCB by about 400%]
There is a reason why most of the "Broadcast" video cards on the market are overpriced PCI cards with 1996 graphics chips that are totally laughable by today's standards--this type of stuff can really only be practically done if it is possible to tie this product to some other higher-volume market. [e.g. as with Appian and ENSO with their 4X output video cards--these things would not be on the market if it were not for Stock Brokers and their need for 4X-Exel Spreadsheet displays on their trading desks!
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc. |
Posted: Friday, 12 Apr 2002 4:06 PM -- by Momir Zecevic
I was actually thinking about estimated number of 200 units/year in sales.
Regards,
Momir Zecevic
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Posted: Friday, 12 Apr 2002 3:34 PM -- by John SchillingMy numbers are strictly "back of the envelope". I know generally how much modication of the GPU reference is needed--and a quick est. of the cost of board layout and a couple of debugging turns of prototype "blue boards". I know how much it costs to make an ~40 inch^2 4-layer SMT PCBA. I know the costs for production line setup for a custom product build with most of the major contract houses. I know the general contract prices for SDRAM, Connectors, Caps, Resitors, and the CPU's and the SC ASIC. Components are sold in lots of 100, 1000, and 10,000. So you do the estimate based on a 1,000 unit run. You also make the assumption that you will only get 3 quarters of "normal" sales and 1 quarter of steep discounting/inventory liquidation.
I might not be right on the money--but I'm close enough to figure out the basic cash flow of the project to within +/- 20% or so. High-end graphcis cards, Video games or Babbling Furby's--the "Cost of Production" rules are the same.
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc.
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Posted: Thursday, 11 Apr 2002 2:18 PM -- by Momir ZecevicJohn,
I just mentioned it as idea but your figures are looking interesting.
One more question, those numbers mentioned in your post, are they just for example or the result of examining possibilities of making such card?
Regards,
Momir Zecevic
Ars Media
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Posted: Wednesday, 10 Apr 2002 12:29 PM -- by John SchillingThe short answer--sorry, no, it will not happen.
I am a hardware engineer with a background in high-volume production of computer video products. The economics will not allow for Scala to product a board with your requirements. [anybody remember a computer called the "Amiga"--I had some involvement in that... The reality: 500,000+ Amiga 500/600/1200's per year--4,000 A2000/2500/3000/3000T/4000. The maximum production of the Amiga 4000T's at Commodore was 127 units in a given calendar year--and in the years since the "Fall of Commodre"--ESCOM did an initial production run of 5000 A4000T PCBA's--the the past 8 years fewer than 3000 units have been sold]
Production of a video card such as our "Broadcast Quaility" customers want would tie up approximately $300,000 in capital and likely result in about 200 units/year in sales. The end result is that the _minimum price for such a board would be $4000.00. [more likely $6-7,000]
The best advise I can give a customer today who wants "Broadcast Quaility":
Purchase a good Hercules/Guilemont nVidia GF2-based video card. Purchase a Magni PROVID Genlock/Scan Converter. Purchase the Lavitski Lab's "MagniEX". Purchase EnTech Taiwan's PowerStrip v.3.x. Use EnTech to make your custom video mode and refresh rate with the current nVidia WHQL-Certified OEM Reference Driver. Feed the ouput of the video card into the Magni. Control the Magni with the LL EX. If you have a larger budget get the S&W and control the S&W with one of the command line tools available for it using the LauchEX or the VSH interface.
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc.
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Posted: Wednesday, 10 Apr 2002 11:09 AM -- by Panagiotis AidonopoulosThanks for taking the time to answer this
even though it has allready been answered John!
Well said Momir! How about it Scala? Don't you think that a customer who is willing to pay the upgrade to IC3 or purchase a new one is equally interested in purchasing a solid Graphics-Video card that can achieve Broadcast quality output?
If you consider that our customers will pay for the development of a script that will play on a sesitive area such us in a digital signage area, wouldn't they demand broadcast quality output?
I am dreaming of a main VGA or even addon card (preferably VGA) that will output in glorius broadcast quality AND hardware decode MPEG2 to promote with all my scripts being published. It's just a matter of giving my customers the choice of Broadcast quality AND MPEG2 video output at an extra price! I think that the 1000$ tag that Momir talks about, would not be considered as a drawback but rather as an acceleration for the digital signage times!
Maybe Scala should consider selling these cards bundled with special priced IC3 players.
Comments anyone?
Panagiotis Aidonopoulos |
Posted: Monday, 8 Apr 2002 7:05 PM -- by Momir ZecevicThose are well known fact John, especially the part about legal luminance and legal colors.
