Loewe Q2500 VGA Upgrade Kit
More Than Meets The Eye
A week ago today I had a VGA card installed in my Loewe Aconda TV. Some of you are no doubt thinking what’s so interesting about a VGA card? How does this relate to home theatre? The answer is that this is no ordinary VGA card! On the surface it appears to be another run of the mill card for European TVs that allows you to connect your PC at 640x480, but in actual fact there is a much more powerful use for this card lurking beneath the surface.
The situation with the card is an interesting and unusual one, as Loewe have hidden away some significant capabilities of their TVs when paired up with VGA card, without so much as a single reference to them in any of their literature or on their website. Indeed speaking to Loewe owners and even Loewe dealer’s across Australia, I have come to the conclusion that very few people are aware of these capabilities at all.
What capabilities am I speaking of? How does progressive input at a variety of different scan rates and resolutions sound? Some of which can put the TV into the HDTV arena (at least going by the official Australian definition of HD). Although the included Loewe manual and other associated documentation only refers to support for 640x480p (in other words basic 4x3 VGA resolution) the reality is that the Loewe Q2500 chassis now has support for a variety of higher 4x3 and 16x9 resolutions that are perfectly suited for use with an HTPC, or possibly some scalers that give you control over geometry (more on geometry later).
All is not perfect however. The great problem with this capability is that’s not easy to achieve. Getting Loewe TVs to sync to resolutions higher than 640x480 with a nice centered picture can be difficult to say the least, and requires a good understanding of scan rates, refresh rates and custom resolutions. Additionally the control over the input and associated screen geometry is very limited, meaning even though different products are now offering VGA output (for example some HD set top boxes), a PC is really the only device suitable for the custom settings required to get the most out of the card?s capabilities.
Obviously the only program worth using to achieve good results with an HTPC is the awesome PowerStrip. One of the best pieces of software ever released in my opinion! For those that aren’t aware Powerstrip allow you to set any custom resolution and refresh rate you can think of, providing your graphics card and display supports it. You can then use the PowerStrip geometry controls to centre that picture perfectly on your TV (each custom resolution can store different geometry settings) so that whenever you switch resolutions your display is perfectly filled & centered without needing to resort to the display’s own geometry settings. Very handy in the case of Loewe TVs which have extremely mediocre VGA geometry controls to say the least. Even more annoying is that you can only save one geometry preset on Loewe TVs (which will only suit one resolution) so the ability to alter geometry on the PC to match the TV is a must. PowerStrip does this perfectly.
The Q2500 chassis is also very picky about matching refresh rates to given resolutions so this also where PowerStrip is a godsend. From my findings my Aconda will only sync to around 3 different resolutions at 50hz (which is obviously well suited to PAL material), and many more at the more common 60hz which is well suited for NTSC and general PC usage. There is no support for any refresh rate higher than 60hz at any resolution, but this is normal for a CRT television when displaying a progressive picture. The flicker at 60hz from normal viewing distances is minimal being progressive.
Anyway I’m getting way ahead of myself so let’s start at the beginning
Installation
Thanks to Dave Hughes, a local technician from Electronic Design in Hobart, the VGA card was installed in no time. From what I saw it’s pretty much a case of plugging in the card, and some associated connections, then enabling the card from the service menu. This however is not a task anyone should perform themselves unless fully qualified to do so, as tinkering around inside your television is never a good idea unless you know exactly what you are doing. Getting a technician to install the VGA card for you is the only way to go.
When we had confirmed that the TV was displaying a 640x480p picture, I thanked Dave for his time and moved onto the fun stuff.
Connection
I recently built a new PC with a Radeon 9700 graphics card which has support for dual VGA output in the form of one standard 15 pin VGA connection, and one DVI which can be converted into VGA by using the included DVI->VGA dongle. Thanks to this card I can keep my PC in the study where it belongs, and have one VGA connection hooked up to my PC monitor, and the other routed through the wall out to my Aconda in the lounge room. To make this set-up practical I invested in a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop package which has a wireless range of 10 feet, allowing me to use the keyboard and mouse in the next room without running any cables.
After I had connected my PC, and set-up the Radeon software for dual VGA output, it was time to see what the VGA card was really capable of!
