Blast From The Past … Genesis of a Calibrator … Part 1

AFRICA: THE SERENGETI:                             Lumivision/Slingshot

A045

8.0

1.33

5.1

Multi-Language

DVD-5

Category: Comedy / Documentary / TV / Drama

This one is another of the IMAX presentations which has been reviewed to be one of the best looking in some time.  It is coming from Ken Cranes along with a few other titles.  It has arrived with the other four titles and I have to admit that any reservations about IMAX stuff looking bad has vanished except for that dreadful Tropical Rain Forest entry.  This one looks great and the James Earl Jones narration is retained on both the analog and digital tracks.  Given the material, there is the strangest sensation that it is the Lion King doing the voice over.  The 40 minute program is in CAV and spread to two sides.  There is no IMAX commercial at the beginning like the other entries.  To my surprise, this one is pressed by Sony DADC, but it comes in one of the cheap plastic sleeves.  There is one segment at the beginning of the second side that slows the pacing of the feature.  The villagers could have been easily omitted from the program and they would not have been missed.  Looks like the Disney film takes place here as well.  For the record, the Gund Lion made his growling sounds well before this film was even conceived.  The call of the wild for that domestic lion.  He has learned to slumber though.  This is a great demo disc for those people who may be offended by any other type of loud features.  If you ever wonder how those technology threads get started and the reason I put them in the various places, the explanation is simple.  It is all done by coincidence and here is another case.  The DVD thread will be brought to life here because it was the first film I saw in that format at Laser Movie.  They had just gotten the new Pioneer DVD player in along with three IMAX features from Lumivision.  To set things up, the initial viewing was done on their tired Pioneer 40 inch projection unit which must be four to five years old by now and has been over driven far too much.  They were patching the signals into only one input from some switcher source.  From what I saw, it was also obvious that their basic Pioneer LV player has seen better days and was in definite need for some adjustments.  The player just could not handle red any longer so this made for a terrible comparison to the equivalent DVD.  They are doing a great dis-service to the public if they continue to use this set up to compare the two formats.  The conditions are all wrong, but it is not like they are experts on image quality either.  They present films on a 25 inch RCA most of the time.  It’s back to that fact that they seem to talk the talk, but they have no understanding of what good images really are.  So what did the two discs look like?  For what it is worth, the DVD image was lacking in the inherent grain that we tend to see in even the best Laserdiscs.  There was a certain smoothness to the image which in all honesty looked a lot like the inherent smoothness we see in VHS tapes.  As we know that LV out performs VHS in every performance category.  There was absolutely no chroma noise that I could see or some of the crosstalk that I see so often on Laserdisc.  (I know that their LV player has problems since my Africa copy has absolutely none of that red chroma noise.  We need to be able to separate what is on the disc with what the player may be artificially adding to the displayed image.)  And then there are the dreaded compression motion artifacts that we see so often in the DBS images.  The tilling of the image when there are fast moving objects.  I saw them and it didn’t take me long to do so.  The aerial pan of the wildebeests along with the birds taking flight.  This is also from a 43 minute film which was likely transferred with a high bit rate given the space requirements.  At this length, the sustained bit rate should be well over 8.5 Mbps yielding one of the best looking images ever seen.  First impression said to me that this image does not look that sharp even though the clerk kept saying that the image was sharper.  See how sharp it is.  I honestly cannot say that it was sharper … as I think back … I think it looks more like VHS than anything.  I will most definitely need to investigate further and I am definitely not ready to take the plunge into this format.  (The remastered version of this IMAX film corrects the motion artifact problem that was so obvious in the first version.  The new release also has a real 5.1 sound track.  I have it on order from Ken Cranes, but it is apparently out of stock right now and awaiting a repressing.  The DVD version looks like it is windowboxed and while it may not seem like it from the image presented here, it is immaculate and artifacts are hard to spot.)  Personally, I want this format to take off and I also wish that all the films will just blow away Laserdisc.  The inferno noise and crosstalk on LV is just tiresome.  And so, after a trip to Houston, I came back with a Toshiba DVD player, the SD 3006.  The demonstration that clinched the deal was a set up to show the difference between the component output and the S-Video output from the unit.  The images were from Eraser and they were outputted to a Sharp LCD front projection unit equipped to handle both inputs.  I must say that the LCD projector had a very impressive image.  There was considerable difference between the two outputs as the S-video image was noticeably less sharp than the component image.  Hopefully one day in the future I will be able to get a more detailed analysis of the difference.  