My recent experience with Onkyo TXSR804 HDMI Uplink and Samsung HD860 DVD Player

[sommert]

Hello all,

I wanted write about my frustration trying to get the most out of my HD TV.

I recently purchased a Samsung 50” HP-S5053 Plasma Television. However, I really couldn’t take advantage of the TVs capabilities because 1 – My Current Sony 5.1 AV/R does have component or HDMI inputs and 2- I don’t own any equipment yet able to produce an good HD signal. I have a Direct TV HD on order that will be here on the 18th so I thought I would start upgrading the rest of my system and reduce some cabling. I spend about a week researching HDMI receivers and decided on the Onkyo TXSR804. The reviews are excellent and a friend bought one who said he recommended it as well. Believe it or not, Circuit City had this on their web site for 749.99 last Thursday and Friday. I hurried to the store and they matched the price. They still had it for 1099.00 on the floor. While I was there I also decided to upgrade my DVD player. I picked up the Samsung DVD-HD860 figuring it had to produce a better picture with the HMDI output than my older JVC, which I am only running S-VIDEO. I will also mention my HDMI cables came from bluejeans.com cable, which was recommended by this site.

I brought the new equipment home and hooked it all up. At this point I was running this setup:

Samsung HD860 DVD -> Onkyo-> Plasma – (all HDMI cabling)

Older Samsung Direct TV Receiver -> Onkyo via S-Video -> Up-conversion via HDMI to Plasma

I set the video settings on the DVD player and Onyko to 16:9
I fired up my DTV and surfed a few channels. I instantly noticed the picture wasn’t as good as the old S-Video setup. I think a bit “grainy” would best describe it. It wasn’t a bad picture, but certainly not as good as the old S-Video setup. My blonde wife even noticed and she never has an opinion on the TV. I checked all the cables, messed with every setting imaginable and still couldn’t get a picture equivalent to the original S-Video setup. I put the DTV aside for a while and started messing with the new DVD player thinking maybe the Up-Conversion isn’t as good as advertised on the Onkyo.

The DVD player too wasn’t any better than the old S-Video either. In fact, it was worse too. I used the Finding Nemo DVD which has some very crisp images. Any Video degradation is easy to spot. I messed with some aspect ratio settings and resolution on the Samsung with no luck. I bypassed the Onkyo and went HDMI right to the TV and the picture didn’t improve either.
I got frustrated and packed everything up and took it back. I wasn’t about to be out almost a grand and not have any quality improvement. The sound on the Onkyo was just fine, but wouldn’t say it sounded any better than my Sony, but I still haven’t upgraded to a 7.1 speaker system.

I didn’t do much homework on the DVD player since it was an impulse purchase. The reviews are very mixed on it after researching the HD860. Some had the same experience I did (worse picture quality).
So my conclusion on all of this is one of the following. I am leaning towards #1.

1. The Onkyo Up-Conversion from S-Video isn’t that great and the Samsung DVD Player sucks. It was cheap (under 100 bucks)

2. My HDMI cable to the TV may be defective. It is a long 30’ run, but I was assured by BlueJeans their HDMI cable supports this distance.

3. I did something wrong.

I still want to upgrade to a HDMI AVR and get a good DVD player but certainly don’t want to go through all this again and would like your advice on what the issue may be. As you know it’s a pain in the *** having to swap an AV/R out with all the cabling.

Thanks in advance,

Tim

 

[kingchorizo]

I think there are a few issues here

1. The Onkyo TXSR804 does support analog-to HDMI conversion, however it doesn't actually output to 480p instead it remains at 480i out the HDMI. Thus you are esentially introducing more noise by the time your TV get the signal and does its own digital to analog and vice-versa connection the picture will actually look worse. Why the receiver is already doing one A to D conversion in then outputs it to D and your TV again down coverts it to A signal. Hence the grainy picture. Keep in mind all your RX is doing is garbage in garbage out with the HDMI output. Think of it as a pass through signal. It is not upconverting that 480i signal S-video to 480p out the HDMI cable or even upconverting it to either 720p or 1080i signal. Plus you have to set your HDMI ouput signal on the reciever menu to a 720p since your TV can only support a native resolution of 1,366 x 768.

2. Secondally, I notice you mentioned a 30ft HDMI run... HDMI cables are not meant to run at these lengths before you begin to get digital dropouts and loss of signal quality. Sure Blue Jeans is a good cable, but at 30ft a HMDI v1.1 cable is not meant for long distances. A nitrogen injected cable with perhaps an "integrated" amp may help...maybe. i stick with the reliable anolog component outputs (RGB) or even the DVI output. The whole HDMI is a mess, with limited long distance runs, HDCP "handshake" issues with other TV sets and components, digital drop outs etc. Sure having one cable to TV is convenient for both audio and video but with all these issues? NO thanks.

3. That shitty samsung dvd player. Enough said. Poor quality video scalers, poor components, horrible DACS, video circuitry..average at best.

4. Your Samsung 50” HP-S5053- HDTV signal feeds = overall good picture..Analog on the otherhand= very soft images with standard 480i. Then again ANY analog signal to Digital TV will always look like crap. That is why the ol reliable CRT will always look better with an analog feed then your new shiny 50" inch plasma can handle. Remember HDTV signal to digital tv= picture nirvana, analog signal to digtial tv= $hit.

5. Circuit City? Come on...you may as well bought your components at Kmart.

 

[sommert]

Thanks

Thanks for the reply. I am glad there is an explaination for this. I guess I will wait and see what happens when I get my HD DTV box and run that straight into the TV. I think that will elliminate the cable lenth as an issue and I will also try it with a shorter cable.

