Hello,

I'm soon to be getting a Samsung P63 B590 and I am currently shopping for my AVR.

Naturally it sounds enticing to run all input as HDMI into a fancy new AVR and have a single HDMI cable run to the TV...

but then I recall hearing how people are having their Plasma ISF calibrated for each input. My inputs will be TWC cable box (SA 8300HD), Bluray (samsung BD-1600) and Xbox360.

Now I'm a videogame developer who's shipped many a game on the xbox360 so I know firsthand how wacky the gamma is compared to other display outputs.

But how much do I need to care about getting the plasma calibrated for different inputs? Will I lose much by running all input through the AVR and having a single source at the TV level?

Appreciate any feedback,

Ryan

Hi

Although i dont have a samsung, i face the same sort of delemma. I fed each component seperately to my panel , but the hdmi does not pass through 5.1 to the spdif out on my set. I did not want toslink from each component to my avr. Too much expense and a lot of extra cabling. Instead i run all through the avr and switch between thx,game or custom depending on what component is in use. Personally , if i was calibrating it would be done based on the mode. IE calibrate thx for movie.


Perhaps one day they will make a set with hdmi out on the tv.

i look forward to others thoughts on this .

I do calibrations and I would not recommend running video through the receiver first. I would also definately calibrate every input, although copying calibrated hdmi settings from one input to another gets u close if not perfect anyway. It does however depend on the type of device being used and the settings in that device. Overall I would calibrated everything possible using the purest feed possible.

Socketman, thanks for putting it into perpsective, it would add alot of unnecessary cabling.

BWDinc, thanks for the input. So would a model like the Denon AVR-789 actually be modifying the HDMI video signal? I thought since it was digital it would be passed through exactly the way it was before.

I'm not exactly sure how to pass 7.1 audio to my receiver if its coming out of my TV. And if I have audio and video going separately to the AVR and TV then I'll need to switch inputs on both every time.

Well if my avr is degrading my signal i sure cant notice it with my tired eyes and i have had it connected both ways. Also toslink doesnt transfer 7.1 among other things and the idea of all that rca cabling just makes me crazy. I love hdmi, its so much easier to keep wiring under control. .


Your reciever will upconvert your dvr and your dvd and i believe that will be on a per input basis. Hence if you connect your bd player to the bd input it will not upconvert. That reciever uses a faroudja processor which i understand is quite good. I use my bd player for my dvd's and it upconverts as does my xbox 360.

Let me clarify,

I know I could just run optical out from the BluRay player and just RCA from the TimeWarner box and Xbox, but then I'd have to switch inputs on both the TV and receiver each time I wanted to switch. I just don't know if I can pass a pure audio signal from my TV or if having to switch both AVR and TV is just a fact of life?

Your not going to get any better Audio out of your HDTV though the Optical then Dolby Pro Logic II because of the HDMI Digital Rights Management. You'll only get Dolby Digital out of it when using the HDTV's built in Digital Tuner.

That of course would also mean no TrueHD, or DTS-HD Master Audio either because you can only generally get those though a HDMI connection. My Receiver is set for Pass though of the Video with ZERO enhancements to the picture for all my hardware except my old TIVO that is plugged in with S-Video and gets processes to 1080P and out Digital though the HDMI cable.
There are Real high end Receivers that can also be ISF Calibrated!!! It's not going to be Perfect if everything goes into your Receiver and out though a single cable to your HDTV because your Blu-Ray player is a little different from your cable Box for example, but I don't think it's that big of a problem. Just getting your HDTV Calibrated is the Major thing. Adjust all the HDMI Inputs on the HDTV to be the same I would guess.

Which receiver do you have?

Do you know if the Pioneer VSX-1019AH can be set to just pass through the HDMI without enhancements?

You'll only get Dolby Digital out of it when using the HDTV's built in Digital Tuner.


I'm not sure what you mean by this, are you saying the signal has to come from the TV itself and not from a device like a bluray? Or would I get Dolby Digital going from BluRay to the AVR.

Which receiver do you have?

Do you know if the Pioneer VSX-1019AH can be set to just pass through the HDMI without enhancements?



I'm not sure what you mean by this, are you saying the signal has to come from the TV itself and not from a device like a bluray? Or would I get Dolby Digital going from BluRay to the AVR.
He/she might be referring to this from the Samsung PN58B860 manual, page 15 under "Connecting a Digital Audio System".

When the receiver (home theater) is set to On, you can hear sound output from the TV’s Optical jack. When the TV is displaying a
DTV(air) signal, the TV will send out 5.1 channel sound to the Home theater receiver. When the source is a digital component such
as a DVD and is connected to the TV via HDMI, only 2 channel sound will be heard from the Home Theater receiver.
If you want to hear 5.1 channel audio, connect the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT (OPTICAL) jack on the DVD / Blu-ray player or Cable/
Satellite Box directly to an Amplifier or Home Theater, not the TV.

