To date, all of the scalers we've tested have been made in countries as far-flung as the US, Germany, and Hong Kong, this one, however, hails from UK company Calibre.
Calibre's background is in professional video and this bodes well for the company's first foray into home cinema. A good start is that the Vantage HD is built around Silicon Optix' Realta HQV (Hollywood Quality Video) chipset. This video processor can be found in a variety of advanced home cinema products including top-end Denon DVD players. To look at it, you'd never guess at the power within. The nondescript black box sports the bare minimum of controls (labelled in black for some reason) and has no front-panel display. There are menu controls, but these are an alternative to the handset for onscreen configuration. However, a nice touch is the cyclical input selector – useful if the remote isn't to hand.
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The rear-panel is more comprehensive – certainly in terms of connectivity. There are two component inputs (which will also accept RGB Scart sources if the right adaptor cable is used), two composite video inputs, two for S-video and a VGA-type (RGBHV, analogue) input for your PC.
You also get a pair of HDMI 1.1 inputs though we would have preferred more, given the explosion in digital sources. Thankfully, two more (and HDMI 1.3 to boot!) will shortly be added at extra cost courtesy of an ‘expansion slot'. An HD-SDI board or alternative can already be plugged in here.
