IDT HQV Vida

CEDIA 2009

By Scott Wilkinson • Posted: Sep 11, 2009

At CES last January, a group of journalists was invited to see a demo of HQV processing after the brand and intellectual property had been bought from Silicon Optix by IDT. Unfortunately, we were sworn to secrecy until the development was farther along. At CEDIA, the embargo has finally been lifted, and I can write about the new HQV Vida processing chip, which was launched at the end of July.

The new chip includes three main features—StreamClean, which cleans up much of the noise in low-res video such as YouTube, Resolution Enhancement, IDT's new upconversion algorithm, and Auto HQV, which automatically sets the processing parameters based on the input signal. Internally, the chip uses 12-bit processing and offers 6-axis color control. Also, it offers SD and HD noise reduction; by contrast, the Silicon Optix Reon chip has SD noise reduction only.

The demo we saw included some clips downloaded from YouTube with a resolution of 320x240, which were upconverted to 480i in order to put them on a DVD. The chip then upconverted that to 1080p and send a split-screen signal to a Samsung LCD TV—one side of the screen had noise reduction, while the other side did not. The difference was dramatic, with much less macroblocking and mosquito noise in the noise-reduced image. Yes, the noise-reduced image was a bit softer, but that's a small price to pay for such an improvement. Look for products with the Vida chip next year.

Comments

Submitted by Doug on September 12, 2009 - 11:19am.

So is this the replacement for the REON VX or the HQV - big difference.

Submitted by Doug on September 12, 2009 - 11:19am.

Oops I meant Reon or Realta. It would seem that you would need to have video passed as "source" and I have yet to see an implementation which gets handshakes done fast enough and that will pillar box a 4x3 feed.

Submitted by Scott Wilkinson on September 12, 2009 - 6:58pm.

Actually, it's sort of between Reon and Realta...more programmable than Reon, less than Realta. And it's faster than Realta, which is several years old by now. Finally, it includes some algorithms that neither Silicon Optix chip had, and it's smaller than both of them.

Submitted by Doug on September 13, 2009 - 7:25am.

Scott - Thanks for the info. It looks like I'll be waiting to get my next pre-pro, HD noise reduction is a biggie for me since I watch a lot of cable tv. The color control is important since I have an RS2.

Submitted by Hen McCaslin on December 5, 2009 - 9:38am.

I am confused. Although I appreciate what the Vida can do for both HD and SD material, if you have a good HD set like the new Panasonic 54" V-10 series, the picture is pretty good. If you use a receiver or DVD player with a Vida chip, should you then turn off the electronics in the plasma set? I spoke with an expert who adjusts plasmas after the set has reached the home. They routinely turn off all video adjustment ahead of the plasma and only use the adjustments on the plasma. The Onkyo Tx-NR3007 uses the old HQV chip, but in its advertising, it notes that it is capable of "isf video calibration." If that is so, would the calibration take place on the receiver, the plasma or both? It seems the best choice would be to buy a plasma with the Vida chip so that you could watch picture in picture and have improvements in both the SD and HD material.