I do calibrations and I would not recommend running video through the receiver first.Unless you use this type of set-up: Blu-ray player --> HDMI --> 7.1 channel receiver (AVR) --> HDMI --> HDTV, how can you support HD audio codec's like: Dolby®TrueHD and DTS-HD®?

Hold on. My Denon 3808 will NOT touch a HDMI signal ATM. I have set it so.

That said, my D*, PS3, Wii, and Apple TV are all being fed to my Pio 6020 by ONE HDMI.

So, logic says that "calibrating" this one input will only be "perfect" for the chosen input, correct (assuming variances within the 4 input devices)? Say if I choose the PS3 as the calibration input for example, the calibrated settings will not necessarily hold true for the remaining devices?

So what's the workaround from a calibration standpoint? I know in my instance, I can individually calibrate the AV modes (movie, sport, standard, etc), but it seems only "Movie" gives the corrrect starting point, so how the heck do I get all of them calibrated using ONE mode?

I will simply NOT lose the switching abilities of my AVR (not to mention buy 4 new 12' HDMI's and lose 7.1 uncompressed audio from my PS3).

I imagine many others feel the same.

how do we get around this?

Great topic- thanks.

James

Unless you use this type of set-up: Blu-ray player --> HDMI --> 7.1 channel receiver (AVR) --> HDMI --> HDTV, how can you support HD audio codec's like: Dolby®TrueHD and DTS-HD®?

great question. Impossible, AFAIC. No display made will pass multi-channel audio, nevermind uncompressed 5/7.1.

James

any competent AVR will not touch the HDMI signal at all when switched / passed through. This alarmism about not running HDMI through your receiver is totally unwarranted.

the "separate calibrations by input" thing isn't really important for HDMI signals, so feel free to switch your HDMI through the receiver and then if you want to tweak the picture do as suggested above (e.g. use THX for movie mode, "Custom" for daytime viewing, etc).

I have a PS3 and an HD DVD player, both switched through my AVR, and calibration discs for both Blu Ray and HD DVD. When I calibrate via the Blu Ray, and check the results via test patterns from HD DVD, the results are virtually identical (measured with a probe and HCFR). And they are identical as well if I run the HDMI straight to TV (bypassing the AVR). And my cable box (switched via component, converted to HDMI) looks fine as well.

Now, video games can be a little tricky as noted above, since they aren't standard in their output, but that will never be solved by calibrating a separate input as the variation is game-to-game, not input-to-input. So it's not really relevant to this discussion. Again, the best solution is simply to use the different picture modes in your TV (e.g. Movie vs Standard vs Dynamic) to calibrate a few different choices of settings and switch as needed.

If you are the super finicky "purist" type, you can switch your analog video separately (component via component) and calibrate differently; for me, it just doesn't matter THAT much to extract the last 3% of picture quality out of the crappy compressed HD cable feed, so I just use the same calibration as for BD/HD-DVD and it's just fine by me. I mean, are you really gonna notice if the Wii's color balance is a tiny bit off? As with many things on this forum, it just depends on how utterly obsessive you want to be about it :)

Thanks for the input.

I actually went ahead and ordered a Pioneer Elite SC-05 receiver. It has 4 HDMI ins and one HDMI out and it doesn't do any processing on HD signals (only 480i will be upscaled I believe).

That receiver seems to be a great price since its floating around for under $800 in some places!!

I mean, are you really gonna notice if the Wii's color balance is a tiny bit off?


Heh, nope. Just part of me wants to see the games I've worked on display at 100% image quality. Although since most games aren't even authored with strict calibration controls it might end up looking worse instead of better ;)

Although since most games aren't even authored with strict calibration controls it might end up looking worse instead of better ;)

exactly. calibrating separate inputs won't do a thing to fix the problem of game-to-game variations in brightness, gamma, etc.

Thanks for the input.

I actually went ahead and ordered a Pioneer Elite SC-05 receiver. It has 4 HDMI ins and one HDMI out and it doesn't do any processing on HD signals (only 480i will be upscaled I believe).

That receiver seems to be a great price since its floating around for under $800 in some places!!



Heh, nope. Just part of me wants to see the games I've worked on display at 100% image quality. Although since most games aren't even authored with strict calibration controls it might end up looking worse instead of better ;)Pioneer's Elite series AVRs (e.g. SC-05/07) will not up-convert 480i signals w/HDMI connections but only when using component in/out.