What is so great about Faroudja?

[guitarplyrstevo]

I had a customer come in yesterday looking for a receiver, so I showed him some receivers that we carry. The Denon AVR-688 caught his eye so I started to tell him a little about. He saw that we had the 788 on sale for $599 and asked what was the differences between the two and the only difference I saw (I'm an onkyo guy) was the 788 had a Faroudja video processor. I know Faroudja is something that makes a difference in video quality but why would someone want to pay an extra $150 for a video processor? Doesn't most blu ray players have Faroudja already?

 

[ohio]

http://www.meridian-audio.com/faroudja/

Video processor chips and technology that do the decompression, scaling, de-interlacing, and error correction of your video signal. I don't know which chip is in the 788, but the short answer is that he may have video processors of varying quality in his DVD/BR player, or in his TV, but chances are it is $150 well spent if he cares about the quality of the image and motion on your TV.

 

[Bluesmoke]

I had a customer come in yesterday looking for a receiver, so I showed him some receivers that we carry. The Denon AVR-688 caught his eye so I started to tell him a little about. He saw that we had the 788 on sale for $599 and asked what was the differences between the two and the only difference I saw (I'm an onkyo guy) was the 788 had a Faroudja video processor. I know Faroudja is something that makes a difference in video quality but why would someone want to pay an extra $150 for a video processor? Doesn't most blu ray players have Faroudja already?

I don't see the Faroudja logo anywhere on the 788. It also does not scale anything to HDMI.

The $150 difference between the 688 and the 788 might be that the 788 processes HDMI audio. The 688 certainly does not.

 

[bandphan]

I had a customer come in yesterday looking for a receiver, so I showed him some receivers that we carry. The Denon AVR-688 caught his eye so I started to tell him a little about. He saw that we had the 788 on sale for $599 and asked what was the differences between the two and the only difference I saw (I'm an onkyo guy) was the 788 had a Faroudja video processor. I know Faroudja is something that makes a difference in video quality but why would someone want to pay an extra $150 for a video processor? Doesn't most blu ray players have Faroudja already?

you work in the audio/video dept?

 

[Pyrrho]

I had a customer come in yesterday looking for a receiver, so I showed him some receivers that we carry. The Denon AVR-688 caught his eye so I started to tell him a little about. He saw that we had the 788 on sale for $599 and asked what was the differences between the two and the only difference I saw (I'm an onkyo guy) was the 788 had a Faroudja video processor. I know Faroudja is something that makes a difference in video quality but why would someone want to pay an extra $150 for a video processor? Doesn't most blu ray players have Faroudja already?

Different players have different processors, and even those with the same processing chip may perform differently, as the chip may be implemented differently. To see some examples of differences in DVD performance, take a look at (WARNING: The link is to a large page that may take some time to load):

http://69.64.68.156/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all

See also:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cd-dvd-player-product-reviews/dvd-players/oppo-digital-dv-983h-dvd-player---a-secrets-dvd-benchmark-review.html

Faroudja has been around a while, and have enjoyed a good reputation, so some people ask for it by name. But they don't seem to be the best these days.

Of course, you answered your own question when you asked:

"I know Faroudja is something that makes a difference in video quality but why would someone want to pay an extra $150 for a video processor?"

Someone would pay it for better video.

As for what is in a Blu-Ray player, no, they do not all have Faroudja already in them. In fact, Blu-Ray players don't seem to be the best for upconverting DVDs, though some are good at it; see links above.

Also, having a good video processor in a receiver is good because one can run all of one's video sources (except for a tuner built-in to a TV) through it. Some people have things other than DVDs and Blu-Ray discs that they watch, and they might want them to look as good as they can.

 

[Seth=L]

Faroudja DCDi deinterlacers and Faroudja scalers have been put to bed for the most part. Faroudja's new Genesis chip has a lot of buzz going around, but I don't know much about it. It is supposed to be in line with Silicon Optix and ABTs' top of the line chip sets if not better. Integration of scaling and deinterlacing is just as important as having quality chipsets. A poorly integrated quality scaler/deinterlacer will perform poorly, there are some good implementations of the Faroudja DCDi and Faroudja scalers of old that work very well, but there are also many that don't. On mid-range receivers expect mid-range scaling performance. An inexpensive upscaling player might stack up to the Denon's scalers on their mid-range AVRs.

 

[Phil Taylor]

The 888 has DCDi but the 788 doesn't - BTW nice ... "on sale for $599" ... the same receiver is $399 at Amazon.
The 888 which does have the Faroujda is priced at $599...
And as stated above the scaler is important for upscaled video quality. Hell nearly everything is upscaling these dayz (including the price of gas).
The "latest greatest" scaler currently appears to be the Reon-VX HQV processing which is available in the Onkyo 875 at nearly twice the price of the Denon 888. When you drop back down to the $599-ish level you get the DCDi in the Onkyo 705...

 

[Seth=L]

Silicon Optix has both the HQV Reon and Realta scalers (the Realta is the highest end version of the chip).

Faroudja has some competition coming or it's already out, I believe the general name is Genesis for the next series (Pheonix and Oak are subseries I believe).

 

[Audioholics]

I encourage everyone reading this thread to check this out as well:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/display-formats-technology/video-processing-in-dvd-players-receivers-and-displays

There are four pages, but you can focus on Page 2 if you don't have much time.

 

[Biggiesized]

Faroudja was bought out by Genesis Microchip Inc. who was acquired by ST Microelectronics.