The Proscan definitely does not work with the component output so I will have to rely on some after market box that converts component signals to RGB.  (not the case, the Proscan’s RGB inputs only accept progressively scanned images such as those from an external line doubler or future progressive scanned DVD units with that form of output.)  I picked up seven titles in Rockville, MD on a trip there in April 1997.  With Washington, D.C. being one of the seven test cities, the Best Buy store had the titles for $19.99 each.  Every title is a duplicate of what I have before.  The Columbia releases have hit the Canadian store shelves with a fairly manageable retail of $34.99 or thereabouts as some places have them for a mere $34.44.  They offer a choice of either the jewel case or the VSDA approved container which is also all plastic with a paper liner on the outside similar to the plastic Disney video tape boxes in design, but only much thinner.  Far superior to the Warner paper design.  The Columbia discs carry a list price in the U.S. of $29.99 or so making the five dollar premium bearable.  Still a bit sorry that I did not notice the salesman remove my warranty card in Houston.  Guess there won’t be any free Video Essentials disc or discount coupons.  Stores in the U.S. sell the Columbia titles for $24 which equate to $36 or so.  I purchased an inexpensive Video Stabilizer to put in line with the signal for taping purposes.  The box does not have an S-video input as that would have been the preferred way to hook things up and a more permanent solution, but at least it allows me to see whether it is effective or not and it is.  It completely strips away the Macrovision signal.  The resulting composite signal is routed through the JVC SVHS unit and reconverted into an S-video signal.  While not as good as the source, the recombined signal does look better than the original composite.  The test copies I made look wonderful and the playback looks better than the same recording off of the equivalent Laserdisc.  Interesting that the VCR, while having inferior specifications to the Laserdisc player, actually captures a picture that looks better than if it were off of Laserdisc to tape.  Taping Eraser at the anamorphic mode and then playing it back via the RF cable to the Proscan shows that the signal can still be uncompressed.  It would seem that Costco is now carrying DVD titles as well as hardware at some of their stores.  David says the Calgary store has the Columbia titles for $28.99 each (A&B locally sells it for $27 on sale) and the Panasonic A100 unit for $699.  There are only four titles officially available in Canada, but the Lumivision titles may show up soon as well.  They are the only mainstream titles that do not have regional coding, but I wonder if they have macronuggets?  No Warner titles until the end of July and only to two Canadian test markets as well.  A concern raised in the most recent issue of Widescreen Review (#24) talks about the absolutely horrendous audio section of the DVD format saying that the audio can be potentially 1,000 times worse than the worse CD player.  There is also the concern regarding the quality of the matrixed soundtracks on the format compared to the uncompressed Laserdisc equivalents.  Films presented in only AC-3 matrixed surround are inherently much worse than the audio on the LV.  The DVD takes the amount of space normally allotted to two of the 5.1 digital channels and makes a matrixed soundtrack out which the Pro Logic circuitry must then decode.  This results in possibly a 30 to 40:1 compression on the soundtrack.  An interesting question, are the first generation DVD players compatible with the forthcoming DTS system.  Apparently the DTS people say no and yet their demonstrations at the CES had DTS encoded DVDs playing back on the same unmodified DVD players.  I wonder what the real story is here.  Picture the situation as follows.  Uncompressed digital tracks on the Laserdisc have enough space to hold 1.5 Mbps a la DTS since.  The AC-3 track is 384 Kbps (Now it has been boosted to 448 Kbps.) with all five channels active.  In the AC-3 downmix mode, the resulting matrixed soundtrack fits into 192 Kbps of space or roughly 8:1 compression.  Is it possible to tell the difference between the uncompressed version and this version.  The surprising answer to the question is a resounding yes.  I do not characterize myself as an audiophile, but while going through Jumanji, I got a strange feeling that the audio sounded compressed or flat.  I pulled out the LV equivalent and played back some of the same passages such as the lion sequence and the bike chase sequence.  The DVD is completely lacking in depth during these sequences compared to the Laserdisc.  Everything sounds incredibly flat as I flip between the two versions.  There is no reverb behind the lion’s slow growls and the music is lacking a certain enveloping feeling.  (Things I will have to adjust in later experiments are finding a better audio interconnect for the DVD outputs, but I cannot be sure how much of a difference it really made to this.)  In a sense, this demonstration comparison was my own poor man’s version of the DTS/AC-3 comparison being done at the next level of audio.  The comparison between 8:1 compression and no compression was obvious.  It further wets my appetite for DTS audio on either and both Laserdiscs and DVDs.  The DTS Laserdisc argument has always been that the adopter had to endure short term pain (CX audio) for long term gain (DTS audio).  The AC-3 argument has been that there was no short term pain as the digital tracks were retained for compatibility.  