Setup and Testing
This first thing to do was to add some custom resolutions to Powerstrip that are not enabled by the graphics card out of the box. The first I tried was 720x480p@60hz which as most of you are aware is NTSC resolution. Initially I couldn’t get the TV to sync to this resolution which was naturally a little disappointing. Luckily I persevered and discovered that in order for some resolutions to work, the horizontal scan rate and various alignments features (listed as ?back porch? ?front porch? and ?sync width?) must often be spot on for the TV to sync to the given resolution. Loewe sure haven’t made things easy! Luckily once you suss out how these various adjustments work, getting the TV to sync to the various resolutions it supports is relatively straightforward. It’s just a matter of trial and error. Worthy of note is that having a graphics card with dual VGA output is a must as otherwise you’ll be constantly switching between your TV and monitor as you try and get the TV to sync to various settings.
Anyway moving along, once 720x480p was working well it was time to have a closer look at image quality. General Windows image quality is actually very good at this resolution. Text and fine detail is easy to read (or as easy as can be expected at a low resolution from normal seating distance) and there isn’t the slightest hint of noise or visual distortion onscreen. Geometry also remains spot on when viewing high contrast material. Put simply the picture is crystal clear.
The big problem however is that 720x480 is close to 4x3 resolution (640x480 is a true 4x3 resolution) but the TV doesn’t display it that way! I quickly discovered that when fed a 4x3 VGA resolution Loewe TVs stretch the picture out to fill the screen. The result is obviously a geometrically inaccurate picture with everything taking on an elongated appearance. When you use the VGA input the normal aspect ratio controls (4x3/16x9/Cine/Zoom) are bypassed, meaning you have no control over the aspect ratio. Unfortunately even using the VGA geometry controls built into the set you are unable to correct for this, as you can not squeeze the picture back into a 4x3 area. This is completely unacceptable in my opinion and a major oversight on Loewe’s behalf. I imagine they think that most people would rather fill the screen with a PC picture rather than having the ?black bars? down the sides, but to me this is just not good enough. How hard would it be to add the option to display the picture as 4x3?!
Luckily if using this resolution for DVD playback, all DVD software players allow you to untick the ?keep aspect ratio button? so that the picture will be geometrically correct and fill the screen perfectly. However I intended to use my TV for much more than just software DVD playback so finding some geometrically correct 16x9 picture resolutions was an absolute must. I knew they had to exist so it was just a matter of working my way through the most common 16x9 resolutions!
The next setting I tried was 848x480 (853 by 480 is also an acceptable and commonly used ratio but 848 is a true16x9 ratio). I was very pleased to see the TV sync to this resolution immediately! I only needed to tweak a couple of geometry settings to get the image centered, but apart from that it was a breeze. The picture was now geometrically correct, and I could use my PC as normal without digital photos and other important software being stretched across the screen. Hooray! I knew this resolution would also be great for widescreen NTSC playback but more on that later.
This was starting to get interesting! If the TV can sync to 4x3 and 16x9 NTSC resolutions, what could it do with settings that match PAL ratios?
Obviously the best one to start with was 720x576p@50hz. This was not as easy to set-up as I had hoped. The picture was extremely unstable at first and required a reasonable amount of tweaking to get perfect. Once set-up correctly however the image quality was absolutely stunning. Apart from the inevitable 50hz flicker, the picture was rock stable and beautifully sharp, resolving every little fine detail on offer. Of course this was an also another near 4x3 resolution, so yet again the TV stretched the picture to fill the screen. To get 576p to be geometrically correct on a 16x9 screen a picture resolution of 1024x576 is required, which I was almost positive my TV wasn’t going to support. I had already tried 4x3 resolutions higher than 720x576 and none of them worked, so 1024x576 seemed out of the question. Initial testing at this setting confirmed my thoughts (or so I thought) as the picture was a garbled mess. However! After messing around with settings for about 20 minutes I slowly started to see a good picture emerge. Further fine tweaking resulted in a perfectly stable picture at 1024x576@50hz! I really was very surprised with this as other similar resolutions are completely unworkable. It’s obvious that Loewe must have added support particularly for this screen resolution which means they must have had widescreen PAL material in mind. One has to ask why on earth they hide it away and make it so difficult to set up, but alas support for this awesome resolution does exist.
DVD Playback
Now that I had successfully found support for the 4 best resolutions suited to DVD playback, it was time to fire up WinDVD 4.0 and see what my TV was really capable of!
