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ES DVD Players
Technical Background
Version 4.0; August 8, 2005
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Introduction Sony ES engineers are superbly educated, exceptionally well equipped and have ready access to world-leading in-house technologies. But these alone do not explain the soul of Sony's ES Series. You see, the creators of these components are motivated by their passion for music and movies. That's what drives them late into the night, seeking to control visual artifacts that most viewers will never notice. That's what takes them into the listening room, seeking to identify
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® i.LINK and HDMI™ Digital Interfaces In 1985, the engineers of Sony® ES surprised the world of high fidelity. The Sony CDP-650ES was the world's first CD transport with a digital output, enabling unheard-of sound quality and unprecedented flexibility in audio system configuration. Now such interfaces are taken for granted in high fidelity. In 1997, Sony staged another coup with the DCR-VX1000 Handycam® camcorder, the world's first video component to incorporate IEEE 1394, called
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Speakers Amplifier SA-CD Player Analog D/A A/D D/A SA-CD LPF Volume DSP Power convert convert convert Amp Digital Signal Analog Signal Typical SA-CD reproduction involves numerous D/A and A/D conversions. The i.LINK digital connection can simplify the signal path. However, these analog connections can expose the Super Audio CD signal to repeated D/A and A/D conversions. The i.LINK® interface of the DVP- NS9100ES overcomes this limitation. The i.LINK interface
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4 2 3 1 Internal layout of the DVP-NS9100ES as seen from the back. You can see the edge of one of the R-Core power transformers (1), the analog audio circuit (2), and the analog video circuits (3). The digital audio circuit board (4), which includes and the i.LINK output is partially hidden behind the analog video circuit. The i.LINK® digital audio interface uses Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP), a robust system that protects the music from piracy. The applica
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High quality digital Audio Transmission System (HATS) The design of the i.LINK® interface is exceptional because communicating six streams of 2.8224 MHz digital samples raises extreme challenges. Conveying 1-bit signals at such high data rates and synchronizing the signals with the other component's master clock would normally expose the signal to the time-base errors called jitter. These errors translate directly into time-based distortion of the audio waveform. The connectio
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free signal at the full quartz-crystal accuracy of the receiver's master clock. You get all the benefits of digital transmission, without exposing the signal to the potential for jitter-induced distortion. Dual i.LINK® interfaces The DVP-NS9100ES actually has two i.LINK® interfaces in daisy chain 1 configuration. You can connect a second i.LINK source component to the DVP- NS9100ES, while the NS9100ES itself connects to a single i.LINK interface port on the STR-DA7100ES A/V receive
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An HDMI™ plug and its corresponding jack. To begin with, many DVDs originate on film or progressive scanning video. These discs are encoded in 480p progressive scanning to deliver twice the vertical resolution as conventional 480i video. Sony's HD "upscaling" outputs this signal as 480p, 720p or 1080i High Definition via the High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI™) jack. You owe it to yourself to spend some time admiring the results. Slip in a top-quality DVD, and the upsc
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The options for audio are equally rich. The HDMI™ output of Sony® ES Series players can support a full range of digital audio, including 2-channel stereo PCM, Dolby® Digital and DTS® 5.1-channel compressed audio and even uncompressed multi-channel PCM audio! The DVP-NS9100ES incorporates the awesome capabilities of the Silicon Images Sil9030 Large Scale Integrated Circuit (LSI). Thanks to the Sil9030, the NS9100ES can output uncompressed digital images up to 1080i and uncompressed digi
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Finally, the components agree on the highest available quality options for digital audio and video—and then automatically transfer content at that quality! DVP-NS9100ES Television or NS3100ES with HDMI input OK. I can output those signals. Thank you We've considered just a DVD player and a television. But the dynamic changes when you insert the Sony® STR-DA7100ES A/V receiver into the reproduction chain. In this case, the source component DVD player can only talk to the ne
