DVDO Edge Video Processor

One of the unintended benefits consumers have reaped during the present digital age is the steep positive correlation between quality and the passage of time, and the equally steep negative correlation between quality and price. I’ve been writing "On Home Theater" for four years, and just a stroll through the changes that have taken place in that short period is stunning. When I began, a 720p DLP display for $5000 was a bargain. A DVD player for $5000? How about two? At the time, such prices were what you had to pay to play at a really high level.

Then, when a few companies came along and challenged the state of the art at much lower prices, things changed. The Oppo DV-970HD universal player revolutionized the industry by offering a very pure 480i signal ideal for those with outboard scalers and deinterlacers. It competed with, and usually beat, the $5000 DVD players, and it cost only $149. Integra and Onkyo developed processors and receivers that were competitive with components costing five times as much. The JVC HD-1 offered a projector to beat anything at any price, and at $6300, it changed the entire projector paradigm. The Sony PlayStation 3 was not only a great gaming machine, it was also the best Blu-ray player available, and at a time when most freestanding Blu-ray players cost three to five times as much.

The one area that resisted the rise in quality and fall in prices was the world of outboard video processors. In 2006, I reviewed DVDO’s iScan VP30 and Lumagen’s VisionPro HDP, which respectively cost $2000 and $2500. Both did a nice job with the picture, but each had its quirks (the Lumagen didn’t even have any HDMI ins or outs). Meanwhile, receivers, processors, and displays were continuing to make rapid improvements, offering more switching options and their own built-in, top-class deinterlacing and scaling. But despite the competition from other gear in the chain to take over their tasks, the prices of video processors kept hanging in that range.

It almost seemed that the makers of video processors felt they’d lost the fight and had given up competing. Undoubtedly, they had some concerns about the future of their business. After all, most consumers felt that the video signal should be switched, scaled, and deinterlaced -- and at a high level of quality -- by either the source, the receiver/processor, or the display itself. Who can blame the poor manufacturers of video processors for thinking their business was rapidly dying? Yet most of us have a nagging belief that, even if we have a fine source-processor-display chain, if we just made one or two changes we could at least get some tiny degree of further improvement. That’s why the video-processor business has never gone away. Still, no one stepped up to the plate with a transformative product -- until DVDO released their new video processor, the Edge ($799).

For some of us, the Edge will be a God-send. It takes over five functions, all at the very edge of the art:

1. Scaling: The Edge can shift any signal to one of the frequencies in the Tech Features box. (Note to owners of the Oppo DV-970HD: the Edge accepts 480i/p-60.)
   
   
2. Switching: HDMI 1.3 is the key. The Edge has six inputs and an interesting design choice of two outputs. One outputs audio and video and feeds the display. The other outputs a blank video screen and the full audio signal. The thinking here is that folks who have a sufficiently upscale home theater to warrant an Edge will also have a high-end audio system, but will prefer the (probably) superior switching of the Edge. Using the Edge as the sole means of switching between your TiVo and Blu-ray player, etc., means that you cut out the receiver’s hub -- always a good idea. Given all the other sources it can make available, the Edge could handle all switching duties for most turntable-less systems.
   
   
3. Deinterlacing: This is the area for which DVDO’s parent company, Anchor Bay, is justifiably famous. The Edge has enough computing power onboard to be able to handle all of its deinterlacing within three frames -- and for you gamers with really fast thumbs, the latency in Game mode is less than one frame. That’s some speedy work.
   
   
4. Mosquito Noise Reduction: When content providers feel they can get away with it, they compress their signals. This leaves some funky noise, especially around graphics. As you can imagine, sports shows are the worst afflicted. The Edge’s mosquito-noise reduction works like a selective expander, getting rid of the artifacts created by signal compression.
   
   
5. Picture Control: Edge enhancement and enhancement of fine detail are traditionally things the serious home-theater lover avoids at all costs -- but DVDO pulls a miracle and makes them usable. You have to really push these controls before you see any visible ringing around edges, and both enhancers really help on things that are well recorded but short on detail -- like the first DVD edition of Titanic, which was letterboxed. When the film is blown up to fill the screen (simple to fix, using the Edge’s ultra-simple Zoom control), the detail drops off. The Edge puts it back in with fewer artifacts than I thought possible. Plus, each input has its own memory that will retain your settings for Fine Detail, Edge Enhancement, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Hue.

The Edge is good-looking, sturdy, and, thanks to the ingenious DVDO wizards, the easiest video processor there is to set up. In fact, if you’ve used any other DVDO product, you’ll be amazed at how much easier the Edge is to set up than anything they’ve made in the past. And its remote control is a model of simplicity.

Here’s a paradox: The better your equipment is, the less you’ll need the Edge -- but the better your equipment is, the more profound will be the Edge’s improvements. The differences really show on top-quality computer animation. WALL-E (which should have won the Oscar for Best Picture), the most surreal little film I’ve seen from a large American studio in many a year, is visually stunning throughout. With the Edge, the Blu-ray edition’s visuals gained more of a three-dimensional look. Without the Edge, everything still looked great, but switching it back in was the visual equivalent of adding layers of soundstage depth for an audiophile. It’s just more real. Even if it is a cartoon.

My wife made me watch Mamma Mia! I never got ABBA, but this film did challenge my longtime assertion that I would love Meryl Streep doing anything. Still, the gorgeous panning shots of the Greek islands framed against the gorgeous blue of the Aegean Sea gave me something to concentrate on. The Edge beautifully reproduced the picture’s depth and minute detail.

So does this game-changer have any downsides? Yes. A single optical output and one-and-a-half HDMI outputs are just not enough. I recognize that the Edge is intended to be used with a single grand home-theater system, and in that context, it’s the bee’s knees. But for those of us who distribute signals around the house, it means they’ll have to be routed through still another switching system. Of course, what I’d like to see added to the Edge is six full HDMI 1.3 outputs, along with the ability to assign any input to any output. And could we drop the price again? And I still want an electric car with solar panels in the paint job.

For those of you who already have a good system but want to push its performance up that last step, DVDO’s Edge is the ticket. In its little area of the marketplace -- outboard video processors -- the Edge sets a new standard.

. . . Wes Marshall
wesm@soundstageav.com

DVDO Edge Video Processor
Price: $799 USD.
Warranty: One year parts and labor.

DVDO by Anchor Bay Technologies
300 Orchard City Drive, M/S 131
Campbell, CA 95008
Phone: (866) 423-3836

Website: www.dvdo.com

All contents copyright © Schneider Publishing, Inc.; all rights reserved.
Any reproduction, without permission, is prohibited.
SoundStage! is part of Schneider Publishing, Inc. and the SoundStage! Network