Official Pioneer SC-68/67 Thread - Page 27

Originally Posted by soniky 

There is a Pandora update to SC-68 recently not sure if you have applied it or not. If not, there were some discussions about it on this thread.

Originally Posted by ss9001 

first, congratulations!

second, this will depend on the cable length and your TV. what will be your cable run?

when I had my Pioneer RPTV with DVI setup in the "HT room", the Pioneer receiver I used then was also pre-HDMI so used an ext switcher and HDMI-DVI cables from all sources to the switcher. at 15 meters cable length to the TV, I got green speckles. at 12 meters cable length I got good video.

unfortunately, there is no hard & fast answer & hard to predict in advance. it should but you'll probably have to just set it up to find out

hopefully, your cable run isn't as extreme as mine. on short runs, within normal DVI specs & < 15 ft, I would think it should work OK, because I have the same long runs using straight HDMI and have had no problems but even if you did have a long run and encounter speckles or no picture at all, you still have options - there are excellent cables made to work at long lengths, some have signal boosters on them. you might want to check out Blue Jeans Cable for their HDMI-DVI cables. I had one that worked just fine for a cable box at 50 ft. to a Pioneer Kuro plasma.

let us know when you get it setup

Originally Posted by ss9001 

^^
without HDCP, it's not likely to work. in fact, I can about guarantee it

your Sony must really be old to use DVI without HDCP my Pio RPTV had HDCP. the only way I can think of is to get an ext HDMI switcher that can remove the HDCP wrapper for converting to component video & 7.1 analog audio. you might check HDTVSupply; they sell all kinds of atypical solutions.

The SC-68, like all HDMI receivers, by licensing must use transmitting-receiving chipsets that have HDCP. no way to get around that.

cable length is not going to be a problem.

hopefully, you can get a new HDTV soon

Originally Posted by Escape 

Anybody have any ideas how maybe the Elite SC-67/68 will sound with the Klipsch RF-7 II.

Originally Posted by ss9001 

it's called the "analog sunset".

I can't remember the dates for how it phased in on Blu-ray players, but it started by limiting 1080p to HDMI & component video limited to 1080i, then all hi-def on HDMI & if a title was flagged, it would limit component video to 540p max & the final stage is 2013 with no analog video connections on Blu-ray players, period. it was phased in to supposedly allow early adopters of HDTV's to upgrade

at least you know the direction you have to go....bye bye Sony

I hung on to my 53" Elite RPTV that's in beautiful shape a bit too long, a $5K TV, state of the art, CRT HDTV but not many people want big boxes anymore. I'd have to practically give it away & being in pristine condition I'm not willing to do that....it's in another room, hardly gets used but at least I didn't hardcode the loss of >$4000 I've seen ads for Pioneer's 68" Elite RPTV's, the biggest they made, gorgeous piano black cabinet, MSRP close to $7K, for only couple hundred

the price of technology moving on

Originally Posted by ss9001 

it's called the "analog sunset".

I can't remember the dates for how it phased in on Blu-ray players, but it started by limiting 1080p to HDMI & component video limited to 1080i, then all hi-def on HDMI & if a title was flagged, it would limit component video to 540p max & the final stage is 2013 with no analog video connections on Blu-ray players, period. it was phased in to supposedly allow early adopters of HDTV's to upgrade

at least you know the direction you have to go....bye bye Sony

I hung on to my 53" Elite RPTV that's in beautiful shape a bit too long, a $5K TV, state of the art, CRT HDTV but not many people want big boxes anymore. I'd have to practically give it away & being in pristine condition I'm not willing to do that....it's in another room, hardly gets used but at least I didn't hardcode the loss of >$4000 I've seen ads for Pioneer's 68" Elite RPTV's, the biggest they made, gorgeous piano black cabinet, MSRP close to $7K, for only couple hundred

the price of technology moving on

Originally Posted by JackVette 

My 70" Sony and old equipment is moving down to the Basement Gameroom. Should work fine there.

Originally Posted by syendluri 

Another interesting question i have, my Front Towers have 4 binding posts (for bi-amping). Is there a merit in driving them with 2 channel input? What is the best way to do it? I know this could be a bit off for sc-68 discussion, would appreciate if not get flamed. Connected thinking with sc-68, couldn't help it.

