Sony G90 Video outputs. As a progressive video reference, I used a, Ics-grade front projector

film sources but doesn’t match the quality of inverse-

telecine deinterlacing.

Performance

My primary source for evaluating the IEV was a Sony DVP-

S7000 DVD player, using its composite, S-Video, and compo-

nent outputs to test the various Turboscan inputs. I also used

a Pioneer CLD-97 laserdisc player with its composite and S-

Video outputs. As a progressive video reference, I used a

3Dfusion PC video card with an Mpact-2 processor decoding

from a DVD-ROM drive to produce RGB output. The 3Dfusion

creates progressive video without deinterlacing artifacts

when playing film source DVDs, equivalent to the result of

Faroudja’s inverse-telecine processing. It is not nearly as

effective at deinterlacing DVD video sources, nor does it

accept any sources other than DVD. (See Issue 24 for a review

of the 3Dfusion and a discussion of its deinterlacing process.)

For display I used an Electrohome ECP-4100 front projec-

tor on a 6-foot wide Stewart Studiotek 130 screen (16.9 aspect

ratio). For a brief time, I was able to compare the Turboscan

to a Faroudja VP-250 line doubler on a Runco IDP-980 Ultra

front projector. (A line doubler requires a TV with progressive

video inputs and higher than normal scan-rate capabilities,

but these inputs and capabilities are standard with any graph-

ics-grade front projector.)

With real-world material, it was evident that the Tur-

boscan was not doing 3-2 pulldown removal, as the Faroudja

and 3Dfusion do (each in different ways). The Turboscan

sometimes displays line twitter artifacts on moving objects,

and while not nearly so objectionable as the artifacts seen

with non-line doubled sources, they make the Turboscan dis-

play slightly inferior to that seen from the Faroudja or 3Dfu-

sion. For example, in the opening scene of The Fifth Element

(chapter 3, absolute time 03:20-23), one can see fine line twit-

ter in the tent ropes and moving “jaggies” on camel backs at

the center of the screen as the camera pans left to follow the

running boy. In chapter 9 (absolute time 28:23-42), twitter arti-

facts appear as the camera zooms in on the curved top left

edge of the chamber that LeeLoo is kicking to get out of.

The Turboscan has a “motion filter” that appears in the menu

only if you have “Input Setup” turned on. The filter

slightly softens the image, but IEV recommends

that this filter be turned on for video. However,

there are examples where the image looks much

worse with the filter on. The horizontal pan of the

bridge during the video montage segment on Video

Essentials is one. The vertical cables of the bridge break up

badly as they move horizontally with the camera pan. In other

cases the filter reduces, but doesn’t eliminate, some residual arti-

facts, such as jaggies in the hair of the pink T-shirted girl with the

bicycle.

I used the Video Essentials DVD and the Dolby Labs DVD

(DVD-TEST1)to explore other aspects of the Turboscan per-

formance. The tests on these discs are rigorous and repeat-

able, even though they are much more demanding than what

you will usually notice on real-world video images.

With its sharpness control set at “0,” the Turboscan had a

significant high-frequency roll off above 4.2 MHz in all input

modes, but at a sharpness setting of +6, it became reasonably

flat to 5 MHz without outlining artifacts. This sharpness con-

trol isn’t the equal of Faroudja’s adaptive detail-enhancement

circuit, but it is useful for reducing the nastiness of some

DVDs with overdone edge enhancement; it is also handy for

slightly boosting the sharpness of soft video sources, espe-

cially many laserdiscs. You can set this control individually

for each of the three input sources.

The Turboscan showed minor artifacts on color-bar pat-

terns that were not present with either the Faroudja or the

3DFusion. For a component source, there was a faint light

band along the cyan side of the vertical yellow/cyan transition

and along the magenta side of the vertical green/magenta

transition. S-Video and composite sources did not display the

same artifact. Instead they had a black smudge along the two

transition regions characteristic of the lower chroma band-

width of these video formats. Some luma-chroma delay was

evident on the red vertical stripes against a white background

(title 18, chapter 4 of VE-DVD). There was a thin black line

along the left edge of the white/red transition, just inside the

red bar. On S-Video and composite sources, this artifact was

replaced by a smeared black region on both inside edges of

Key Features: Video Upconverters

	Faroudja VP251	IEV	DVDO
		Turboscan 1500	iScan Plus
Line Doubling	Yes	Yes	Yes
Line Quadrupling	No	No	No
Line Scaling (Other)	No	No	No
Inverse Telecine (Film Mode Deinterlacing)	Yes	No	Yes
Video Cal - Color,Tint,Brightness,Contrast	All	All	None
Detail Enhancement	Adaptive Detail	Sharpness Only	None
Noise Reduction	None	None	None
Composite Video Inputs	1	1	1
S-Video (Y/C) Inputs	1	1	2
Component Video Inputs	1 (YPbPr/RGB)	1 (YPbPr/RGB)	None
Component Video Pass-thru	Yes	Yes	None
Input Loop-thru	All Inputs	Composite/S-Video	None
Stored User Settings	4/Input	1/Input	None
Other Features	RGB Pass-through Input	RGB Gain/Offset	Film-Mode LED
Price	$7,500	$2,495	$700