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Video Performance Precision Cinema Progressive™ circuitry The purpose of today's high-end home theater systems is to recreate the look and sound of the movie theater. This includes the vivid detail and seamless coherence of the film frame. A crucial technology for achieving this goal is DVD- Video playback with progressive scanning, "480P" output. This works with many of today's "HD capable" and "HD monitor" televisions, which offer 480P inputs. For example, Sony markets this capa
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The mathematical algorithms of Sony's Pixel-by-Pixel Active I/P conversion have been committed to silicon in this Large Scale Integrated circuit (LSI), the Sony CXD9866R. Sony solves the problem with Pixel-by-Pixel Active I/P conversion that includes built-in motion detection. The system automatically recognizes each type of material and applies the appropriate processing. This enables us to generate the ideal progressive scanning output for each type of DVD source. • Film
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• Film and video material shown simultaneously. The Sony® system performs beautifully even when film and video appear on-screen at the same time, for example, when video-originated subtitles are superimposed over a film-originated scene. Because the Sony system analyzes each individual pixel, it can switch processing modes anywhere—even in the middle of a scanning line! In contrast, conventional systems need to wait until the end of the field before switching between film and video mode
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EVEN future ODD current EVEN Past 1 ODD Past 2 EVEN Past 3 Pixel-by-Pixel Active I/P conversion and interlaced video origination Many of today's DVDs feature concert videos, documentaries, current events, sports, nature footage and other subjects originally captured on interlaced video. For this reason, any high-end progressive scanning system must solve the problem of motion artifacts for footage shot on video. Video based I/P conversion creates new pixels from existing information.
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EVEN future ODD current EVEN Past 1 ODD Past 2 EVEN Past 3 Still Moving Processing Processing Still Part Moving Part The typical interlaced video frame includes both still and moving pixels. Sony Pixel-by-Pixel Active I/P conversion applies separate processing for each. • Pixels for still objects are the easiest to handle. When objects are not moving, the player can simply use the corresponding pixel from the previous field. Because there is no motion, these pixels will
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EVEN future ODD current EVEN Past 1 ODD Past 2 EVEN Past 3 Scanning lines Time sequence MOVING PIXEL PROCESSING Pixels for moving objects are created by composing pixels from the scanning lines immediately above and below in the same field. This minimizes motion blur. Thanks to Sony's flexible approach, still backgrounds are impressively sharp and detailed, while moving objects in the same scene are free from motion artifacts. You'll see more consistent, more satisf
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occur in part of the video image part of the time. Most people would not notice the artifact without being told when and where to watch for it. But Sony's program for these ES components required us to address even subtle distortions. The problem is jaggedness in the edges that separate areas of the scene, especially when the edges are straight lines, when they're diagonal and when there's a big difference in contrast between the areas they separate. Rooflines, car hoods, venetian b
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approach the full glory of High Definition picture quality—from today's standard DVDs. 14-bit D/A Conversion (NS9100ES) The binary word length used in video digital-to-analog (D/A) conversion helps determine the gray scale performance of the picture. This can be seen, for example, in the play of light across the face of an actress, as the light of a candle falls off into shadow. Longer word lengths contribute to smoother, more realistic transitions from dark to light. Startin
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subtle examples, noise appears as a texture or graininess not present in the original picture. These Sony® ES Series DVD players achieve a remarkable combination of superb fine picture detail and excellent clarity, thanks to 216 MHz oversampling in the D/A converter. To understand how 216 MHz oversampling can have such a powerful effect on picture quality, it helps to understand the concepts of digital sampling and aliasing noise. Digital recording systems work by "sampling" th
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samples. 8X oversampling inserts seven additional samples. And 16X oversampling inserts fifteen additional samples. The benefit is this: in the process of generating additional samples, oversampling shifts the aliasing noise up in frequency, opening up substantial room between the video signal and the noise. With more room, we can relax the design of the analog filter, which can be far milder in slope, and far more effective at optimizing both the picture detail and the picture clarit
