14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone's talking about upscaling nowadays as if it were the new “Mesiah” of consumer electronics. While the truth is that, albeit good, upscaling will never achieve the same level of image quality as “genuine” HD content (such as the one provided by Blu-ray discs), quite a lot of companies do release upscaling products, whether we're talking about DVD and Blu-ray players or even HDTVs. However, that's not exactly the case with Gefen, which has just launched its Audio/Video Scaler Pro with Amplifier, a device designed to fit in with all the other high-tech stuff usually found within home entertainment centers.
The device operates at video bandwidths of up to 165Mhz and supports digital HD output up to 1080p. It sports an integrated 8-bit triple-ADC/PLL, a DVI/HDCP/HDMI compliant receiver, dual scaling engines, dual 3-D motion adaptive de-interlacers with smooth low-angle edge and automatic 3:2 pull-down & 2:2 pull-down detection and recovery. Moreover, the scaler has been equipped with Gefen's Advanced Color Engine technology, which improves color levels, contrast and sharpness.
The A/V Scaler Pro is not particularly difficult to work with, since all users have to do is connect the available AV sources to the various input ports on the Gefen Audio/Video Scaler Pro, which include HDMI/DVI, DVI or VGA, Component, Composite or S-Video interfaces. The output is a HDMI interface, which is connected via an appropriate cable to the HDTV. The other settings can also be adjusted fairly easily, via the IR remote control.
In order for the HDMI output signal and external digital audio outputs to contain digital audio, each video input signal must be paired with a type of analog or digital audio signal prior to conversion to a purely digital signal. Practically, both digital and analog inputs are format converted and pixel re-scaled, which means that, by using this adapter, a large range of formats and resolutions will easily match the native resolution of one's display, thus providing the best possible video quality.
Probably the worst thing about Gefen's Audio/Video Scaler Pro with Amplifier is its price, of around 1,300 US dollars, which is almost the same as that of a mid-sized HDTV (actually, one could even pick up an entry level Blu-ray player AND and LCD/PDP for the same amount).
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