Hi everyone. I am new to the forum here, but have been a longtime member at AVS, HD-Digest and Bluray.com. I recently purchased a couple of Laserdisc players off Craigslist - a Pioneer Elite CLD-92 and a Pioneer CLD-D504 - together with a bunch of movies. I have a Denon AVR-1912 Receiver and a Panasonic 65" GT50 Plasma, so I think I am going to need a few things to get the optimal settings out of my theater. I am looking at a AC3RF Demodulator for the CLD-D504 since it has the built in output, and my receiver does not have an input for it. However, I also think I'll need a video processor/scaler as well.

I've been looking at a few, and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to a DVDO ISCAN HD+ versus a Faroujda NR Series Picture Plus or DVP-2200 Picture Plus?

Thanks for any help.

I don't have enough experience to comment on that model of video scaler, however I can say I noticed a significant benefit from a cheap DVDO external line doubler so it's definitely worth looking into.

If your receiver did have an AC3 input you wouldn't even need the demodulator box. All that does is convert the signal and output in either optical digital or digital coaxial (often both) to a form that should be accepted by either of those inputs on your receiver.

I'm a big fan of the Faroudja NRS's comb filter. Here is it's performance on the Snell & Wilcox 2 test pattern from Chapter 15 of the Video Essentials LD:



TLK

The Harmon/Kardon AVR2600, which I'm actively looking at, features a Faroudja video processor. I've been thinking about it since the quality from my FiOS STB is really kind of poor. It's locked to a single resolution...watching 1080i content on my TV isn't pretty...watching 720p converted to 1080i is worse.

Now that I've got an LD player, a good scaler just went up high on the list. So I'm really interested in any advice anyone can offer.

You have to know that AV Amps/Receviers might have a certain chipset for scaling, but that these chipsets are usually badly integrated.
Which means, the results you can get with such an amp will not be as good as with a dedicated videoprocessor.
Usually the settings have much less options (or only on/off but no detailed settings) and other drawbacks usually exist too.

My personal conclusion: Don't but an amp/receiver because of some scaling specs.
It is usually not worth it.

Excellent advice. My Denon 3080 receiver has a Sage Faroudja scaler/processor and there is no access to it's advanced features like chroma bandwidth expansion, true life processing, cross-color reduction for composite sources or zoom/crop modes, just a setting for 24/30 frame film and video scaiing on/off.

Yeah.

I was told by a friend of mine that a cheap htpc with an analog capture makes an excellent scaler.

I'm only considering a reciever because, the price. Dedicated video scalers are way over the budget I have, at least one that does 1080p. I can find all kinds of cheap ones that do 640x480..but a good one is $300 or more.

If the integrated solutions suck that bad, then I'm gonna have to go the HTPC route for scaling. I need scaling, I don't have the $400 - $1500 for a good scaler.