Starting a thread to detail tips & settings for our latest discovered toy. If you missed out on the eval board, this is in many ways its equal (...and in some ways better. Much easier anyway).

New units, firmware, and Support Materials are still available through Kramer. kramerav.com
Keep watching for used units to pop up as the replacement model is already listed and this one will become unavailable as soon as inventory is exhausted. B&H has some used inventory, but at a high price.

Starting Point... Will update as things mature:

Firmware Version: 33.47.50.18115.18247.P 01/03/15 18:27:01 (Interesting that the Kramer Web Site shows Older date on higher versions.)
I am assuming all the recent LDDB folks received the same firmware and
I also found a newer manual than the one linked to on the web site. The newer one is marked as P/N 2900-300491 Rev 5 for the VP-773A.
The older one is a Rev 2 marked for the VP-773. Differences appear to be minor.

In my "lab" I had a CLD-D703 and a DVL-V888 to compare on two VP-773AMP devices. I wrongly assumed I would end up with the exact settings for my "best results". I am absolutely no expert and these settings are the result of simply reading the manual and trying different settings. I'm looking forward to getting things more correct as the thread discussion develops. The display being used is the Pioneer Elite PRO-151FD 60" Kuro plasma (Pure Mode). Calibrated, but not professionally.

Settings for CLD-D703: (assume factory default for anything not mentioned)

INPUT -
Display Mode > Single Window - Best Fit
Color Space > Follow Input

PROCESS -
Deinterlacing > Method > Motion Adaptive
Deinterlacing > Sync > Current Field
Film Mode > Follow Input
Diagonal Correction > 001
MD Sensitivity > Level 3
Picture > Dither > Mode 1

ENHANCE -
Noise Reduction > Temporal NR > 002
Noise Reduction > Block NR > 002

SCALE -
Aspect Ratio > Best Fit
Overscan > Off
Output > Video Resolution 480P

Hopefully this is just a good starting point and can be improved upon by those more knowledgeable as a lot of guess work went into this and it's not possible to try every combination. As is the case with most laserdisc setups in the mortal world, getting any result by HDMI of noise/detail approaching what can be achieved by plugging in a composite is a win. I believe these settings are slightly exceeding in the overall as compared to the direct composite connection... a win!

Settings for DVL-V888: (assume factory default for anything not mentioned)

INPUT -
Display Mode > Single Window - Best Fit
Color Space > Follow Input

PROCESS -
Deinterlacing > Method > Motion Adaptive
Deinterlacing > Sync > Current Field
Film Mode > Follow Input
Diagonal Correction > 003
MD Sensitivity > Level 4
Picture > Dither > Mode 1

ENHANCE -
Noise Reduction > Temporal NR > 003
Noise Reduction > Block NR > 003

SCALE -
Aspect Ratio > Best Fit
Overscan > Off
Output > Video Resolution 480P

The amount of noise in the picture from the V888 surprised me. I hadn't compared it side by side with any of my D70x players and always thought it would compare closely. This was not the case. The end result from the Kramer is fairly cleaned up, but a whole step or two softer vs the D703. Please comment below with any freshman errors I made here and I'll update. Thanks!

Yeah I heard some people got some insane deals from eBay. I'm keeping my eyes out for a reasonably priced one.

it is using the same chip?

if yes, how many parameters for the finetuning will be available.


a good implementation is only as good as how the firmware alows to tweak the settings

Yes.

Cool! I see from the specs that you can output 480P and 576P.

that would mean a clean signal not further processed.

do you have screenshots of the menu showing the parameters that can be set
for the 3D comb filter?

It's essentially the eval board but in a convenient package not requiring a PC or Raspberry pi to control. It's also much better at deinterlacing. Bunch of us got them for $35, guy was selling 15 or so of them.

