CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Francesco]

Hi all, I have the choice to buy a Lumagen Vision Pro Sdi or a Lumagen HDP Vision DVI both for 300€ (about 410$); I have a Marquee8000 pj to repair (max. 1080i), a Denon 1920 dvd player and a WDTV Live for HD material, now I'm using a 42" hd-ready plasma display.
Maybe I'll upgrade to an HTPC in the future, mainly for HD material and digital audio correction.

Do you think that one of the Lumagens could be useful to me?

Thankyou, bye!
Francesco

[Nashou66]

Yes!!! get the Pro it has a better processor and with both you will get 11 point Greyscale and Gamma correction that alone is worth 300 euros to me.
Also you'll be able to do 1920x800P@72 on the 8000. I have run this resolution and it looks great on my old 8000. You'll ned an Hd fury or Moome Input card for it to pass 1080p@24 into the Lumagen.

Athanasios

[Francesco]

Hi Athanasios, thank you for your reply. I can't understand the need for hdfury/moome card... it should have component input and rgbhv output according to (coff coff) google images. Anyway, I asked for some pictures, to be sure.

[CIR Engineering]

[dturco]

Can't you just use the RGBHV out on the Lumagen without the need for a Moome card?

[ecrabb]

No, Dave. The Lumagen will honor copyright protection request in HDCP and turn off the analog outputs with an encrypted input (Blu-ray). Before HDPC, yes. Now, no.

SC

[dturco]

[Nashou66]

Right, if you do not have to deal with HDCP then you can by pass getting the Moome internal card or the HD fury. I had an internal moome card and sent from my BD player 1080p@24 then output 1920x800p@72 via the DVI with Digital RGB 444 if I remember correctly. the HDP series can not do YCbCr but can do YPbPr or digital RGB.

The amount of control you get with greyscale, gamma and timing controls is awesome for 400 dollar unit. Remember the HDP Pro was over 2k when introduced.

you could also get the MUX-HD and use it before the Lumagen. then you can output 1080p@72 via the RGBHV analog outs.

Athanasios

[Francesco]

Thank you all for your replies.

Well, since the Marquee can't do 1080p I don't see why I should use HDMI, so I was thinking about using component out from both Denon 1920 and WDTV live. I'm still waiting for pictures, but the VisionPro should have component inputs so I should be ok and do 576p@50 (or 100, if the pj can handle it) for dvd and 800p@72 (or 1080i@72, maybe?) for hd material from the WDTV Live. Audio should go to a decoder via digital cable.

This configuration eliminates the need of an htpc, but I'd like to have a room correction system for audio... and this requires a pc.
So I ask you: is htpc video quality comparable with VisionPro? I would use a vga-rgbhv cable, so I should be able to go straight from the pc to the pj and have all resolutions and refresh rates.

Sorry for being so confused, but I'm trying to understand and figure out what's best for me

[Francesco]

Hi all, still no pictures but the seller told me that the model is the one with no digital connections at all (except for one SDI input) and all the connections are in BNC format, so I'm quite sure that we are talking about this model:

[Nashou66]

Oh thats the old Vision series. i don't think that has 11 point greyscale/Gamma.

The HDP series does though for sure.

Athanasios

[km987654]

[Francesco]

My idea was to connect both dvd player and wdtv live via component, do the appropriate processing and then output to the pj via rgbhv.
The alternative is to have an htpc for everything and use the vga output to go to the pj via a vga->rgbhv cable, and I'll think I'll go that way since this seems to be an old Vision model.
I don't want to use hdmi 1st because it's useless for my pj (which can't do 1080p) and 2nd because I prefer not having issues with hdcp, so I'll just exclude digital connections from my setup: analog for both video and audio outputs. This gives me the opportunity to process audio too, which is an feature I'm looking for.

Thank you all for your help!

Francesco

[Francesco]

Little update: there is a new baby in the family, it's an Xbox 360 Slim and I'd like to use it with the projector.
So I think that this Lumagen, even if it's an old model, could be useful configured like this:

1. passthrough for htpc (which will do colour calibration on its own) connected via RGBHV
2. a little processing for the Xbox connected via component

could this be a good idea?

thank you all!
Francesco

[Francesco]

Another update: I've bought a VisionPRO HDP on ebay a few days ago!
Now I have to learn how to use it

Spend the money: always easy
Learn how to use: always hard

[kschmit2]

congratulations, that's the same VP I use with my NEC 6PG Plus

[dturco]

Yeah I have a HDP PRO too. Your absolutely right buying it was the easy part. I find it's great for upscaling DVD's but not so good at Blu-ray playback it just seems to lose something?

Anyway you'll have a blast playing with...I mean learning how to use it.

[Nashou66]

I know you have had problems with your attempt to set it up Dave, but for BD it works really great from the 3 i have had through my system, HDP Pro,HDQ and HDP. HDQ did look a little better than the other two but not enough to be a deal breaker.

Athanasios

[dturco]

I guess I'm sounding a bit too negative, I don't mean to, it really is a good piece of equipment for upscaling. I just expect too much from it, as in, Blu-ray should look better with it, than without.

That just has not been my experience. I am still futzing with it though.

My experiences are reffering to 1080p60 output. Everything else 800p@72hz 817p@72hz 960p@72 [looks the best so far] 720p all look great.

[Nashou66]

First off it cant improve BD, but it will pass in unfettered. But hen again I was using them last passing 1080p@24 to the Blend scallers. So i had all scaling off. I am sure even going from 1080p@24 to 48 or 60 it should still look good.

The best use though is by far the partial CMS and Gamma at 11 points.

Athanasios