I would disagree there Bob and side with Nigel on this one.

Many tv's built in upscalers are reported as producing better results than the one built into the Humax which is why many users choose native output and let the tv do the upscaling.

Said this many time before but if Humax really want to get a grip on upscaling then they should contact Denon and see if they can get a licensing deal for the Faroudja chipset as used in the Denon 1940 DVD player. OK DVD is a much better source to start with, but the results with that chipset are simplky outstanding.

I've said this elsewhere but I'll repeat it here, I have an award winning Panasonic BD35 Blu Ray player. The Denon which I sold totally blows it away for quality of upscale with DVD discs, the difference is like night and day. In fact the Denon is so good its hard to tell upscaled from Blu Ray, so much so that I actually regret buying the Panasonic and wished I stuck with the Denon!!!!

Considering the whole Denon machine costs around £100, I reckon the upscaling part of that is probably only a few pounds of the cost.

Given that 98% of the material on Freesat is currently SD, the upscaling section is in my view something that Humax should be giving priority to. PQ is what sells most boxes after all.

White-Knight,

I have commented on the Faroudja issue before: they are owned by ST Micro now, ST Micro don't make independent scalers any more and Faroudja is only available in certain chipsets.

Additionally Faroudja isn't the be all and end all, it is just a consumer brand name.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

The Denon DVD player is working with a higher quality SD source having the benefit of DVD's much higher bitrate capability. A similar scaler built in to my Denon amp does not have a massive advantage over the hdr one when fed with a broadcast source.

I appreciate that Bob. There are probably many outstanding upscalers out there. Just this is the best one I've ever seen at that kind of price level.

My point overall is that Humax should give much more consideration to the upscaling capabilities of the box given that PQ is probably the top selling point of any box coupled with reliability, and that most of the Freesat content is SD whilst most tv's are now HD thus meaning that nearly all viewed content is upscaled by the box.


I agree on the 1st point Graham so far as the source is concerned. However, I'd like to see evidence of that latter. The Denon upscaler whilst not the be all and end all of upscaling is outstanding. I've also seen plenty of evidence of better upscaling than that from the Humax. Several Sony and Panasonic owners on here have reported in the past that their tv's make a better job than the HDR.

The upscaler in my Pioneer 428XD Kuro produces visibly better results than the Humax. Ok its a premium tv and top of the tree for PQ, but even then, I don't think the upscalers outstanding, I've seen better upscaling to be honest.

I thought the series 9 models were better?

If you mean the Pioneer 5090 then yes it does improve a little on the 4280 / 428 series. Doesn't mean the 428 isn't still up there with the best though.

[quote=White-Knight;37445159]Several Sony and Panasonic owners on here have reported in the past that their tv's make a better job than the HDR.
QUOTE]

I've got a Panasonic-TH42PZ85B TV and I honestly can't tell the difference between the HDR upscaling & the TV's

White-Knight,

1) The Denon DVD player does a good job of up-scaling DVDs.
2) Many TVs (most costing >10x the price of the Humax) do a better job of up-scaling than the Humax.

These are two unrelated facts that I do not dispute, but they are unrelated. You are making a specious connection there that doesn't exist.

I don't like to compare other products: but another important fact is that the Humax scaler does a good job overall, independent tests have shown me that it IS better than the older Broadcom chipset used in the Sky box. I believe some people prefer the Sky boxes because, from my observation, they add extra 'enhancement' to the picture that we consider not faithful to the source material.

I agree that it is always possible to spend more on the scaler to give more de-blocking and better intermediate scaling. The choice to add a secondary scaler is a cost adder, and because it is a video processor that cost is not trivial. The new HD-Fox T2 device contains a secondary scaler to support 1080p50 output, because this is what the market demands, and as consumers will find the new STB is relatively more expensive than the Foxsat-HD.

We strike a balance in the design to give a faithful representation of the picture, allow people to choose to have either a cheap or expensive TV and get value overall. Every dollar we spend extra on the product pushes its UK retail price up and thus reduces its market share. There are already plenty of people who complain that our products are too expensive, despite the advantages of ownership of our products.

((BillOfMaterials * ExchangeRate) + R&D) * Profit = Price

Bob

^ note: Profit is a good thing.

I tend to agree with Bob on this.

If you want good picture quality, you've probably bought a high end TV which will will already have a good quality upscaler in it.

If you've bought a cheap TV the picture isn't going to look great no matter how good the upscaling source from the Humax is.

So asking Humax to put more development and expense into the upscaler is really just going to add cost for something with little added value.

I also think the description of the HDR upscaler as 'poor' is a bad choice of words. Just because it might not be as good as the best or what a high end TV has doesn't make it poor. I would say it's a pretty good upscaler but some TVs will give a better picture using the in-built one.

Mike

Just getting a Humax to go with my Sony 40W5810 tv so found this interesting. How do i choose native output on the Humax?

An old saying that hangs very true in HiFi and AV circles is that the output is only as good as the source.

A good source will look better than a poor source even on a cheap tv.

In terms of broadcast, the set top box is of course the source and thus its the output of the the set top box that sets the standard of quality for the final picture. A good tv simply enhances that further.

The STB is an intermediate step, not a source. An intermediate device has an effect on the material but isn't a source of that material. The quality of the source is the quality of the broadcast.

I have seen plenty of TVs destroy the quality of a good source.

I think the HDR is set to 'original' (native output) by default, to alter to original if it isn't, use the v-format button at the bottom right of the remote to scroll through. as I said in an earlier post I can't tell the difference between the HDR's upscaler and my Panasonic TV's

I think the HDR is set to 'original' (native output) by default, to alter to original if it isn't, use the v-format button at the bottom right of the remote to scroll through. As I said in an earlier post I can't tell the difference between the HDR's upscaler and my Panasonic TV's

Hi Bob_Cat, sorry about resurrecting an old thread to throw your words back at you but this 'Original' mode aspect ratio bug that was introduced in the firmware update (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1160271) is still really bugging me.
In the context of your comments in this thread with regards to scaler quality please could you clarify Humax's position in not allowing me to use my TV's scaler?

(BTW, any updates on HDR2 and how it is progressing?)

Humax seem to have replicated this problem into the new FOX HD Freeview box

http://www.avforums.com/forums/freev...l#post11591877

HDR2? Oh for crying out loud, I just bought the HDR. And here was me thinking I might have some time yet before obsolescence.

I'll take the silence as a 'No Comment' then

Is there any news about when in Q3 the HDR2 is likely to be available?