Anthem gear

Rick, I wish there was a easy way to compare pre/pros. I have the Sherwood/Newcastle P-965, and there have been reports that it can compete sonically with the AVM20. If so, I would love to hear it for myself.

-curtis

Curtis, is there an Anthem dealer near you who'd
let you audition an AVM30? I have only heard good
things about the P-965. You're welcome to bring yours
over for a shootout. The only difficult part is last
month I moved to Phoenix! But you and yours could swing
by and hang out by my pool while we did some listening.
Planning a trip to the Grand Canyon? Maybe you should...[8D]

Rick

I just went to Sherwoods website. The P965 is indeed
a nice pre/pro! I'm especially interested in this feature...

Digitally Re-Masters PCM to 192 /24

How does this sound? This seems similiar to what the D1 does
on ALL digital sources, including DD and DTS. That was a big
selling point for me, but at $5000, it was just too pricey.

Rick

To be honest, I have not done any real critical comparing, I can't tell if it makes a difference or not, but I leave it turned on.

So all your gear is now in Arizona? I am actually going to be close to Riverside on Friday.

-curtis

Oh man, you just missed me! Yeah, all my stuff is
in Arizona now. But if you're gonna be near Riverside,
just keep going! You'll hit Palm Springs and then, just
a few hours later, you're in Phoenix! You'll know because
there's all this cactus and stuff...

The Integra DPS 10.5 universal player I got has a cool feature
(speaking of upsampling). It'll take external video sources
(like VHS or LD via S-video or composite), digitizes it,
de-interlaces it, and scales it to the display in the digital
domain. It outputs it via component. I'm using a plasma, so
this is a GREAT feature for my laserdisc collection! I'm still
playing around with the whole system, so I'm not sure it outputs
progressive video via HDMI yet. The manual is a little murky,
to say the least....

Rick

I used to date a girl in Riverside many many years ago. One of my best friends just moved to Temecula with his family and is a professor at UCR. I am meeting him at Green River for golf on Friday.

That is a cool feature on the Integra universal. Needless to say, you have some pretty cool electronics all the way around!

HDMI is a digital interface...shouldn't it be progressive?

-curtis

It should output progressive. All logic says it should.
The manual says all resolutions output through HDMI are interlaced.
But the manual is anything but clear on a lot of points.
I haven't got my 42" plasma yet, so i can't test it[:(]

BTW, Anthem is going to implement something similar
on all their pre/pros in an upgrade due around the end
of the year...

NICE!

No hardware upgrades for the P-965...just firmware.

Question: What pushed you to plasma?

-curtis

It's all about the picture, baby!!

Actually, I'm going with EDTV vs. HDTV because
my home theater is exclusively for prerecorded
material. I wanted the resoulution of the display
to be as close as possible to DVD's without making
standard definition signals look poor, which I
understand is a danger with hi-def plasmas/ projectors
etc. Besides, EDTV was a LOT cheaper...[:D]

ahhhh....I got more to learn about the video side.

I keep thinking about DLP and LCoS. But putting a plasma on a wall would make things sound better.

-curtis

I really like the prices on the DLP's I've seen.
I just wasn't as happy with the image. Black levels,
viewing angle, rainbow effect etc. The plasma's just
looked better. Of course they should, they cost more.
HDTV sets cost a LOT more.

I haven't seen an LCoS set yet.

what about black levels on the plasma?

-curtis

Panasonic plasmas have the best black levels
available. (I hear good things about Fujitsu
and NEC also.) Blacks look BLACK, but also the
dark greys are well resolved. So a dark movie
like "Alien" still has a fully defined and detailed
image.
I have the same issue with DLP in movie
theaters (digital projection uses DLP technology).
Below a certain grey level, the image just collapses.
Where there ought to be subtle shadow detail, there
just isn't anything. IMHO, anyway.

BTW,I worked on "Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones"
which was shot with digital cameras. God, talk about
horrible shadow detail...UGH.

After rereading the Integra's manual, and doing a lot
of research over at AVS etc., I think the output resolution
question is answered here...

<quote>

The DPS-10.5 is the company's first player to include an HDMI output, which is capable of passing video directly to DVI-compatible high definition display devices entirely in the digital domain. This not only prevents degradation of the video signal due to intermediate digital to analog conversion stages, it also enables the use of the player's sophisticated O-Plus FlexScale circuit to upsample video to a variety of customizable formats, including 720p or 1080i high definition standards. This scaling circuitry can also be employed to scale external sources via the player's rear-panel composite and S-Video inputs.

For conventional and older high definition sets, the DPS-10.5 features a high end Analog Devices 216 MHz/14-bit D/A converter, and includes both interlaced and progressive scan component video outputs.. There are also two composite video and two S-video outputs, and all video connections are always active, eliminating the need for extraneous setup menu configuration.

<unquote>

That's from Integra's press release.
The upshot is, it outputs de-interlaced and scaled video from
both HDMI AND component outs.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that a new unit will output
upconverted HD resolution through component out. The few players
that have this feature are coming under fire from Hollywood
because of fears of pirating material, hence the HDCP standard
in DVI/HDMI. Component output bypasses this copy protection, and,
if I understand the issue correctly, will soon be illegal.

Anyway, FYI,
Rick

I guess it is OK to say "SWEET!"

-curtis

I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm trying to
learn to fly the space shuttle with all this
HT cr@p!