DarbeeVision

[hometheatergeek]

Originally Posted by Fors*

I just need a single friend.....

So Al.....your friend really liked the results? Did he try it on a TV set or just a projector?

Originally Posted by Fors*

Lucky!!! Any certain movies you going to watch with your Darblet?

I have taken only 5 total days off from work this year (4 sick days and 1 vacation day) but I have to take 14 in the next 4 1/2 months or I'll lose them. If you add on the bank holidays too, I should be taking 20 days off between now and December 31st.

I have not gotten a single piece of new equipment for my HT in 16 months and it has really made me apprehensive in purchasing the Darblet. I just want to be 100% sure that this thing will make a noticeable improvement on my LCD TV, espeically with sports.

As far as I know just on his dedicated HT system. I will be getting mine this Saturday and plan on watching a NASCAR road race on Sunday with the Darblet in the chain. If it can make fast action of race cars look good then all other sports should look just fine. Plus there should be a pre-season football game on sometime on Sunday too. IF you want... PM me your phone number and I'll give you a play by play analysis on Sunday.

[Badas]

Last night I went right back to the drawing board on my whole HT video chain. I had previously found that I got a bit more shadow depth using everything in my chain as RGB. So I set all my players to output RGB.

However I read in the specs of the Darbee that it does it's video processing in Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2. So I didn't see any point in having the chain in RGB.
That means that it would be Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.0 on disc, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4, Converted to RGB in the player then Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4, converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2 in the Darbee, then processed and sent to the projector which would convert to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 then RGB. Wow A lot of processing.

So now it is Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.0 on disc, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2 in the player sent to Darbee for processing and then finally converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 and RGB in the projector. A lot simpler.

After this I checked out all 3 blu-ray players I have in my rack. They passed all the Spears and Munsil tests. I checked to see if the Darbee effected greyscale when pumped up. It did not. Greyscale looked great.

I then threw in the Dark Knight. Everything looked great, no loss in dark scenes. Actually looked a little better. Probably less processing. Never looked so good.

Then threw in my longest Test disc. Going back for years I have used Star Wars EpII as a reference detail disc. I have used this since the DVD was sold. Because it was digitally filmed it is very stable. I threw in the blu-ray and went to my go to scenes. Not only did they look fantastic I saw dark detail I have never seen previously on blu. I then started flipping to a lot of scenes. The Darbee really shined on this film. It has to be seen to believed. It was a sight to behold. Darbee 10/10.

Ta Dono

[tkbryant]

Originally Posted by Badas

Last night I went right back to the drawing board on my whole HT video chain. I had previously found that I got a bit more shadow depth using everything in my chain as RGB. So I set all my players to output RGB.

However I read in the specs of the Darbee that it does it's video processing in Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2. So I didn't see any point in having the chain in RGB.
That means that it would be Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.0 on disc, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4, Converted to RGB in the player then Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4, converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2 in the Darbee, then processed and sent to the projector which would convert to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 then RGB. Wow A lot of processing.

So now it is Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.0 on disc, Converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2 in the player sent to Darbee for processing and then finally converted to Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 and RGB in the projector. A lot simpler.

After this I checked out all 3 blu-ray players I have in my rack. They passed all the Spears and Munsil tests. I checked to see if the Darbee effected greyscale when pumped up. It did not. Greyscale looked great.

I then threw in the Dark Knight. Everything looked great, no loss in dark scenes. Actually looked a little better. Probably less processing. Never looked so good.

Then threw in my longest Test disc. Going back for years I have used Star Wars EpII as a reference detail disc. I have used this since the DVD was sold. Because it was digitally filmed it is very stable. I threw in the blu-ray and went to my go to scenes. Not only did they look fantastic I saw dark detail I have never seen previously on blu. I then started flipping to a lot of scenes. The Darbee really shined on this film. It has to be seen to believed. It was a sight to behold. Darbee 10/10.

Ta Dono

Oh yeah, I haven't looked at the newer trilogy yet just episode IV which looked great BTW. I love the Jango Fett/Obi-Wan fight scene in the rain!!

[Badas]

Originally Posted by tkbryant

Oh yeah, I haven't looked at the newer trilogy yet just episode IV which looked great BTW. I love the Jango Fett/Obi-Wan fight scene in the rain!!

Just a reminder tho. Check your video chain. No point sending Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 or RGB if the Darbie is processing in Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2.

Ta Dono

[tkbryant]

Originally Posted by Badas

Just a reminder tho. Check your video chain. No point sending Y,Cr,Cb 4.4.4 or RGB if the Darbie is processing in Y,Cr,Cb 4.2.2.

