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 After attending CEDIA 2005 in Indianapolis I knew that a 1080p HD display would soon be gracing my home theater to replace my aging SD Pioneer Elite Pro-45 monitor for “normal” TV viewing. I had also added digital capabilities to my Runco 720p CL-710 Front Projector thanks to an ACCEL UltraRun digital cable. Until recently it was extremely tricky to have a long digital cable run without appreciable signal loss so the introduction of this fine product (with a 60+ foot run to my Runco) now allowed me to use a digital signal to the projector. Therefore I knew that I wanted a combination scaler and digital hub to manage all the different resolutions and digital sources. DVDO had just released their HD capable iScan VP30 digital scaler and hub (also seen at CEDIA) and this was a perfect fit for my needs. The VP30’s philosophy is an “anything in to anything out” one and it is capable of taking all my sources and providing the proper output to my various displays. My HP MD5880n DLP 58” RPM can accept native 1080p and display it while my Runco CL-710 inputs and displays 720p. Both displays are fed from the output of the VP30 (one at a time since the screen for the Runco covers the HP MD5880n) by using a GEFEN 2x2 HDMI switch.
The VP30 is an amazingly versatile device and, as of this writing, outperforms the scalers located in any of my other equipment. The one thing it won’t do is accept 1080p native input but that’s not necessary since my HP MD5880n will, and with two HDMI inputs each accepting 1080p on the HP monitor I can feed 1080p native material directly to it, bypassing the DVDO scaler. Besides, at some point the VP30 will either be upgraded to accept 1080p directly or the next model will provide this function. DVDO has a very liberal trade up policy which I intend to take advantage of. By keeping the scaler external to the display such upgrades are easily accomplished as one is not tied to the internal electronics of the monitors.
It is not my intention to try to walk you through all the functions and capabilities of the VP30 but you can learn a lot more by looking at the links I have provided to specifications and to the manual. Suffice it to say, this scaler has the ability to handle just about anything that I throw at it and is at the heart of my new digital Home Theater. It is an extremely flexible unit and I am pleased by its performance and capabilities.
Click here for more information about the DVDO iScan VP30
Click here for some pictures of all the new equipment in place
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