Extron doesn’t say this in their new side-by-side comparison video explaining their Vector 4K scaling engine, but they are clearing taking aim at Crestron. This video explains how they make their Vector 4K scaling chipset and is designed as an educations tool to help you understand 4K technology and signal nuances, but is also designed to explain why they think their technology is better than Crestron’s own scaling – even calling Crestron out (not by name, but it’s obvious when they show the products) as making a marketing claim of their DM 4K product as capable of 4:4:4 chroma subsampling when, according to Extron’s Vice President of Product Development, Dave Pincek, in the video, the Crestron only actually processes 4:2:2. Again, although not calling them out by name – they show their product instead, Pincek calls Crestron’s advertising and marketing of their DM 4K scaling as “deceptive.”

The video starts and ends with Pincek explaining the benefits of 4:4:4 signal processing, and how it compares to 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 processing. He then demonstrates why video processing in the RGB, or 4:4:4, color domain is required for computer-generated graphics and text. The video actually features a side-by-side comparison of an Extron scaler with 4:4:4 processing and the Crestron DM scaler with 4:2:2 processing.

Whether you’re an Extron or a Crestron supporter, the video does have some great educational elements in it – and is absolutely worth watching. Extron explains scaling features such as bicubic scaling, automatic film cadence detection and motion-adaptive de-interlacing and why ProAV integrators as well as HomeAV integrators should care about these functions in 4K scaling. Extron says that their Vector 4K scaling engine was developed internally.

Extron has posted the video behind a log-in so you have to be an Extron dealer to watch it, but we have contacted our attorney to see if we can legally rip-it and post it on our site for you to watch: www.extron.com/444videopr