Ta Dono

Yeah I have the Oppo set to 4:2:2 and the Kuro to Auto.

[Badas]

Originally Posted by tkbryant

Yeah I have the Oppo set to 4:2:2 and the Kuro to Auto.

Bang on

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by tkbryant

Yeah I have the Oppo set to 4:2:2 and the Kuro to Auto.

Is this something I should set my Oppo 83 to or it is only applicable with the Kuro/plasma TV?

[tkbryant]

Originally Posted by Fors*

Is this something I should set my Oppo 83 to or it is only applicable with the Kuro/plasma TV?

As long as you're not experiencing any issues it's not too big of a deal. It just helps cut out some of the extra processing going on with the Darbee.

[Badas]

Originally Posted by Fors*

Is this something I should set my Oppo 83 to or it is only applicable with the Kuro/plasma TV?

I would grab the Spears and Munsil disc and read this article:

http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/artic...olorspace.html

Worth its weight in Gold. Interestingly both model of Oppo's are the only players tested yet that passes all these tests. My Denon fails the nearest neighbour test and my PS3 clips white. This is not just my findings it was in a article Secrets of Hi-Fi or something???? My experence is that the Oppo passes everything also.

Ta Dono

[Badas]

Interesting info from S&M:

The Conversion Chain
Let’s consider the process necessary to get video off a shiny disc (or from a digital broadcast or cable channel). First the video needs to be converted from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2, then to 4:4:4, then to RGB, and finally it can be fed to the display controller. This is the same process no matter what display technology is being used, whether LCD, DLP, plasma, or CRT. It’s possible to shortcut the process slightly by going directly from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4, but in practice this isn’t used as often as you’d think.

If you choose to output 4:2:2 from your player to the display, then the display will need to do the scaling to 4:4:4 and then to RGB. If you output 4:4:4 to the display, the display will not need to do any scaling at all, but will need to do the conversion to RGB. If you output RGB to the display, then the display can avoid all conversion steps and send the signal right to the controller. No matter which you choose, the same conversion steps are still happening; all you are choosing is which device is performing the conversion.

There’s no specific reason that a display or a player would be the optimal place to do these conversion steps. In theory doing the conversion in the display minimizes the amount of data that has to flow across the HDMI link, but in practice HDMI is more than adequate to handle any format all the way up to 4:4:4 or RGB.

So the key to choosing the right color space to output is finding out which device does a better job of converting color spaces. This is not always easy to evaluate, and it’s quite possible for one device to do a better job in one area, like 4:2:2 to 4:4:4, but do worse in another area, like 4:4:4 to RGB.

You’d think that if a display handles a 4:2:2 input signal well, then feeding it an RGB signal would be no worse, but in fact some displays do extra work when they are fed RGB, because they convert the signal back to 4:4:4 or even 4:2:2! This happens because one or more of their internal processing chips is designed only for one color format. So for these displays, sending in any format other than the one it will use for internal processing will only add extra processing and potentially degrade the image.

The same logic applies to video processors. If the processor does all its work in 4:2:2, there’s no advantage to sending it RGB or 4:4:4, and in fact there may be a disadvantage.

Unfortunately device makers tend not to reveal the exact processing steps they use internally, or the algorithms they use to convert various color spaces to RGB. Some use different algorithms depending on which color space is fed in. The bottom line is to assume nothing, and test every combination.




So the Darbee manual says it is doing all it's conversion in Y,Cr,Cb 4:2:2. Guy's it would be best then to make sure that everything in the chain is set to this. So we don't re-process the signal. DVD/Blu players, Sat Decoders, Gaming and Amps (often set to pass through) set to Y,Cr,Cb 4:2:2. Displays set to Auto. Then re-calibrate. I would re-calibrate with the Darbee set to zero.

Ta Dono

[tkbryant]

Ok here are some sample pics from Terminator Salvation. I really like the way the Darbee spices up grimy films and enhances their details.
*Please Note my set is not crushing blacks, nor does it have blown out contrast, these anomalies are camera related.

[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[tkbryant]

[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]
[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[tkbryant]

[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]
[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[tkbryant]

[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]
[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[Fors*]

Darn, I can't see these at work, but I sure am curious. Mine is on backorder, so I wonder how long it will take before they get more...?

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by Badas

Interesting info from S&M:

The Conversion Chain
Let’s consider the process necessary to get video off a shiny disc (or from a digital broadcast or cable channel). First the video needs to be converted from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2, then to 4:4:4, then to RGB, and finally it can be fed to the display controller. This is the same process no matter what display technology is being used, whether LCD, DLP, plasma, or CRT. It’s possible to shortcut the process slightly by going directly from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4, but in practice this isn’t used as often as you’d think.