It's very tough for me to run cabling If I have to run some component I will. I dont have much of a choice in the length since the TV only fits well on one wall and the AV component are across the room.

I dont normally shop at CC either, but that price for the Onkyo is about the best I have seen from an authorized dealer.

As for the Samsung POS, any recommendations on a player that supports HDMI thats going to give me good video?

 

[kingchorizo]

Thanks for the reply. I am glad there is an explaination for this. I guess I will wait and see what happens when I get my HD DTV box and run that straight into the TV. I think that will elliminate the cable lenth as an issue and I will also try it with a shorter cable.

It's very tough for me to run cabling If I have to run some component I will. I dont have much of a choice in the length since the TV only fits well on one wall and the AV component are across the room.

I dont normally shop at CC either, but that price for the Onkyo is about the best I have seen from an authorized dealer.

As for the Samsung POS, any recommendations on a player that supports HDMI thats going to give me good video?

Keep in mind in order to "upconvert" that 480p signal to either a 720p or 1080i you will have to use either a DVI or HDMI cable. Otherwise use your component cable and set the DVD player to output a progressive scan image and you are good to go. The lower end "upconversion" DVD players such as that Samsung you purchased, will not produce any better of any image as such video scalers and components I mentioned earlier are crap. Also just so you know just because they upconvert it to a HDTV quality picture, it is still not a true HD feed, but will improve on the overall contrast, smoother image and more details especially on dark scenes. In some cases you may even encounter more "grain" due to the imperfections of the actual footage and great job that the video scalers do.

Personally I have a Denon 3910 and 5910 that I currently use and am using the HDMI as connection out directly into my TV instead of using my Reciever as my switcher. I know they cost much more than that $100 player you have but as the saying goes --'you get for what you pay for'. If that is too rich for your blood look into the Denon 2910, Yamaha DVD-S2500 or even the Denon DVD-1930CI which is cheaper than the 2910 but will still blow away that Samsung. These are just a few, but would look in this direction.
The bottom line look for DVD players that utilize quality internal components such as de-interlacer with 3-2 pulldown processing,minimumn 8MB buffer for quick layer change, Good Video AND Audio DACs such as dual Burr-Brown PCM-1791 192kHz/24-bit audio DACs/discrete 216MHz/12-bit video DACs, and most importantly a good video scaler.

And remember your equipment is only as good as your cabling. So don't cheap up on some quality cables for your connections.

 

[sommert]

OPPO Players?

Any opinion on OPPO Players?

 

[jcPanny]

Oppo 970

I got the Oppo DV-970HD for christmas and it is working great with my LCD display. It provides good video quality for the price and includes a free HDMI cable. I should be a noticable upgrade over your current DVD and the s-video connection for $150. It also does DVD-A and SACD playback and reads memory cards from your camera. The newest oppo player will give you a little better upscaling picture quality and 1080P output for $80 more.

 

[kingchorizo]

Any opinion on OPPO Players?

I have heard of them and I know they are one of the sponsors here, but since I don't own one I really can't form an opinion about it. Though according to the "experts" it is a decent piece for the money. Again...this is still an Entry level DVD player. Plus the quality of construction is not the greatest. Also there is no Component Video Output on the DV-981HD which is designed for use with a display device with HDMI or DVI digital video input only. Based on what I have seen the only thing I do like about it is that is plays all version of DivX and has decent video processing with "DCDi by Faroudja" technology and video chipset by Genesis/Faroudja. Other than that I guess it is a decent player not for me though, to each his own I guess.

 

[sommert]

I have heard of them and I know they are one of the sponsors here, but since I don't own one I really can't form an opinion about it. Though according to the "experts" it is a decent piece for the money. Again...this is still an Entry level DVD player. Plus the quality of construction is not the greatest. Also there is no Component Video Output on the DV-981HD which is designed for use with a display device with HDMI or DVI digital video input only. Based on what I have seen the only thing I do like about it is that is plays all version of DivX and has decent video processing with "DCDi by Faroudja" technology and video chipset by Genesis/Faroudja. Other than that I guess it is a decent player not for me though, to each his own I guess.

I got a year and I half out of my OPPO. The DVD door motor just died. I wont be buying another one. We rarely watch DVDs.

 

[Adam]

I got a year and I half out of my OPPO. The DVD door motor just died. I wont be buying another one. We rarely watch DVDs.

Maybe it just got depressed and gave up, seeing as how you rarely use it.

Seriously, though...Tim, that sucks. Sorry to hear that. Is it out of warranty? I'm just wondering if an e-mail to Oppo might get you somewhere. They sure should last longer than that. My $130 Panasonic 5-DVD changer is still going strong six or seven years later.

 

[allargon]

Maybe it just got depressed and gave up, seeing as how you rarely use it.

Seriously, though...Tim, that sucks. Sorry to hear that. Is it out of warranty? I'm just wondering if an e-mail to Oppo might get you somewhere. They sure should last longer than that. My $130 Panasonic 5-DVD changer is still going strong six or seven years later.

Adam's right. People here and on AVS rave about Oppo's customer service. IMHO, you should at least contact customer service. I bought a crappy refurb Mitsubishi SD DVD player at Fry's in 2001/2002 for $30. It still works. Hopefully, Oppo will make it right. I still use my Toshiba HD-A20. It's over a year old and everything works fine (other than jaggies at 1080p24 on AVC titles).