Recommended AV Receiver?

[Bisonman]

I'm planning on upgrading to a HD system for TV and Movies and so far this is what I have decided on:

Samsung FP-T5084 Plasma TV
Oppo DV 980H DVD player (waiting for the format war to end)
NHT Classic 3 speakers

I'm having trouble deciding on a AV Receiver. I plan on running everything through the receiver with HDMI cables (Cable TV and DVD) The question I have if I run the cable TV DVR through the reciever would it be wise to get a AV receiver that does upscaling so I have a better picture for old movies and older TV shows? I don't want those shows to look like crap on my new Plasma. Thanks

 

[no. 5]

The question I have if I run the cable TV DVR through the reciever would it be wise to get a AV receiver that does upscaling so I have a better picture for old movies and older TV shows?

If you TV's video processing is poor, yes.

But remember that even with the best processing available, the picture can still look bad because it is ultimately the quality of the source video that determines the picture quality.

 

[Bisonman]

If you TV's video processing is poor, yes.

But remember that even with the best processing available, the picture can still look bad because it is ultimately the quality of the source video that determines the picture quality.

I don't think the Samsung FP-T5084 Plasma TV has any upscaling or upconversion capabilities so I would need a receiver to do this?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I plan on running everything through the receiver with HDMI cables (Cable TV and DVD) The question I have if I run the cable TV DVR through the reciever would it be wise to get a AV receiver that does upscaling so I have a better picture for old movies and older TV shows? I don't want those shows to look like crap on my new Plasma.

My brother bought an upscaling receiver (Harman Kardon). It upscaled his satellite feeds. Old movies & older TV shows that already look bad, now looks even worse upscaled. Why? Those old shows & movies look bad because those original 480 lines of resolution are bad. Don't expect the upscaler to do magic and fix or iron out those bad lines. 480 bad lines will become 1080 bad lines. They look worse.

 

[Seth=L]

My brother bought an upscaling receiver (Harman Kardon). It upscaled his satellite feeds. Old movies & older TV shows that already look bad, now looks even worse upscaled. Why? Those old shows & movies look bad because those original 480 lines of resolution are bad. Don't expect the upscaler to do magic and fix or iron out those bad lines. 480 bad lines will become 1080 bad lines. They look worse.

That is probably because the TV's scalers where better than the receiver's. From what I recal Harman Kardon receivers have at best a Faroudja scaler.

From my limited understanding on HD displays, they all have a scaler. Some integrated TV scalers are pretty primitive, others can be quite effective. The scaler is necessary to display SD material. If a 720p display had no scaler it would only be able to take 720p material, it would not be able to support any other resolution. I could be wrong on this, someone please correct me if I am indeed mistaken.

Bisonman, what is your budget for a receiver? The NHTs have a sensitivity rating of 87dB (2.83v@1m) and as well are 8 ohms nominal rated. NHT speakers aren't known to being very easy to drive. Maybe the Classic 3s are different, but in the past they have had fluctuant loads (meaning the impedance my drop much lower than the nominal rating) so a substantial amount of power may be needed or at least helpful.

 

[jcPanny]

HD video

I would recommend getting a decent receiver ($500-1k) and spending the rest of the money for some HD source material (HD-DVD, BluRay, HD Cable or Satellite package) to take full advantage of your new display. There is only so much a scaler can do (even a really good one) with a low res cable feed. Also, the Oppo upscaling players are nice, I own one, but it wont look as good as an HD source like HD-DVD or BluRay.

If you still need a sub or surround channels that would also be a good audio investment.

 

[autoboy]

Ah, the old scaling debate...

This will probably never end because upscaling is such a good marketing buzz word. Here is the skinny on upscaling. Basically, you should not be overly concerned with scaling. For most content, I turn off all upscaling features of my average electronics and let the good scaler in the TV handle the scaling. Your TV has a fixed resolution, and any content that is fed to the TV will be scaled to fit that resolution. In order to do this, the TV has a built in scaler that converts a DVD at 480i to 1080p of your TV. If you pass it a 720p or 1080i you TV scales it to your 1080p resolution. Most quality TVs do a pretty damn good job at this. Your average "upscaling" DVD player does a pretty average job at upscaling, and chances are your TV still scales the image again to fit its exact resolution. You Oppo is a good player, so it may match your TVs scaling, but unless you buy a high end product with a proven scaler in it like a HQV Reon chip in the Onkyo 875, you will see no differernce in scaling and your TV may actually do a better job. So, moral of the story, don't buy source equipment for it's scaling ability, buy your TV for it.

For scaling, the important step is in the deinterlacing and the scaling is easy. For that all you need is a good progressive scan DVD player

 

[Seth=L]

Ah, the old scaling debate...

This will probably never end because upscaling is such a good marketing buzz word. Here is the skinny on upscaling. Basically, you should not be overly concerned with scaling. For most content, I turn off all upscaling features of my average electronics and let the good scaler in the TV handle the scaling. Your TV has a fixed resolution, and any content that is fed to the TV will be scaled to fit that resolution. In order to do this, the TV has a built in scaler that converts a DVD at 480i to 1080p of your TV. If you pass it a 720p or 1080i you TV scales it to your 1080p resolution. Most quality TVs do a pretty damn good job at this. Your average "upscaling" DVD player does a pretty average job at upscaling, and chances are your TV still scales the image again to fit its exact resolution. You Oppo is a good player, so it may match your TVs scaling, but unless you buy a high end product with a proven scaler in it like a HQV Reon chip in the Onkyo 875, you will see no differernce in scaling and your TV may actually do a better job. So, moral of the story, don't buy source equipment for it's scaling ability, buy your TV for it.

For scaling, the important step is in the deinterlacing and the scaling is easy. For that all you need is a good progressive scan DVD player

That's what I am saying.