I spotted a cheap Kramer VP-773Amp being sold by an office equipment clearance company so picked it up. The comb filter is a HUGE step up from my Panasonic DMR-ES10 which I always found to be disappointing. The ES10 did a decent job of dealing with dot crawl but it was useless for cross colour rainbow artefacts. The Kramer deals with them pretty nicely, either eliminating the rainbows completely or on my worst discs reducing them to the point where I wouldn't spot the rainbowing if I wasn't looking for it.

My current setup is now:

Pioneer DVL-919E ---> Kramer VP-773Amp ---> Onkyo TX-NR626.

For now I'm outputting interlaced from the Kramer and letting the Onkyo handle the deinterlacing and upscaling. Testing most discs the deinterlacing looked the same to my eyes from both units, but one was significantly less detailed when I let the Kramer handle it, so Onkyo it is. I'm still tinkering with the settings and I've got a copy of Video Essentials coming in the mail, so it's not fully dialled in yet. I feel like I'm close but not quite there.

Most of the manual makes sense, but can anyone explain what the "Dither" (Error Diffusion) setting does in the "Picture" menu? In-frame 8:6 conversion? Intra-frame 8:6 conversion? Doesn't mean much to me.

Also does anyone else have the problem where CAV still frames now judder? I'm guessing this is the 3D comb filter trying to do it's motion detection on what it thinks is a regular video signal? Does anyone know of a way around this as I could see it being a problem when I want to enjoy special features.

Sadly my unit came without a remote, which will be a hassle when I want to switch between NTSC and PAL discs. Keeping my eyes out for a replacement, but does anyone know how to get this unit working with universal remotes? I see people have had success with Harmony remotes but they've been rather overpriced since they were discontinued. I see One For All remotes around but I'm not sure it would work with something like this.

I was able to order a new remote from my country's disctributor of Kramer products.
Should not be a problem for you in your country.
was around $35 when I ordered it a couple of years ago.

Which version of Harmony Remote are you referring to?

had a quick look in my country's ebay and saw a lot of offers none being too
pricey.

Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. Considering the product has been discontinued for a while I didn't think that simply ordering a replacement remote from Kramer would be possible.



Hmm, looking again and the prices seem much better than they were when I checked last week. I probably just saw a handful of expensive ones at the top and gave up.

Were you able to order a new remote?

Hello.
I found a Kramer VP-773A. But upon powering on, all the button are lit in red and the panel lock button is flashing read.

Did some digging and found you can connect with the serial port. And there are some codes you can type in a terminal on your mac/pc that should unlock. But I am getting nowhere.

Anyone else bump it to this? Any fixes?

Thanks,
J

No luck yet. I emailed the UK branch of Kramer but never heard anything back. I'm still keeping my eye out for one, but I've managed to set it up so that it's not too difficult to use the buttons on the front. Would still prefer a remote though.

I've just about worked out the settings I like, I'll post an update soon once I've settled a bit more. The main change from my last post is the I'm now letting the Kramer do the de-interlacing. As I watched more discs it became clear that the Kramer was de-interlacing and then de-interlacing before passing the video on to my AV Receiver to be de-interlaced again! The double de-interlacing could lead to some very odd effects, it was like my Kramer and Onkyo AV were fighting each other. Better to just let the Kramer handle it.



This happens when I turn on my unit, but the buttons all stop flashing after a few seconds. I think it's just indicating that it's loading up. Once the buttons stop flashing only the last selected input button is lit solidly. Does yours not stop flashing? Have you tried pressing the lock button to unlock it?

[/quote]

The main selection buttons stop flashing and remain solid. But the lock button remains flashing. Won't seem to unlock.

I did get a response from Kramer suggesting to re-flash the firmware. I did that about 3-4 times, including using newest as well as older firmware versions.

I think the unit may be dying unfortunately. I can get the lock button to finally not light. BUT, after you do a power cycle it goes back to locked and flashing. And even when not locked after a fresh flash, I cannot get an output signal. Darny. I may give it a few more trys.

Where are you in the UK?


I'm coming to London and Bradford in 2 weeks time.
can contact the supplier here and may be able to bring you one, if you're interested.

This might be a silly question, but I see folks saying that they're just using the 773AMP for its comb filter and passing the signal through to another device for deinterlacing, but how do you do that? I don't see any options to turn off deinterlacing or enable a passthrough mode in the output pages.

see post from pbiancardi on page 2, you can output interlaced

When I was experimenting I found that when outputting interlaced from the Kramer that it was de-interlacing and then re-interlacing. As far as I know there is no pass through option; it will always de-interlace.

I'm in a North Yorkshire, a place called Northallerton, not too far from Bradford. If you're able to get hold of a remote then I'd be happy to meet up when you're in Bradford.

Sent an e-mail to the distributor, haven't heard back. When I hear something, I'll let you know. Will call them up next week, if no answer come in.

Judging from the pictures he posted, it still seems to work and being better outputting 480i/p and scaling externally.

It works well for most discs, but when I was outputting interlaced I noticed a tonne of juddering with anything with subtitles. The severity of the juddering would change depending on what I set in the Kramer de-interlacing settings, so even when outputting interlaced it's still performing the de-interlacing. For most discs it looks fine, but like I said subtitles really tripped it up, which then tripped up my AV receiver which is de-interlacing.

Keep me posted. Either way I hope you have a great time visiting the UK

That sounds like what you would see when using the line doubler (Bob deinterlacing) option. Japanese text always looks jumpy as heck using that method due to the thin horizontal lines.

I'm definitely using the Motion Adaptive de-interlacing, and changing the motion detection sensitivity changes the amount of judder I see.

I suspect in this particular case (Hard Boiled Criterion CLV) that the interlacing cadence of the film and the subtitles are out of sync which confuses the de-interlacing a bit, even more so when it then has to be re-interlaced for output to my AV unit to be de-interlaced again. My AV unit doesn't do a much better job of de-interlacing so I find it best for my setup to just let the Kramer handle it.

Finally got my hands on a remote today. Someone nearby was selling one on eBay so I quickly nabbed it. Making adjustments will be a lot easier now! Thanks again for all the help, nidi!

Happy for you getting that remote.
Let us know what settings are the best for optimal picture.

Michael