The ATI TV Wonder HD 750 USB does not have a 3D comb filter, by the way. Only the PCIe card.

I will be back home next week and will take a look at your pluge test and run through all the various comb filters I have here.

What software and OS are you using to capture with the PCIe 750?

I have one of those cards here, had no luck under Windows7 64 bit and virtualdub, it bluescreened me everytime I hit capture. Maybe you could drop me a PM as I would like to try the card without having to drop back to XP.

Do you have the Video Essentials on laserdisc as well?

I'm yet to find a 3D comb filter that doesn't do that unfortunately to varying degrees.

AntcuFaalb said:

The NXP SAA7164's 3D comb filter is way too strong. There's significant checkerboarding and ghosting at sharp shot-changes!

... and by "ghosting" I mean real temporal-NR-looking ghosts.

How can you tell that it's a result of the comb filter vs. an actual noise reduction filter feature of the chip?

AntcuFaalb said:

poita: What do you think of the ATI Theater 750 HD's 3D comb filter?

althor1138's samples don't show any of the 3D-comb-filter-artifacts I'm accustomed to seeing.

I wish we had a solution for the dynamic AGC problem...

Mine just keeps crashing the system with a BSOD under windows 7.

I installed 32 bit XP, it worked okay until I rebooted, now I get the BSOD again.

Every time I go to virtualdub and hit capture AVI it bombs out.

Suppose we figured out the best 3D comb filter and then captured everything with the best 3D comb and a second time with the best 5-line 2D comb.

Could we come up with an algorithm to pick the best frame?

Yes, I have been discussing this recently. A script that took the first two frames from each scene change from a 2D capture and inserted them into a 3D capture would solve a lot of the worst of it.

Snell & Wilcox 4:3 Pattern 1: Sony DVP-NS50P -> Panasonic DMR-ES15 -> Diamond VC500

It looks virtually identical to the performance of the DMR-ES10, unsurprisingly.

For quick comparison:

V1 = AVISource("Comb Filter - Panasonic DMR-ES10.avi").AssumeTFF().Bob()
V2 = AVISource("Comb Filter - Panasonic DMR-ES15 to Diamond VC500 [128-128-128-140-0].avi").CropPad(8,0,0,0).Trim(0,30).AssumeTFF().Bob()

Interleave(V1,V2).Histogram()

function CropPad(clip c, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, int "color") {
   color = Default(color,color_white)

   c.Crop(x1,y1,-x2,-y2).AddBorders(x2,y2,x1,y1,color)
}

Snell & Wilcox 4:3 Pattern 2: Sony DVP-NS50P -> Panasonic DMR-ES15 -> Diamond VC500

Here is a test of the "XCard" PCIe board I mentioned some months back in the cap card thread, put together by a VideoHelp member called danno78. It's based on an AVerMedia mini-PCIe capture card that does 3D Y/C built into some laptops. According to a member who was pissed off at danno78 for obscuring its origins, it uses the SAA7136 v2.

Snell & Wilcox 4:3 Pattern 1 - three tests

• Philips DVP642 - CVBS - Panasonic DMR-E20 - YC - XCard
• Philips DVP642 - CVBS - Panasonic DMR-ES15 - YC - XCard
• Philips DVP642 - CVBS - XCard

Negative effects of DVD recorder passthrough:

Both have added noise and smear the chroma resolution a little.

The EMR-E20 shifts the image <0.5 pixels to the left, and causes the bottom line to jitter.

The DMR-ES15 mattes off ~2.5 pixels along the right edge. Mine brightens the image, which may be fixable by changing the "Lighter/Darker" setting in the Setup menu, but I can't find a universal remote that will give me that button.

I don't know how they affect the left edge of the image, because my DVD players only output black there.

Comb filter comparison:

The DMR-E20 has a small amount of dot crawl in the 1.0 and 1.5 MHz chroma patches. Other than that, the two Panasonic recorders seem to function equivalently.

They both have a small amount of dot crawl near the top of the image not present with the XCard. Meanwhile, the XCard has additional rainbowing in the center third of the moving zone plate (both horizontally and vertically).

All three require the zone plate to be still for 4 frames to be completely clean. The 3rd frame has slightly less rainbowing with the XCard.

Here is a quick comparison of a shot change on an LD to show checkerboarding: DMR-E20 vs XCard. The XCard has a bit less.

Another card that does 3D comb filtering is the GOTVIEW X5 3D Hybrid PCI-E (the one without "3D" in the name does too, but uses a hardware MPEG-2 encoder). Some PAL testing of that hardware encoder was done by PCtuner.ru, without the SW plate. The ADC is CX23887, also used in the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250 (software) and WinTV-HVR-1800 (hardware). But Hauppauge's comparison table claims that the HVR-1250 doesn't have a 3D comb filter. I guess they forced it into 2D mode...?

I also did a bunch of searches and found which Panasonic DVD recorders use which chips. Presumably the ones with matching video processors have the same comb filter performance.

C1AB00000791:
DMR-E20 (3 in)
DMR-E30 (3 in)
DMR-HS2 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-T3030 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-T3040 (HDD, 3 in)

C1AB00001979:
DMR-E65 (3 in)
DMR-E75 (VCR, 2 in)
DMR-E85 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-E95 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-E500 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-EH50 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-EH55 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-EH60 (HDD, 3 in)
DMR-ES10 (3 in)
DMR-ES15 (2 in)
DMR-ES20 (2 in)
DMR-ES25 (2 in)
DMR-EZ17 (2 in)
DMR-EZ27 (2 in)
DMR-T6070 (HDD, 3 in)

C1AB00002083:
DMR-EA38V
DMR-EH75VP
DMR-ES30VP
DMR-ES35V
DMR-ES40VP/VPC
DMR-ES45V (VCR, 2 in)
DMR-ES46V (VCR, 2 in)
DMR-EZ37V
DMR-EZ475V
DMR-EZ47V
DMR-EZ48VP/VPC
DMR-EZ485VP
SA-HT830VP/VPC
SA-HT833V

C1AB00002084 (PAL only?):
DMR-ES30VGN/VEC/VEE (VCR, 2 in)
DMR-ES35VEG/VEC (VCR, 2 in)
DMR-EZ48VEB (VCR, 2 in)

C1AB00002379 (PAL only?):
DMR-EH55EC/EP
DMR-EH56EG
DMR-EH65EE/GC/GCS/GN (Russia, etc.)
DMR-ES15EB/EBL/EP/EC/EG (UK, Ireland, other EU countries)
DMR-EX75EB/EC/EG (UK, other EU countries)
DMR-EX79EG
DMR-EX85EB/EG (UK, Germany)
DMR-EX768EB/EF/EC/EP (UK, France, other EU countries)