It’s me again
As promised I wanted to evaluate the PQ of the ATV and of infuse. I dont have much time right now so this is just a small and quick overview.
Display device is my JVC X35 on a 105" screen.
Connected via AVR with all video processing disabled.
I tested the ATV with infuse, MrMC (hardware acceleration VideoToolbox and AVFoundation is enabled) and Plex (because they use the stock player) and the reference device is a Popcorn Hour A-500.
Note:
Projector was calibrated but since has run 2,000 hours so that its not calibrated anymore.
Differences in color/brightness are due to overlays when the video is paused in certain apps.
Chroma upsampling:
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex
Infuse has an excellent Chroma upsampling, even better than the PCH.
Ranking:
Infuse
PCH
MrMC
Plex (worst by far as they only use the simple nearest neighbor method)
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex:
PCH and Infuse very similar but I give the edge to Infuse. Then MrMC and Plex.
Clipping:
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex:
All but Infuse pass the clipping test. This is something you definitely need to have a look at.
Banding (all four dots should be visible in all boxes):
PCH:
Infuse (sorry its not sharp, but there is no banding):
MrMC:
Plex:
PCH and Infuse pass as they dont exhibit banding. However, MrMC and Plex show clear banding.
Colorspace conversion:
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex:
The same result as for the clipping: All but Infuse pass. If you would have applied the wrong BT.601 conversion instead of BT.709 there should be dots inside the red and white boxes. However, there aren’t any. I dont know if this is due to my projector not being properly calibrated anymore of if there is something else going on. So please investigate here as well.
That said, all pictures regarding the colorspace or banding should look identical to the PCH as this was tested to have zero errors in this regard.
Upscaling via 720p AVC mp4:
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex:
Actually hard to decide which is better. Will need to test other patterns.
Some “real life” chroma upsamling patterns in AVC mkv.
PCH:
Infuse:
MrMC:
Plex:
Hard to rank them:
- MrMC. Softer but less pixelated
- Infuse
- PCH
- Plex
I’m under the impression that Infuse does not decode AVC videos but just passes them to the decoder. Therefore, the video should look identical to the internal player which Plex relies on. However, this is clearly not the case. So my question is why? Is it because apple does not support mkv natively and therefore its decoded by software?
Further conclusions:
Infuse offers excellent chrima upsampling but has problems with clipping and correct colorspace.
Plex (internal player) offers the worst PQ by far.
//edit:
It appears that your forum software doesnt allow for pictures inside the thread.
Have a look at the complete gallery here:
The order is always: PCH, Infuse, MrMC, Plex.