OTHER TECH

The processor has plenty of picture controls that you can substitute for your projector's own settings, including three col or-temperature presets and four gamma presets to fine-tune gradations of black and white. There's also a user color-temperature setting with red, green, and blue adjustments. Four deinterlacing options are available for standard programs, but I got good results by just selecting Auto and letting the processor make the decisions.

To test the Image AnyPlace, I used a DVI cable to connect it to a Panasonic PT-AE500U LCD projector placed on a table 10 feet from an 80-inch wide Stewart GrayHawk screen. At first, I put the projector directly on the screen's center axis to check out its basic video processing (scaling and deinterlacing) capabilities.

In tough test scenes on DVD - like the scene in Toy Story where the Speak-and-Spell toy stumbles toward Woody - the Image Anyplace did a topnotch job of delivering clean images with smooth diagonal and vertical lines. And when I switched to watching video-based programs like NASCAR racing on Dish Network, the lines of the bleachers looked solid. But the processor's built-in comb filter provided only average performance with composite-video signals, and there was no noise reduction or detail enhancement to improve the poor-quality channels - like the consistently awful Golf Channel.

Afterward, I slid the projector 30° out on the horizontal plane, making the necessary adjustments and comparing the Image AnyPlace to the Panasonic's built-in digital keystone correction. I expected to see the processor work some magic and wasn't disappointed. I tweaked both the horizontal and vertical keystone adjustments until the Avia test DVD's circle-hatch pattern looked almost perfect. But when I tried the same adjustment using the projector's keystone correction, what a difference! The circles were more like ovals, and the pattern's grid lines weren't as evenly spaced.

The effects of the Image AnyPlace's processing looked most dramatic with static computer graphics and text. The rows of text in a spreadsheet were blurry and smeared with the projector handling keystone correction. With the Image AnyPlace handling the processing, they were sharp and clear. I also noted differences when viewing a 720p high-def multiburst pattern from the Digital Video Essentials D-VHS tape, with the processor providing more detail than the projector.

The differences between the Image AnyPlace and the projector's own processing proved more subtle with aerial views of Ireland's coast that I recorded from the Discovery HD channel. However, in an overhead shot of the craggy Cliffs of Moher, the processor delivered a wonderfully solid image. Viewed with the projector's processing, the image was softer, and details in the rocks seemed to "crawl."

Silicon Optix's Image AnyPlace video processor might not be the answer to every video enthusiast's needs. For example, it can't recoup the big drop in picture brightness that's an unavoidable side effect of digital keystone correction. And its DVI interface doesn't support HDCP copy protection (a version with HDCP is planned for the future). But it does an impressive job of making images look right in rooms where front and center projector placement isn't an option. By that trick alone, it's bound to make a splash in the world of big-screen home theater.