Silicon Optix Reon-VX powers 1080p in Toshiba's HD-XA2 HD DVD player
By Richard Lawler 
posted Jan 3rd 2007 1:22PM
posted Jan 3rd 2007 1:22PM
While Toshiba's latest HD DVD player, the HD-XA2, should finally be shipping today, Silicon Optix has dropped more details on its Reon-VX chip that enables 1080p output. As mentioned previously, instead of outputting 1080i, the HQV chip deinterlaces the 1080i signal within the player itself using per-pixel motion-adaptive deinterlacing to ensure that what gets to the screen is free of jaggies and artifacting. A digital 1080i signal to a 1080p display should be able to be deinterlaced within the TV with no loss of picture quality, but since not all TVs are capable of the task without losing some visual information in the process, this solution should provide the highest, most consistent picture quality available. This same deinterlacing technology -- combined with the enhanced 297MHz video DAC and additional picture quality settings -- is used to enhance SD material, such as SD extras and regular DVDs. All this sounds great in theory, but we have to get the actual hardware in our hands to see if it stands up to the 1080p24 capable Sony BDP-S1 and Pioneer BDP-HD1.
Silicon Optix reps also said that several Blu-ray products to be announced at CES will contain the Realta or Reon-VX. This goes with the (admittedly obvious) whisperings I've heard that the BDA will be focusing on lower cost and 2nd-gen offerings this time around.
Thats rather pathetic for a "supposed" high end unit. Why not just send the 1080p24 strait from the disc to the display without any conversions? But then again, this is toshiba, one of the least trusted CE company's of our time. Sad.
I thought the Reon-VX in Toshiba's AX2 was going to process the 1080p/24 that is stored on the HD-DVD, not the 1080i/60 signal that is converted from that source. That would make way more sense than manipulating a converted signal.
As for the comment regarding just sending the signal to the display as 1080p/24 with no manipulation, well there is a lot that can be done to the signal to clean it up. You can find out just what if you go through the information on Silicon Optix website (the guys who make the Reon chip).
It has nothing to do with cleaning up a signal. In fact the disk should already be "cleaned up" as you put it, we're not talking about an analog source, or an analog output or even an analog television. Sending the exact signal would be ideal.
The issue is that the new "next gen" dvd formats support overlays. So what happens is that things like menus, chapters, timelines, picture in picture needs to be rendered on top of the movie and then shown on the TV. The processing which occurs to add these elements to the signal is occuring on an interlaced picture (the components to do it on a 1080p24 signal are still too expensive (I suppose). Therefore they need a chip like this to convert the updated picture from the modified 1080i60 into the 1080p60 output.
It is unfortunate that typically all you want to do is just watch the movie which would be a straight transfer, but they do need to support all of the advanced features.
What is MS HDDVD player doing?
WHat HDTV to Pair with for this to be noticed?
THanks
bMw
Wait, something doesn't make sense here.
There shouldn't be any deinterlacing going on here, just 3:2 inverse telecine - "converting" 24fps into 60fps. Either some info is wrong here, or they're going an extra step to avoid 3:2 judder.
fishy...
Oh, btw, XA2's in the wild -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterparker/344351036/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterparker/344351068/
Well now I am totally confused. I thought all content was stored on HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray discs as 1080/24p and that this content could be sent to a display as 1080/24p if the player supported it (which some apparently do) and that if you had a 2Hz display there was no interlacing and de-interlacing or HD telecining or reverse telecining because the display would then just show each 1080p/24 frame 3 times (and therefore no cadence judder would occur). But, what you are now saying is that the timelines, chapters etc are rendered only on top of 1080i/60 content, so the player has to convert it first? Does this not mean that there is no point in having 1080p/24 output as that signal must be interlaced to a 1080i/60 signal and then converted to a 1080p/60 signal in the player? And does this not also mean that the even if the display is 72Hz we are going to have to rely on whatever substandard video processing the display has to remove the cadence judder?
I've spent a few months researching all the issue related to the optimium player/display combination and am now dismayed to hear I can't feed a 1080p/24 signal to a display.
Please enlighten me and everyone else! Thanks.
Jay: Thanks for the info. But what about when you are just watching the movie, without the extra features. In this case, the players that output 1080p/24 should be doing it "straight," right? And likewise, hopefully the new players that output 1080p/60 will not go through the unncessary interlacing/deinterlacing step.
If you want true 1080p24, you have to go blu-ray. The XA2 is processing it multiple times and is a poor excuse at a top of the line player. Toshiba, GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Maybe 3rd gen is the charm? 1st gen for Blu-Ray did it.
Ahh - good call Jay.
Aron- I have spoken to Tosh reps directly, and they have stated (more than once) that there will be firmware upgrade coming shortly for the XA2 that will enable a direct 1080p 24fps "pass-through" mode.
You might want to wait a month or two to see how how it shakes out, I mean, they just hit shelves today...
I'm really confused. I was under the impression that the content stored of both HD DVD and Blu-ray disks were done so as 1080 progressive. Why would there be a need to deinterlace at all? This seems like a continued drawback if the decoder chip cannot take the progressive content from the disk and simply pass it on. I understand the first generation players all used a bandwidth limited broadcom chip, but second generation players should be as equally lame.
What The : Bwahahaha! You are such a BR fanboy you are pathetic. BR got it right the first time ? Bwahahaha! You are one hilarious guy. Yes you are so right, Sony can be trusted so much more than Toshiba when it comes to rootkits, exploding batteries and proprietary formats. Hope you enjoy your Betamax, UMDs, and your "true 1080p" on that Samsung state-of-the-art Blur-ray player.