However that is usually not the part that makes scan converters unwanted in video chain (that's my opinion and I don’t think about sub1000$ parts).
I will just mention few things that are painful about them.
1) Flicker reduction and how it is achieved.
You usually have flicker reduction as the trade with loss of resolution. Several SC manufacturers have their own method fixing this but only Snell&Wilcox succeeded in removing it without significant (almost none) drop in picture details. Resolution that you will have at the output is dependent only on resolution of your video monitor. You must see that to believe it.
2) Motion compensation.
I've seen broadcast quality SC (1995$) that shows noticeable jerkiness (judder) when scene has fast moving objects or still object on moving background. It helps if you make computer refresh rate at 50Hz PAL (if your computer monitor can handle this) but you would expect more from 2K$ device.
3) Frequency response ad 2T pulse response, differential gain and phase on CVBS output, digital(or lack of it)and analog filtering, and quality of encoder. Those are the things that many of SC manufacturers avoid to talk about (and that make difference between them).
Why I am telling all this things?
You (Scala) should consider finding ally in hardware industry that would make a graphic card for you with HQ video out. It can be video out only or video plus computer but computer output should be achieved then by line/frame doubling.
Even now you can set many graphics chips to work in 768*576 or (720*576/720*486/720*480 etc) 50/60Hz-interlaced mode. It is meter of HQ (broadcast quality) filter after RAM DAC and HQ encoder. Even better would be to avoid RAM DAC if possible and to use digital output where available. Than you can use truly HQ digital filters in front of digital encoder. That kind of card can't be cheap. Just filtering and encoding module that we use for some special purposes (parallel D1 to Component) cost 1000$.
By the way those TV out capable cards that does not displays picture on computer monitor when video output is active actually do that (work in interlaced mode without any scan conversion) They are just missing HQ part. Computer monitor is left blank in order to protect those monitors that does not support low freq. interlaced modes.
After long time spent in using and testing them, to me they are stone in the shoe. Unless you have 15000$ for it :)
Regards,
Momir Zecevic
Ars Media
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Posted: Sunday, 7 Apr 2002 8:45 PM -- by John SchillingThis is a classic problem. I've posted many times on this in the past--but our WWW Master still has various higher priority projects to get done prior to bringing the previous generation/archived message board posts online--so here are the basics:
NTSC is a 1956 Technology and uses several very clever tricks to get color on what was a B&W carrier--it basically stucks by today's standards. Good "Broadcast" Quality Encoding will always require what are primarily "hand tuned" encoder boards. This is a classic "last bastion" for electronic HW craftsmenship. As a result, scan converters fall into the following catagories:
Under $100--at best "Prosumer".
Under $600--"Corporate Broadcast Quality"
Under $2000--small station grade--college stuff.
Above $2000--Commerical Broadcast Quality.
What you can do to improve your video with any level of equipment:
Use a graphic card that supports 720x480/525 DirectX display modes. If you are using a sub-$1000 Scan Converter device. Use a graphics card that support 1440x960/1050 if you are using one of the higher end SC's that support high bandwidth input. Use a refresh rate of 59.997 Hz. [NTSC "60 Hz"] Not a real computer data rate 60 Hz. If your graphics card does not support these types of modes natively--use a tool like EnTech's PowerStrip v.3.x to create such modes.
Learn the "rules of thumb" for NTSC color safe displays:
Avoid: *Pure* red or blue--pure green is O.K. Always include at least 20/255th of Blue/Green impurity in your reds! [for red it is best to think "dark orange"]
Avoid: Pure BLACK or WHITE: Max your black as a "dark grey" 15 15 15 and your white as a light grey: 240 240 240.
Avoid more that 40 Black-White or Red-Blue transitions on a horizontal line.
Use these guides in your presentations and you will find that the visual quality of your "NTSC" Scala presentation will be rather good--even with the cheaper Scan Converters on the market.
Regards,
--John Schilling, Scala, Inc. |
Posted: Sunday, 7 Apr 2002 7:53 PM -- by Momir ZecevicCG2000 does not work with Scala even it has graphic chip (g400).
That is OEM Matrox product and it works only with software written for it. SDK is about 1000$.
If you need more info contact me (momirz@arsmedia.tv) and will send you contact address in Matrox.
About Scan converters, I agree with you in all but one case:
TRANSPHIX - Snell & Wilcox. By the way they have THE BEST signal in the broadcast industry for those who can afford it.
Do not try to see it unless you don't have serious intention to buy it because anything else will not look good enough. I have seen bunch of SC from 150$ to 10000$ but nothing looks even near like this one. The price is... :(((( USD
Momir Zecevic
Ars Media
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