Yamaha RXV 2700 scale to features

[jeremy4130]

Hopefully someone can shed some light for me. I currently own the Yamaha DVD S1700 player which does the 1080p upconverting thing. I am now in the market to go hd. I am looking for a new receiver and my question is this, if I already have this upconversion feature in my dvd player do I also need it in my receiver? I was looking at the RXV 1700 until i saw it only had the deinterlace 480p feature. Is there a need for my receiver to have the scale to features if my dvd player does 1080p upconversion?

 

[Davemcc]

Probably not, unless you have a cable/sat box or other legacy video products you want to upconvert. If you get an HD player with multi-analog out, you can probably use the player to process the new audio formats and use the receiver's multi-channel inputs.

 

[jeremy4130]

Ill want to upconvert? So yes on the scaling receiver?

 

[Davemcc]

Looks like a yes then. Maybe an Onkyo 875 or 905. Possibly a Denon 2808 or 3808 depending on the features you need and price you're willing to pay.

 

[Seth=L]

Wait, what do you need a scaling receiver for?, VHS, SD cable, Laser Disc?

 

[Seth=L]

Upconversion and Upscaling are two completely different things. Upconversion is more approprietaly called "transcoding". What this feature does is take all input sources such as composite, s-video, component, and then converts them to HDMI output. The composite and S-video will remain 480i after upconversion or transcoding and depending on the component video source (lets say 1080i from an HD broadcast service provider) it will remain 1080i.

Upscaling will take a 480i signal and change the resolution to a higher one. In the case of the Onkyo TX-SR875 or TX-NR905 they will scale to 1080p with a HQV Reon scaler. They will also scale other resolutions such as 720p to 1080p. Depending on what TV you use it may need to be setup to scale only up to 1080i or 720p.

Here is the fun part. Receivers like the TX-SR875 and TX-NR905 are about the only receivers that have "good" scalers. Most TVs already have pretty good scalers built in, receivers with scalers under $1000 aren't likely to contend with the scaler in a decent HDTV. You can't combine the forces of scalers either. You chose which scaler you will use, whether it be the DVD player, a seperate scaler, the receiver, or the TV. If you run an inferior scaler on a receiver or cheap DVD player into a TV with a decent to good scaler it will produce poor results. The scaler in the TV is probably as good as you will need in all honesty. Only by spending big money on a receiver like the Onkyo TX-SR875 will you get scaler that could possibly be superior to that which is in the television.

You would be better of getting the Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player for less than $500 which has an HQV scaler in it that is in line with the ones found in those two Onkyo receivers. And as an added bonus you get an HD DVD player that can play truly high definition material. The HD-A35 is a very good player and is one of the first HD DVD players to support HDMI 1.3 connectivity. It also has built in HD audio decoders that can be output via 5.1 analog.

 

[jeremy4130]

seth, thanks for the info, its a lot to take in. So if the TV itself is doing the conversion of the signal then what do the components offer? If I get the RXV 2700 run an hdmi from my DVDs1700 to the 2700 and from the 2700 to the tv (which i plan to be 1080p) which component will be taking the resonsibility of converting the video signal?

 

[Seth=L]

seth, thanks for the info, its a lot to take in. So if the TV itself is doing the conversion of the signal then what do the components offer? If I get the RXV 2700 run an hdmi from my DVDs1700 to the 2700 and from the 2700 to the tv (which i plan to be 1080p) which component will be taking the resonsibility of converting the video signal?

Which ever component you chose. It is likely that at decent brand 1080p display will have a superior scaler to that of the Anchor bay one found in the Yamaha (not that the Yamaha is bad receiver, just that it having a scaler is rather gimmicky). How much can you get the Yamaha RX-V2700 for?

What you can do to find the best performing scaler is try different setups. First attempt you set the DVD player to 480i (meaning no upscaling or progressive scan). Run it through the receiver as pass-thru (meaning the scalers on the receiver are deactivated and the video signal passes through the receiver unprocessed). When it arrives at the TV it will handle all the scaling and deinterlacing automatically. HDTVs must automatically adjust inputs to native resolution otherwise inputs will not be displayed, the TVs scaler will always be used unless it receives its native resolution from an appropriate source. For example; if you had a 1080p display the only time it would not be scaling is if it was sent signal 1080p signal from an HD DVD player, Blu-ray, or computer.

Next you could follow all the steps I just listed with one minor change, by setting the DVD player to progressive scan (480p) to see how well it deinterlaces, or how poorly in comparison to the TV (it could be either way, but you won't know unless you try it).

Next you could try using the scaler in the DVD player to 1080p, with the receiver still set to pass-thru.

For this next one bring the DVD player back down to 480i and use the receiver's on-board scalers to 1080p.

And lastly try the last one again with 480p on the DVD player activated.

Choose the one that looks best to you. Try pausing a certain scene in a movie that has some jitter issues, scenes with detail and high contrast.

 

[Davemcc]

Near as I can tell, the HD-A35 uses an ABT chip, not the Reon. You have to get the XA2 to get the Reon.

The term upconversion is also pretty muddy. An upconverting DVD player or receiver can output in resolution from 480i through 1080p. Depending on the product being discussed, upconversion can include any combination of scaling, deinterlacing or transcoding.

It would help to know what devices you are wanting to connect to the system that might need upconversion. If all your sources are going to be HD sources, there would be no need for upconversion except at the source. The only issue is what you want to do with legacy sources, like VCR.