If you choose to output 4:2:2 from your player to the display, then the display will need to do the scaling to 4:4:4 and then to RGB. If you output 4:4:4 to the display, the display will not need to do any scaling at all, but will need to do the conversion to RGB. If you output RGB to the display, then the display can avoid all conversion steps and send the signal right to the controller. No matter which you choose, the same conversion steps are still happening; all you are choosing is which device is performing the conversion.

There’s no specific reason that a display or a player would be the optimal place to do these conversion steps. In theory doing the conversion in the display minimizes the amount of data that has to flow across the HDMI link, but in practice HDMI is more than adequate to handle any format all the way up to 4:4:4 or RGB.

So the key to choosing the right color space to output is finding out which device does a better job of converting color spaces. This is not always easy to evaluate, and it’s quite possible for one device to do a better job in one area, like 4:2:2 to 4:4:4, but do worse in another area, like 4:4:4 to RGB.

You’d think that if a display handles a 4:2:2 input signal well, then feeding it an RGB signal would be no worse, but in fact some displays do extra work when they are fed RGB, because they convert the signal back to 4:4:4 or even 4:2:2! This happens because one or more of their internal processing chips is designed only for one color format. So for these displays, sending in any format other than the one it will use for internal processing will only add extra processing and potentially degrade the image.

The same logic applies to video processors. If the processor does all its work in 4:2:2, there’s no advantage to sending it RGB or 4:4:4, and in fact there may be a disadvantage.

Unfortunately device makers tend not to reveal the exact processing steps they use internally, or the algorithms they use to convert various color spaces to RGB. Some use different algorithms depending on which color space is fed in. The bottom line is to assume nothing, and test every combination.




So the Darbee manual says it is doing all it's conversion in Y,Cr,Cb 4:2:2. Guy's it would be best then to make sure that everything in the chain is set to this. So we don't re-process the signal. DVD/Blu players, Sat Decoders, Gaming and Amps (often set to pass through) set to Y,Cr,Cb 4:2:2. Displays set to Auto. Then re-calibrate. I would re-calibrate with the Darbee set to zero.

Ta Dono

Nice post badas, thanks. By the way, I hope the volcano that exploded down there and threw ash everywhere didn't effect you.

[MrFattBill]

I got a chance to watch another movie all the way through last night. I picked Bourne Ultimatum with the Darbee set at 55% and it was just jaw dropping.

I did have an odd anomaly prior to watching the movie, it was like a double image on the screen, I kept engaging and disengaging the Darbee and could see it coming and going. Then I picked up my JVC remote to go into the menu, hit one button and the Darbee TOTALLY RESET ITSELF. I had to go in and turn the logo off again and set my level again, it was weird. After the reset the picture and effect was spectacular, I'm not sure if it was a current build up or what, we had some NASTY storms 2 nights ago, I will surely be keeping an eye on it.

I also went ahead and removed the 3' cable in the chain and replaced it with a 6' one I had laying around.

Bill

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by MrFattBill

I got a chance to watch another movie all the way through last night. I picked Bourne Ultimatum with the Darbee set at 55% and it was just jaw dropping.

I did have an odd anomaly prior to watching the movie, it was like a double image on the screen, I kept engaging and disengaging the Darbee and could see it coming and going. Then I picked up my JVC remote to go into the menu, hit one button and the Darbee TOTALLY RESET ITSELF. I had to go in and turn the logo off again and set my level again, it was weird. After the reset the picture and effect was spectacular, I'm not sure if it was a current build up or what, we had some NASTY storms 2 nights ago, I will surely be keeping an eye on it.

I also went ahead and removed the 3' cable in the chain and replaced it with a 6' one I had laying around.

Bill

Thanks for the info Bill. Seems like a handshake issue of some sorts, but who knows? Have you watched any sports programming with it yet?

[MrFattBill]

Originally Posted by Fors*

Thanks for the info Bill. Seems like a handshake issue of some sorts, but who knows? Have you watched any sports programming with it yet?

Yes, baseball, but it was more background noise while I was putting movies away. Stop worrying buddy, you will NOT be disappointed with your purchase Just wait until the first time you sit down and watch LOTR with the Darbee

Bill

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by MrFattBill

Yes, baseball, but it was more background noise while I was putting movies away. Stop worrying buddy, you will NOT be disappointed with your purchase Just wait until the first time you sit down and watch LOTR with the Darbee

Bill

Thanks Bill. Have you tried this on both your projector and TV at all?

I watch most of my stuff on the TV (like 97%) so this is where I'll be using it the most. Seems most guys love the results on the projector more so than a TV, but that may be misleading.