Upscaling AVR or not?

[JBA]

Setting up my first home theater with an Epson 8350 projector and will feed it via HDMI cable through an AVR. I plan to connect a BR player and HD Cable both via HDMI to the AVR and let it do the switching as I need the AVR anyway to drive the in wall speakers. The question is do I or should I go with an upscaling AVR or not? One salesrep at a local store said no because the BR is already 1080P and the cable box will already be pushing HD. Yet another rep at another store said an upscaling AVR would give me a better picture not from the BR source but from the HD cable as you still have less than 1080P being pushed out from the cable box. Which one is right or is there something else to consider?

Cable box is a Samsung SMT-H3270 in case it matters.

Searched online for hours and cannot find anything that tells me I should or should not spend the extra $ to get an upscaling AVR.

 

[MDS]

All HDTVs will deinterlace and scale any incoming resolution to the TV's native resolution and most likely do a far better job of it than a scaler in a dvd player or AVR.

One could argue that higher end receivers with advanced video processing chips like Reon may make a noticeable difference on poor quality SD video but if the main sources are BluRay or HD cable there isn't anything to be gained because it's trivial for the TV to deinterlace 1080i to 1080p and scaling 720p to 1080p is straightforward as well.

I think video processing features in a receiver are just added junk that you don't need and won't use.

 

[jostenmeat]

For about the last three years, my only display has been a single projector.

You're not going to ever want to watch SD with a projector, with a typical/recommended viewing angle.

I agree with sales rep #1.

 

[jliedeka]

I agree with Meat. I don't use a projector but I have a receiver that doesn't do video processing. I still watch DVDs but I got an Oppo to do the scaling. It does the best job on SD material within a reasonable budget. If you are mainly watching BluRays and HD cable, you shouldn't need scaling/de-interlacing in your receiver.

Jim