Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 800v3 to v4 Upgrade

I was considering doing this upgrade and mainly was interested in getting HDMI out for my 800. Upon calling M I found out that I would need to do a full v4 upgrade and just adding the VE12 card was not an option anymore ( that option ended 2 years ago and used to cost $2000 US ). The full upgrade is $7000 US. I was wondering why M stopped doing just the HDMI card upgrade-- the person at M I spoke with didn't know. Does anyone here know? I realize it would be a bit more than $2000 now due to the money exchange rate but I definitely feel that I've been priced out of an upgrade for my v3. I love M in general but am a little upset over this one.
Considering the above I have now gone to the Toshiba XA2 for standard DVD playback but would still love to use my M 800. I recently bought the JVC RS-2 and the 800 running component into the RS-2 looks much worse than DVD on the Toshiba upscaled to 1080p.
With that said does the 800v4 with HDMI upscale to 1080p? I would assume it does. So with adding an HDMI card too cost prohibitive (maybe M will bring back the ability to just add a VE12 card ??-- I am not holding my breath)I am considering adding the Lumagen Radience. That brings me to another question -- do you guys who use the Radience know if you can input component to the Radience and output over HDMI and if you can do you get upscaling to 1080p? That would be a less expensive option to be able to use the 800 and have it look nice ( among other great benefits the Radience has to offer). Currently my 800v3 only does 480i.
Anyway sorry for rambling on. Any thoughts are much appreciated.

I can only guess that it has to do with the software and that they want to minimize the no of 800 versions existing out there.
With every software revision you have to put a lot of manpower to write the extra code for special versions and the 800 firmware has always been special.
Do they still offer custom built 800s or is it only the two versions D and DAX?

They only offer the two versions

This is one of the main functions of the Radiance... And 480i is exactly what you want to feed it, which (when all features are in place) will perform inverse telecine and output at 1080p24 over HDMI, for judder-free NTSC DVD...

And, of course, a VP will provide so much more.

There is another option if you buy the Radiance. You might also consider an SDI modification to your 800v3 output card and purchasing the Lumagen SDI->HDMI converter ($500) when it becomes available. That way, you'd get digital 480i straight from the MPEG decoder in the 800 into the Radiance.

Viruskiller
Thanks for that info. I am wondering if you have seen the Radiance do this and how does it compare to upscaling from the Toshiba XA2 or versus an 800 v4.

Joe, I have fed both HDMI and component 480i60 from a couple of Oppo DVD players into my Radiance and HD1 (RS-1). Upscaling to 1080p60 is superb and I would expect it to be better than both Tosh XA2 and 800v4. The 3rd generation of Tosh HD DVD players with Reon upscaling are a step up from your 2nd generation IIRC, but many prefer Lumagen's NoRing scaling.

When genlock and 24Hz support for 60Hz interlaced material is added to the Radiance, I will finally have my 480i60 -> 1080p24 solution...

vk

do you think it would be worthwhile sdi modding the g98 , who / where does this ?

ta

neil

VK
What advantage would doing the SDI mod have over 480i straight into the Radiance ? Also would M still work on a modded unit for repair ?( I realize the warranty would be voided).

Tough question. If you want the ultimate that the *G98* can offer, then yes. If you mainly watch PAL DVDs, then I wouldn't bother as the Faroudja deinterlacing is still very good. However, for scaling, I would set the G98 to "Deinterlace" and pass 576p over HDMI to an external VP.

The SDI mod would allow you to output raw digital 480i straight from the MPEG decoder, instead of processed analogue component 480i. But we are nit-picking here; the 800v3 480i component output is among the very best and many will find it more than acceptable.

Realistically though, there are better players to modify than Meridians (due to M's choice of MPEG decoder) and there are other, cheaper options. For me, the Oppo 980 + VP is a very good route to go down. Without an external VP, the choice for me would have to be the Oppo 983. When we get HDMI into our processors, both of these players should be damn fine digital transports for DVD, DVD-A and SACD audio, as well as video.

I guess what I'm saying is that, for me, the time of the high-end *DVD* player is over. You can do better elsewhere for video. You lose out on the ultimate audio performance with 3rd party players as you don't get upsampling (no way of transferring decoded DD/DTS/MLP losslessly to a Meridian processor), but that will change with HDMI. As long as the DVD player does a good job with decoding, then a Meridian processor will be able to upsample the multi-channel HDMI audio.

VK
Thanks again for the explanation on the 800. As far as the Toshiba I'm not sure which 3rd generation player you are talking about but I have the XA2 and the A-35 which I think is 3rd generation and I prefer the XA-2 over the A-35 for upscaling SD DVD but for HDDVD I might give the A-35 the edge.

VK
Also what is your opnion on getting the Radiance. Would you get the pre-production unit now without HDMI 1.3 or wait until it is available ( I know I may not have much use for 1.3 now but I want to be as "future proof" as possible). The price is less by about $500 US for the pre-production unit than it will be in a few weeks I am told-- when it goes regular production and you can add 1.3 for a short time later ( when it becomes available).

Joe, you have a PM.