CAL CL 2500 Review
Dear Gary: In the review of California Audio Labs’ CL 2500 DVD player (Issue 43), I was surprised to find no mention of its lack of progressive scan capabilities. Granted, it has the best picture that Mr. Buettner has ever seen, but it was paired with the DWIN Transcanner. The retail prices of these combined units is $5,000, and some readers might not focus on this fact. I think some readers might assume that the CL 2500 is progressive scan, considering its price. The review should have been clear that this player is not progressive scan, especially since there are excellent alternative choices for far less money than the CAL/DWIN combination. I don’t think this particular review was entirely objective and indicative of the state of progressive DVD. Other than that complaint, keep up the great work!
Mark Giovannetti, Berlin, Germany
Equipment Review Editor Shane Buettner
Thank you for writing. If I follow the gist of your letter, it’s your contention that I should have been critical of the California Audio Labs (CAL) CL 2500 DVD player for its lack of progressive scan output. At Widescreen Review our approach to home theatre has always been to advocate "the best that it can be." In the magazine’s premiere reference systems (including Editor-In-Chief Gary Reber’s various video systems, Video Technical Editor Greg Rogers’ reference system, and my own reference video system), we use front projection systems with dedicated video processors, one of which is the Sony G90/DWIN Transcanner setup I used to evaluate the CAL DVD player. While progressive scan DVD players offer very good performance for the dollar the deinterlacing quality they provide hasn’t reached the performance level established by the best dedicated video processors. Additionally, for many front projection systems the 480p output of a progressive scan DVD player is not sufficient to obtain a high quality image, which means that scaling the image to higher resolutions (as dedicated video processors do) is necessary to obtain the best image quality. Therefore, a high quality interlaced output is exactly what is required of a DVD player to obtain the best video system performance available today, and in that regard the CAL is a high-end player. CAL obviously agrees with this approach and has always had the intention of integrating high quality video scaling and deinterlacing into their CL 2500 video switcher. They were not content to merely add a digital domain deinterlacing chip into their DVD player as many manufacturers of progressive scan DVD players have done. By the time you read this, CAL was to have begun shipping the upgraded versions of the CL 2500 video switch and will also be offering field upgrades to existing units. They built the CL 2500 DVD player to be a part of their high-end home theatre system which includes a digital controller, multichannel power amplifier, DVD-Video player, and video processor/switcher. All of these components are dedicated to specific tasks but can be "networked" together via RS-232 ports to function as a seamless system. Further enhancing the value of the CL 2500 is its performance as an upsampling CD player that will improve the sound of every CD in your collection. So, while the CAL player doesn’t have progressive scan capability it does offer the kind of performance that commands a strong recommendation for a high-end home theatre system.
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