I chose Star Wars Episode 2 R4 for initial testing as it’s an excellent PAL transfer I’m very familiar with, and knew of several scenes that displayed very ugly aliasing on interlaced displays. The computer was set to 1024x576 which I found to produce the best results for PAL material. When the DVD started to play I knew I was in for a real treat. The famous scrolling text beginning of Star wars films that we all know and love had a completely different look to it than I was used to. Gone was the slight shimmering around the edges of text, and the slight ?stepping? effect that is present when text moves vertically across an interlaced display. Instead there was a seamless rock stable movement to the picture with obviously enhanced vertical resolution. All this and I hadn’t even got past the opening scene!
Moving on to more exiting parts of the film, and my jaw was firmly planted to the ground at the image quality I was experiencing! As good as the Aconda's internal digital processing is, there is only so much you can do with an interlaced picture. In progressive scan the picture was infinitely more ?film like? and had a solid and seamless look to it which is very hard to put into words. Gone were all traces of aliasing in scenes that were normally riddled with it (the shot were Obi walks pasts some stairs at 34:36 is one that leaps to mind) and all elements of interline flicker, shimmering, and over-processing of the image were gone. The only negative aspects of viewing DVDs this way (as opposed to using a DVD player and Loewe's internal interlaced processing), is the drop to a 50hz refresh rate (normally 100hz when viewing interlaced) and the heavily increased judder when pans take place (as DMI is no longer present to subtly smooth movement). I did find 50hz very annoying initially but slowly got used to it to the point where it was just tolerable. Whether other people would rather progressive scan over these other digital processing features is something people have to decide for themselves, but personally I think I am becoming increasingly addicted to the film like quality of progressive
NTSC DVDs
Next up it was time to test out NTSC which I was even more intrigued about. The reason being that as many of you know Loewe TVs have onboard internal progressive scan processing which converts an interlaced NTSC signal to progressive scan at 60hz, using the sets own de-interlacing feature. This meant that by inputting 480p (that has already been de-interlaced in the digital domain by the PC) I was effectively putting Loewe’s de-interlacing up against that of WinDVD which is about as good as it gets for PC based de-interlacing. Considering the picture is displayed at 60hz via both methods, it was an also a much more direct picture quality comparison between PC based progressive input, and the picture I get from an interlaced Toshiba player using component input.
I chose The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition R1 for this task as it?s probably the nicest NTSC transfer I own. Having watched it only a week before on the Aconda it was also a transfer I was reasonably familiar with. I skipped straight to the scene where Gandalf enters the Shire as the scenes from this point onwards are filled with stunning saturated colors and the transfer around this point really shows how good NTSC can look. To be honest I didn’t expect a huge amount of difference in image quality as I'd always been pretty impressed with Loewe’s NTSC processing, but man was I wrong!! The difference in image quality between the two methods was like night and day. In fact it was FAR more pronounced than the difference between interlaced and progressive PAL was! The image appeared to be twice as sharp, had far less shimmering along diagonal edges, and the difference in fine details (particularly on textures such as clothing and grass) was phenomenal. I can only conclude that when using the TV to de-interlace a picture a lot of fine detail is lost through the digital (DVD player)->to analogue (conversion by DVD Player for connection to TV)->to digital (back to digital for de-interlacing by TV)->to analogue (back to analogue for display) process. In comparison when using a PC or progressive DVD player to de-interlace a DVD, there is only the normal digital->analogue conversion by the PC/DVD player. In addition I’m certain that WinDVD uses a far more intelligent de-interlacing process (motion adaptive based from what I can tell) to the basic line doubling technique used on Loewe TVs. The reason I say this is that not only is the image so much more vibrant, sharp and detailed, but the 3:2 judder is heavily reduced using the PC, as is the shimmering present on some diagonal edges. There is no doubt that 3:2 judder is also reduced when using the Loewe’s own de-interlacing (as opposed to switching it off for interlaced NTSC) but using WinDVD went one step further for even smoother pans making 3:2 judder even harder to detect for most camera movements.
Conclusion
There is no doubt about it. Using progressive input via VGA on Loewe TVs results in a phenomenally better picture for NTSC DVDs and a significantly better image (at least in most ways) for PAL. With a bit of time and patience the Loewe VGA upgrade card can be a very worthwhile investment. Considering its capabilities one has to wonder why Loewe haven’t advertised the fact that their TVs can have true progressive input, or have even made mention of these specs in any of their instruction books (even the VGA card instructions!). You also have to wonder, if Loewe TVs can display up to 1024x576p, why on earth don’t Loewe add progressive component inputs so that their TVs can be used with stand alone progressive DVD players and HD STBs?! Going by Australian DTV definitions this would effectively make them "HDTV’s (even if truly only EDTVs from a technical perspective).This surely makes sense from a marketing perspective, and would certainly help Loewe ?get with the times? as far as DTV goes, so it amazes me they haven’t tapped into this capability.
