Prog scan DVD playback on PS2

[archie4oz]

Depends on the DVD player... Some do better jobs of de-interlacing than some TV's as well (they *do* have direct access to the stream unlike the TV)... Also TV's don't usually do any 3:2 pulldown for film sources so A LOT of times you do get herky-jerky pans if the DVD player isn't doing the pull-down...

 

[maskrider]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I was under the impression that all DVDs were encoded interlaced in MPEG2, and a 'prog scan' DVD player had the hardware/software to de-interlace/reconstruct the images.

This came up while doing some research on AVSforums about Samsung's DLP TVs. Supposedly the de-interlacing hardware/software on those TVs are so good, the virtual consensus on forum is to use a non-prog scan DVD player, as the TV can produce a better picture than a prog-scan DVD player can.

The format in DVD is field based, but uaually the flags can tell whether the stream is a 24frames/s, a 30frames/s or a 60fields/s. Most DVD players simply add a deinterlacing part after the DVD/MPEG-2 decoders (in which the decoders give a 60fields/s digital 656/601 output) and deinterlace that 60fields/s digital signal. Some uses cheaper single chip solution (ESS, Zoran or more recently Sigma Design EM8500 series), some use propriety ones with Analog Device NSV Video DAC/Encoder.

I am not sure which one of the Samsung's DLP TV you are referring to, if the referred ones use Sage (Faroudja) FLI2200/23xx based deinterlacing chip, it is gonna be better than most deinterlacing done inside most of the progressive scan DVD players.

 

[Fafalada]

Progressive scan output is only available with 5000x, not sure if they had added a hardware or use the PS2 to deinterlace, if it is in software, I don't think the PS2 will be fast enough to do the job decently.

Not necesserily. Image processing algorythms of that sort are pretty much the best case scenario for R5900 utilization, and lend themselves nicely to VU assist too.
Of course the easiest test would be if someone could install SCPH50000 DVD drivers on another model

 

[maskrider]

Progressive scan output is only available with 5000x, not sure if they had added a hardware or use the PS2 to deinterlace, if it is in software, I don't think the PS2 will be fast enough to do the job decently.

Not necesserily. Image processing algorythms of that sort are pretty much the best case scenario for R5900 utilization, and lend themselves nicely to VU assist too.
Of course the easiest test would be if someone could install SCPH50000 DVD drivers on another model

I am not sure about the VUs as I haven't paid much attention to their details (for sure you know much more than I do for EE and its VUs), my impression is simple deinterlacing may be ok, and depends on your precision, the number of fields you are going to process and how much you want to do your motion search for motion compensation during deinterlacing.

More fields to process and larger range of motion search will impose a pretty high computational requirement.

 

[archie4oz]

The EE has plenty poop to handle deinterlacing and extremely bad-case motion scenarios... I did some early video work a few years back (and some MPEG4 stuff last year), and I was able to manage HD resolution MPEG2 video streams while still being able to do some pretty arbitrary post-processing...

In fact, IIRC there's a few opensource VJ tools for the Linux kits...

 

[zurich]

That's why I asked about the quality of the SCPH-5000x models pro-scan, because if the VU's can assist at a higher precision, shouldn't the image be pretty amazing? (versus $75 BestBuy 'prog scan DVD players')

edit: have any PS2 linux h4x0r types tried to write their own DVD driver/apps?

 

[maskrider]

The EE has plenty poop to handle deinterlacing and extremely bad-case motion scenarios... I did some early video work a few years back (and some MPEG4 stuff last year), and I was able to manage HD resolution MPEG2 video streams while still being able to do some pretty arbitrary post-processing...

In fact, IIRC there's a few opensource VJ tools for the Linux kits...

With the help of the VUs ? If so, the EE is a lot more powerful than I had expected. The little PS2 has really surprised me then.

This is interesting, do you mean deinterlace 1080i streams or decode HD MPEG-2 streams ? Can the IPU decode HD resolution MPEG-2 streams ?

I have only worked with some ASICs and some cheap and slow MCUs (8051/6812) than high powered DSPs or CPUs (except my PC), heh, most consumer electronics do not need high powered CPUs anyway.

edit: And BTW, isn't the DVD driver built-in since SCPH-3000x (or even 18000 ? not sure about it), no more utility disc comes with a PS2 nowadays. There will be no way to install a 5000x DVD driver to an older 10000/15000 PS2 to test.

 

[3dcgi]

I just checked and I've got an SPCH-3... It supports progressive scan in prince of persia. Does the DVD player use the same method? I notice a difference from progressive scan with Prince of Persia. The image looks smoother. Unfortunately I have to re-enable proscan everytime I boot the game.

 

[marconelly!]

3dcgi, you have an older model of PS2 that supports progressive scan in games (that have an option for it) but doesn't support it in the DVD movies.

 

[Fafalada]

With the help of the VUs ? If so, the EE is a lot more powerful than I had expected. The little PS2 has really surprised me then.

Well the whole point about image processes is that they are fundamentally just data streaming which is the stuff VUs and the whole EE thrives on best.
You can actually really flex the whole system bandwith and computation power without being hampered by stupid issues like random access cache

This is interesting, do you mean deinterlace 1080i streams or decode HD MPEG-2 streams ? Can the IPU decode HD resolution MPEG-2 streams ?

Well, afaik there's no hard limit on size of frames in the stream, and I DID try decoding I-Frames as big as 1024x1024 on IPU before. IPU also has enough juice to keep up with 1080i stream. However, I don't know if there is anything in HD-MPEG-2 streams that could be incompatible (ie. I don't suppose they introduced new flags or anything?).

edit: And BTW, isn't the DVD driver built-in since SCPH-3000x (or even 18000 ? not sure about it), no more utility disc comes with a PS2 nowadays. There will be no way to install a 5000x DVD driver to an older 10000/15000 PS2 to test.

Well technically you could hack your way around the flashrom driver by loading something off disc, and if someone went through the trouble of ripping the model 50000 drivers out of the flashrom... Whether anyone would bother going through all that trouble is another question

 

[London Geezer]

Well technically you could hack your way around the flashrom driver by loading something off disc, and if someone went through the trouble of ripping the model 50000 drivers out of the flashrom... Whether anyone would bother going through all that trouble is another question

Well i'm sure the millions of "old" ps2 owners will be happy to have a non-recognised DVD software to enable Pscan, much like the Datel DVD Region X or the Blaze VGA Adaptor software...
I would buy it...