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Review: Flexible Picture Systems Image AnyPlace-200 Video Upscaler

Your HDTV can go only so far with picture quality. So when you feed it a crap signal, like from an old game console or a badly transferred-from-film movie, let FPS's Image AnyPlace take over and it'll spit out buttery-smooth goodness.
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Rating:

7/10

WIRED
Pro-level video processing from Silicon Optix takes the crappiest video sources (yes, even VHS) and spits out smooth 1080p goodness worthy of your fancy new TV.
TIRED
Pro-level features are lost on many consumers. Costs more than that fancy new TV.

When you watch an HDTV at the store, you can bet that you're watching perfectly clean, non-interlaced HD clips — in short, canned content designed to make your TV's picture look pristine. And chances are your HD channels at home will look similarly decent. But what happens when you feed it the crap signal from an old game console or (worse yet) a DVD of a badly transferred-from-film movie?

That's where the Image AnyPlace comes in handy. It accepts pretty much any form of video input — composite, component, S-video, DVI, RGB, or HDMI — and converts it to HDMI, DVI, or RGB output suitable for display on your TV or projector. Along the way it cleans up all sorts of nastiness like noisy picture, juddery motion due to odd cadences, interlaced video, and images too small for your monster-sized set.

But the Image AnyPlace really shines when attached to a projector. Its powerful geometry correction means you can mount the projector almost anywhere in the room and still see an unwarped image on the screen. Just plug in your laptop, load up FPS's software, and you can take charge of the Image AnyPlace's output, tailoring it to your specific installation.