So the big question is should you bother upgrading to this card for HTPC usage? As mentioned previously this will really depend on the individual and how the various pros and cons affect them. I would list these as follows:
Pros of using an HTPC with VGA input for DVD playback:
* Smoother, more ?film like? picture.
* Enhanced vertical resolution, particularly during scenes with vertical movement.
* All interlaced artifacts (aliasing, shimmering, interline flicker) are removed.
* Sharper picture.
* Drastically superior NTSC picture with heavily reduced 3:2 judder.
Cons of using an HTPC with VGA input for DVD playback:
*Very fiddly to initially set-up custom resolutions that sync to the TV (however only needs to be done once).
* DVD playback can be glitchy with little stutters, unless you put considerable time into tweaking PC for optimal playback.
*Loss of DMI processing and 100hz results in juddery movement, increased noise (As DMI has a noise removal process), and very noticeable flicker of 50hz material.
*All digital processing and aspect ratio control of TV is lost when using VGA input.
*Fiddly process of operating DVD playback via PC.
As far as my own personal use goes, whether I choose to use the PC to watch DVDs, or continue to use my stand alone player, will be entirely software dependant. I’ll probably stick to using the standalone player for most PAL titles, mainly for the ?less hassle? factor and also because the Loewe digital processing for interlaced material is first class, resulting in a ?near progressive quality picture. I also find the 100hz refresh rate far easier on the eye, and the DMI processing makes camera pans much more pleasant to watch. On the other hand I love the progressive look and the increased visual quality using the PC provides, so for those special transfers I want to view with the absolute best film like quality I will probably use the VGA input. As for NTSC, I doubt I will ever use the Loewe’s internal de-interlacing again! From now on all NTSC DVDs will be played back via the PC. The difference in image quality is really that great.
Also worthy of note is that the VGA card can be used for far more than just DVD playback. I am using it constantly for digital photo slideshows, viewing trailers, quick checking of email and websites (handy to quickly check a related website after watching a film) and much more. The picture quality for general PC usage is best at 848x480 which gives a great 16x9 picture with minimal flicker.
Personally for $270 all up ($150 for the card and $120 installation) it?s been a very worthwhile investment for me.
Package Includes:
*VGA Card (funny that!)
*An ugly VGA cable (Junk! Buy a decent one! )
*IR Emitter (for using the Loewe IR Link feature)
*Cheapy sound cable (mini jack connections for soundcard to TV connection if desired)
*Terrible Instructions (mainly covering installation)
Other stuff you’ll want:
*A Powerful PC (1ghz plus / 256MB ram+ / New ATi or nVidia graphics card preferably with dual monitor connections (unless its a dedicated HTPC) / S/PDIF sound output. A Wireless keyboard and mouse is also highly recommended
*A high quality VGA cable (see Questronix for great VGA cables)
*PowerStrip ? An absolute must!
*WinDVD, PowerDVD, TheatreTek or Zoom Player
*Patience!
PowerStrip Timings
Below you will find the custom resolutions and timings I have created for PowerStrip which are perfectly suited to my Aconda. Whether these same timings will work well with other Loewe Q2500 TVs I don’t know, but I imagine at the very least they will head you in the direction. There is a function where you can past timings directly into PowerStrip so highlight and cut and paste the text that isn?t bold.
640x480p@60hz (4x3 VGA resolution) - 640x480=640,39,96,89,480,16,2,27,27216,278
720x480p@60hz (4x3 NTSC resolution) - 720x480=720,47,72,137,480,17,3,26,30803,278
720x576p@50hz (4x3 PAL resolution ) - 720x576=720,40,96,112,576,23,4,27,30492,272
848x480p@60hz (16x9 NTSC resolution) - 848x480=848,44,96,148,480,15,2,28,35785,272
1024x576p@50hz (16x9 PAL resolution) - 1024x576=1024,84,104,228,576,17,3,22,44496,272
I also found support for a couple of other interesting resolutions (between 4x3 and 16x9) which you might want to try:
768x480p@60hz - 768x480=768,55,80,153,480,13,3,20,32695,278
768x576@50hz - 768x576=768,62,80,162,576,18,3,22,33178,272
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