Also it can output 480i over HDMI so paired with a Lumagen 2143 you basically have a 2144.

that's what I want!!

any spare ones ???

prepared to pay more

Might be more on eBay but not same deal.

found one in Israel for $350

So , anyone here both both the Kramer and the Radiance 2144?

care to comment on differences , pos. and neg. on Composite processing?

someone offered me a 2144 but if the Kramer is better at Composite I'll not go the Radiance route

As far as comb filter goes its the same. The Kramer cannot scale near as well though so if you want the best possible performance either 2144 or Kramer outputting 480i into a Lumagen / MadVR / other high quality scaler.

it has been said that the 2144 does not have all the controls for the comb filter settings than it could have.

so, does the Kramer unit offer more settings to get the best performance out of composite inputs?

I do already have a Radiance XS+ and do not necessarily need a 2144.

will get my Kramer next week.

a 2144 is being offered to me right now.


Thanks for the info

You can only change the comb filter registers with the eval board not the Kramer or 2144.

All we did was change the setting for eval to be slightly sharper which you may or may not like anyway. If you have a Kramer and feed 480i to your Lumagen I'd say your going to get about the best available results of anything.

Thanks, you just saved me some dough.

got the Kramer, tried out a few things with the settings.

Video Essentials LD used with a HLD-X0 player , composite output to Kramer - 480i output to Radiance XS+3D , 2nd output from HLD-X0 SVideo in XS+3D

looking at the S&W moving test card. set A-B repeat

Kramer compared to X0 output (SVideo)

Pro

looks sharper (both settings at 0)

Con

400 line pattern very 'noisy' line movement

tried Temporal and other Noise setting , not much change

when LD player seeks the beginning of the repeat very unstable picture (TBC?)


so comparing the old NEC chip in to HLD-X0 to this 'new' chipset from ADV
I still prefer the X0 3D comb filter.


I need to find a recording solution for SDI & HDMI SD to present my findings.

anyone gOt a good solution for recording?

BTW, I also have the Singmai FPGA solution with SDI output, but it's far from finished yet (FW still in development).

just looked at it again with the SingMai unit.

comb modes:

- Auto
- Notch Filter
- Line Comb
- Field comb
- Frame comb

best results with:

field and frame comb.

picture is the sharpest I've ever seen
400 line pattern is super sharp and has almost NO line movement

Added here for reference: Kramer VP-773A

Julien

Maybe it's somehow defective/broken but a failure in my system.

When I want NR (Mosquito in front of Lumagen) I'll totally still go with the eval board over this disappointment.

I have two questions -

1. Have you tested extensively using real content (not test patterns)?

2. I just checked out the SingMai website and its $876.00 US for the SM14 which I assume is the correct model. Is this correct? I was curious enough to test but I cannot believe that $876.00 vs my $35.00 Kramer is going to be anywhere near worthwhile.

How is the Kramer setup in your system? I have found that it is pretty useless for anything besides comb filter so I have Kramer 480i -> DVDO VP50 (deinterlacing) 480p -> Oppo BDP-103D (upscales to 1080p as my capture card doesn't like 480p) -> MadVR (aspect ratio control / upscale from 1080p to 4096 x 2160 for my projector).

Kramer 480i60 > Algolith Mosquito 480i60 > Lumagen 2144 1080p60/24 > Projector.

On the one hand putting any of them in front of a 2144 is kind of redundant (though reverse telecine is more stable in picture search/side changes etc.), but that chain is about being able to use the really good NR of the Mosquito with the same comb filter.

If the stars align it's good but often this thing happens where the whole image looks kind of blurry compared to what it should be. At the top and bottom edges of a letterboxed image this is particularly visible as kind of like parts of the top and bottom line with image randomly jumping/bleeding into the next line that should be fully black. Obviously this is going on top to bottom hence the blurring effect.

Hitting FF/REW on the player can randomly snap things into place, as it appeared can changing some of the deinterlacing (and some other iirc) settings on the Kramer, but nothing seems to stick and if you do skip a chapter or the side changes, more often than not you're back with the issue.

Thought about trying a firmware update but after many frustrating hours of trying to get it to connect to ethernet just went back to the eval board, which even when the Kramer was behaving I think still seemed to have the edge.