There would only be long term gain in the eventual update to AC-3 whenever that would occur.  I see now what they meant, but if AC-3 is simply an extension of this matrixed version, I will find it inferior even to the conventional audio tracks of the Laserdisc.  A good CX track does not differ nearly as much with its digital counterpart as was the case with the AC-3 down mix.  The Dolby people touted their advantage and what they saw as the DTS disadvantage with Laserdisc, but here with DVD, Dolby is committing the same crimes that they accused DTS of.  Until the owner of the DVD player can afford to upgrade to a Dolby Digital decoder, the audio they end up with is even more substandard than the LV case.  I have come to be able to tell a DVD image from any other image rather quickly.  The difference is not so much with the higher resolution, but with a certain grain in the image which may be inherent to the MPEG 2 codec process.  There is a graining effect that is not there in the actual film print that the DVD seems to add to the image.  With disc prices in the range of $27 after taxes, it becomes cheaper to continue getting the discs in Canada after moving to the U.S.  We just save our purchases for when we make those trips back and forth.  The ability of the unit to do forward and backward scanning is really bothersome and awkward.  And so I added an entry level AC-3 decoder to the mix.  The Technics unit only accepts digital optical and coaxial into its decoding section.  The Laserdisc player is hooked up via the optical link and my initial impressions regarding sound quality are about right.  The optical link significantly improves the imaging and overall sound quality of the Laserdisc.  The presence of the soundtrack is heightened.  The bad thing about this new set up is the lack of AC-3 compatibility with the Laserdisc.  In order to get access to all those AC-3 LV tracks, I have to modify my machines to include the AC-3 RF output.  This $400 cost is then added to another $190 cost for adding the RF demodulator to adapt it to the decoder.  Something to think twice about if not more.  The addition of a new LV player would probably cost about the same.  The decoder also indicates when it is doing the downmix to DPL when both lights come on at the same time.  Certainly something to watch for as depending on the specific disc, some default to AC-3 while others default to DPL.  So far, Warner titles are AC-3 and Columbia titles are DPL.  Lumivision is AC-3 as is Live and New Line.  I suppose the switchable audio on the back of the DVD unit is there in order to physically turn off the unused section in order to reduce possible interference.  And somewhere along the line, I found out that the Toshiba players had some incompatibility with certain software titles like Austin Powers.  A quiet recall has occurred.  There is already a third version of this program on DVD and the format is only nine months old.  The new remastered version of the Africa: The Serengeti is now in AC-3 5.1 and has a much higher bit rate than before.  It is supposed to look much better than before.  Perhaps I will add it at some point.  The re-issue comes in the keep case.  Here is a tale of some format frustration.  The player requires an upgrade to the internal software as it tends to lock up playing some features.  The layer change on “The English Patient” stops the player.  The end of the deleted scenes on the Devil’s Advocate disc causes the entire player to lock up.  David has been having some problems with the DVD-ROM unit.  I was watching Starship Troopers on the Toshiba at the 4:3 W/S mode and the Toshiba’s down conversion of the 16:9 image revealed a lot of the jaggies.  Reverting back to the anamorphic image, the jaggedness completely disappeared.  I finally got my copy of the DVD after being on back order for a year or so.  The disc was re-issued by another company after Lumivision went out of business.  The entire backlog of IMAX productions will be coming out shortly all with AC-3 5.1 audio where ever possible.  The new issue does look considerably better than that first generation version at Laser Movie.  It’s a moot point by now to say that DVD has lived up to its potential as a replacement for the Laserdisc.  In more than 99% of the cases, the DVD far surpasses the promise of the Laserdisc format in both video and the number of extras.  But above all things, it is the availability of the anamorphic format that vaults DVD to the head of the pack for an NTSC format product.  I’m still sorting my way through discs that have problems with the various players, but that is also going down in number. Players are definitely coming down in price these days.  The price point of the lowest priced units has broken the $400 plateau with bare bones RCA DTS capable units.  I have also seen the new Sharp unit for $500 which includes both the AC-3 decoder and component inputs.  As long as disc prices remain reasonable, this format will continue to grow at its current fast rate.  My players continue to work flawlessly, but on the rare occasion, they may hit a glitch in the disc program menu and lock up requiring a reboot.  Not too different from computer related problems.  I have discovered that the macrovision encoding on the discs affects the Snappy frame capture device making that unit undesirable for DVD still captures.  Players continue their drop in price and a trip to Los Angeles in the fall of 1999 saw prices for the name brand units hovering in the range of $200 to $300.  The “Made in China” units have begun to rear their ugly heads at price points of $180 or so.  Initial word is that these machines are very poorly made and can die within days of purchase.