Originally Posted by soniky 

Since you said your TV DVI works fine with HDMI output from a cable box, your TV may support HDCP if you havn't tried. Also in case people don't already know, SC-68 does video upscaling which takes old composite or component video input and output to a HDMI display - so you don't have to throw everything to basement unless you want to buy all new stuff, of cours;):De

Originally Posted by soniky 

I've gone down this thinking path before so thought I can share a bit of what I learned with you. Since your speaker has 2 pairs of binding posts, there is a chance that the upper pair is for the tweeter and the lower pair is for the other drivers. There is also a chance that they both connect to all the tweeter and drivers. You can easily test it by just connecting the uppere or lower pair and see which tweeter/driver has no sound. If you connect two pair of wires to the same speaker, that's called bi-wiring. If you do that from two different amps to the same speakere, that's called bi-amping. Bi-wiring makes no sense, unless you can hear a difference between using two pairs of cables vs one pair of cables plus the short jumpers between the two pairs of posts. Bi-amping also makes little sense if you think that would give you more power. However, some people may choose to drive the tweeters with a tube amp and other drivers with a solid state amp if the speaker supports that kind of configuration.

Originally Posted by JackVette 

Is there any different cable needed if HDCP is being carried?

Originally Posted by syendluri 

I am pretty sure they are not connected (the towers came with connected metal plate(s) between 2 sets of binding posts). I will test it out. My assumption i am going with is that, they are not connected internally when i remove the metal plates, and have crossover internally. What i was thinking of doing to have a full movie experience setup:
1) Get my LF preout from sc-68 go to 2 channels on XPA-5 (using a RCA splitter), and drive the tower from XPA-5 with 2 channel amplification
2) Do the same with RF preouts from sc-68
3) use the remaining one channel in XPA-5 to drive my center (center preout from sc-68 to XPA-5 5th channel)
4) Drive my FH, Surround, Surround Back from SC-68.

This could be crazy thinking, but that's coming from being a novice to this area. Will appreciate any comments if this makes any sense.

Originally Posted by soniky 

There are so many discussions about bi-wiring and bi-amping aready. Just google and you will know. The bottom line is, if you can hear a difference between your speaker cable and the speaker jumper, then bi-wire may make a difference for you (better just simply replace the jumper with a small section of your cable). If you can hear a difference between the amp output of SC-68 and XPA-5 (you can just try it) to your speaker, then you can choose the amp that you like. The key is to do it for the sound quality, not for more power (volume) as I am very sure SC-68 has all the power you'll need for your speaker. Same as XPA-5, you should not need to use two channels to power the same speaker for more power. Do you feel they are not loud enough? Although they are there for you to use for free, I really doubt that you'll be able to hear a difference. Because you will be using the same amp for your front and center speakers, which will feed the exact same full range of signals to the uppper and lower posts, you won't get any benefit of sound improvement. Some people swear they hear a difference from bi-wiring, the only logical explaination is either they have lousy cables to start with or the speaker jumper is lousy. Some people claim they hear a difference from bi-amping as what you are thinking of doing, the only logical explaination can be the same as bi-wiring and/or that they have a very very underpowered amp to start with. In the latter case, to make it technically possible, the amp must have full discrete power components meaning that each amp channels has their own power supply and etc. Even so, since they'll be connected in parallel, it's not the same as 1+1. Again, do it for the sound quality of a different amp if you like, but it won't be for more power in your case.

Originally Posted by syendluri 

Agreed. My curiosity in adding more amps to drive is to get details, not more volume or power. As it is, sc-68 drives them really well for volume and power. I am getting XPA-5 anyway to free up sc-68 to drive FH and zone2. Thanks for the quick response.

Originally Posted by ss9001 

good news for you! and no, a cable with HDMI on one end & DVI on the other is fine. unless this is a bargain basement cable, 2-3 meters, it has good potential to work for you. there is no guarantee of success, tho.

if you get speckles, snow, lines and you aren't going to buy a new TV for a time, there are repeaters, boosters, even a switcher will help boost, for signal boosting.

if you get no video & the HDMI LED on the receiver is flashing, then there's a problem with the HDCP handshake. you can try another input for the source or try the other HDMI output. also check to see if the HDMI light is solid when just the source and receiver are connected while the receiver & TV are not. if it's solid then turn off the receiver, reconnect to the TV and see if it flashes on the receiver. if it does, then the TV may be too old for its identifier ID to be recognized by the receiver.

I encountered this myself with a Pioneer universal pre-Bluray player; it's HDMI 1.0 spec and the signal gets passed to the TV A-OK thru a switcher but not thru either Pioneer receiver I have (SC-09 & SC-68) it just doesn't make the handshake thru the receivers. I have a similar issue with a JVC D-VHS hi-def deck that's HDMI 1.1 - while I get connectivity, it only works for 480i not 1080i that's on D-Theater tape. and that also used to work thru the same switcher to my DVI TV. ended up using component video on the JVC and I don't use the Pio uni player for DVD's anyway, just hi-rez music so moot point. but I mention this because even tho HDMI is supposed to be backwards compatible...it really isn't

keep us posted on how it works out