Hal M

Faroudja Chip and film images

Just picked up the Denon 910 and it absolutely gives me a better picture than my Panny RP91. Now I've read that the Faroudja de-interlace chip doesn't make a difference when viewing film-based images. Is this true? If so, does this mean that if I mostly watch film-based movies that the Faroudja chip doesn't make a difference for me? If this is true, what does the 910 have that my RP91 didn't. There is an absolute difference in PQ.

Also, are there any players out there (or on the way) that have the Faroudja chip (or something better) and also show 4:3 images in progressive mode (window-boxed so that they can be viewed in FULL mode on my Toshiba 65" 16X9 set) like my RP91 did? Love this feature as I get black instead of grey bars and NO overscan on the sides. Significantly more image.

Andre Bijelic

The reason the Faroujda chipset is so highly regarded is that it automatically detects the difference between film and video sources on-the-fly. You'll see the greatest improvement on video-based material or on programming where there's a mix of film and video, or shows that were shot on film, but completed on video.

As far as feature films, 95% of the time you won't notice the difference between a Faroujda and a cheaper de-interlacer. However, if the disc has been improperly flagged - which happens more often than it should - Faroujda players will do a better job.

I have both the older, Faroujda-equipped Panasonic RP-62 and the newer, non-Faroujda Panasonic S55. The 62 fares better with television material, but with movies, I have yet to notice a difference, even with improperly flagged material.

The S55 also has a pillarboxing, scaling feature, even though it isn't advertised as having such. I keep the S55 hooked up to my set over the 62 because it can properly display non-anamorphic 1.66:1 material.

Hal M

Does the RP62 not do pillarboxing? Is this only in SOME Panny models? Anyone know about the 2004 models?

David Judah

Lecktor: Then how did you catch me?
Graham: You had disadvantages.
Lecktor: What disadvantages?
Graham: You're insane.

Andre Bijelic

The RP-62 doesn't have pillarboxing capability. It's also no longer available, and even if it were, it's a bit problematic. There were two versions of the 62 - the older ones had the Faroujda chipset, the newer ones had Panasonic's proprietary chip, same as their more recent models.

Don_Berg

The Faroudja is excellent for both film and video sources, also many DVD titles sourced from film have badly flagged portions that result in combing with lesser de-interlacers. So the Faroudja is best for all sources and definitely improves the quality in all cases.

None of the great old Faroudja-based Panasonic models have a pillar-box feature for 4:3 titles, that feature is only in the older Panasonic RP91, JVC models, and the Mitsubishi DD-8040 Faroudja model. Avoid the older RP56,RP62,RP82 models - they had a defective spindle motor design that typically fails after 8-12 months of use. The later XP30 and XP50 models had a new spindle motor design that appears to have fixed the defect.

The new non-Faroudja cheap Panasonic models like the S35 have a pillar-box feature, but I found its not complete. Subtitles and menu text isn't rescaled correctly to match the 4:3 pillar-box background.

Hal M

Sounds like I'm not gonna find a player with the Faroudja chipset AND that does pillarboxing except for the Mitsubishi DD-8040. But that has CSS=on and therefore suffers from jitters (or so I've read). And the black level defaulting to "lighter" is unacceptable. Are there any other choices? I may have to keep my RP91 setup for 4:3 films and the Denon for everything else. Although the Denon's 4:3 image quality is better, I hate losing that side info (overscan) that my TV creates in 4:3 mode.