 

Toshiba SD-3006 – I packed the Toshiba player away and sent it back to Toshiba for the software upgrade.  I read on the net that the turn around time was usually one month or so.  The Toshiba came back to me quicker than I thought it would.  They gave me a factory B stock item which means it is a refurbished unit.  It includes all the extras like the instructions and cables and a new box.  The unit is dated as February 1997, but that is one month before the format was even launched.  This is definitely one of the first units, but it has the firmware upgrade and it also has the time remaining counter.  It flies through the trouble spots of the previous model.  The commentary from Austin Powers plays back just fine and the side change on the English Patient no longer locks up.  Only a slight pause.

 

Toshiba SD-2109 – I added the Toshiba 2109 unit times two to the collection of players.  Hopefully someone will take one of the spare units off my hands soon.  The price for the two units were fairly close together, but I miscalculated on the Future Shop price.  The unit was reduced in price from $599 down to $520 with an extended warranty of four years.  The A & B Sound price with the corporate discount was lower than I had expected.  Only $511 with the extended warranty of three years at $130.  Obviously the unit costs much less than even that since the retail pricing has dropped to $460 now.  I have to say that Toshiba has certainly done its homework on this unit.  I found a command code for the 2109 unit that tells me what type of firmware is onboard.  The unit has version 1.00, but apparently versions as high as 2.0 are also floating around in more recent units.  Joe’s unit has upgraded firmware in the 1.3 area.  I sold this unit to Kevin for a song.  Always nice to get people on their way into the format of choice.  Like selling children drugs.

 

Panasonic DVD-A310CA – And then I added the Panasonic DVD-A310U second generation machine.  This player has a built in AC-3 decoder and is also DTS compatible when those discs show up.  This new player still does not display the proper pluge pattern like the first generation players.  On the Video Essentials disc, the blacker than black is visible sometimes, but only on demonstration frames.  The moment you freeze the frame, the blacker than black bar disappears.  Following my initial euphoria with the Panasonic DVD player, the repairs that the unit has gone through and the current playback quirks must make me second guess another Panasonic DVD product.  The next machine will be either another Toshiba unit or a Pioneer unit.  The Panasonic did die a second time because of the same fault as the first time.  The original problem was never addressed so it came back to haunt me through no fault of my own.  I am left cursing the Panasonic technicians for their lack of skill.  The solution to this problem was to get a second unit and then decipher whether the guts could be transplanted to the dead unit.  We were actually able to figure it out, but the second unit turned out to be on the verge of death as well.  It had exactly the same problem and I died a little inside.  Perhaps Wai was right when he said that I should try to make a clean break from this vicious circle.  A bad DVD player begets a bad player.  Proof positive that there was something wrong with all of them and not just my unit.  I may still have one more opportunity to get the unit swapped out again, but for how long this time?  The track record says that the unit is bound to become problematic within a year or less.  One last attempt at a unit that might work before this generation of unit rides into the sunset.  It was a promising design, but what the heck happened to the design.  I think the problem actually had to do with the laser assembly and a de-focusing problem over the course of time.  As the beam becomes more blurry, the player loses the ability to read the fine pitch width of the DVD disc.  The pits on VCDs and CDs are wide enough that the blurry problem does not have a significant effect on accessing these discs.  Over time as the blurring increases, the player loses the ability to read any form of disc.  The last best hope for mankind resulted in yet another display model making its way to me this time from A & B sound.  And this time, my preliminary tests showed that the DVD unit was working.  I quickly did the necessary surgery and got the unit sent back to A & B Sound for replacement.  The Panasonic player is now working properly for the first time in six months.  The people at the store thought the display unit was in need of repair and that may have been the case.  My initial tests found no problems.  Six months from now, there may actually be problems again with the player.  I put the Panasonic unit up for auction at the Yahoo! auction site.  David eventually took the player off my hands and it went down to Reedsburg with him.  Some units you never want to talk about again.  I put a lot of money into this piece of junk.

Michael Chen

Michael Chen is the only THX Video Systems Instructor in Canada, and beyond these borders, is one of just two THX Video Instructors in the entire world.  He has actively consulted with Spectracal and ChromaPure and has created numerous education videos on the calibration process with still more to come.  His Video Calibration Training Series has quickly become the most comprehensive and simple to understand learning tool on the market today.  He has also taught classes for both the ISF and Spectracal as well and is now spearheading his all new TLVEXP calibration training program. Let Michael teach you Video Calibration and add that additional income stream to your installation and integration business

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *