Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 190

Such devices are a violation of the HDMI license.

However products are out there and people have
results that are all over the map - from Bad to Good.

It is a CRAP SHOOT.

Yeah, my AVM50 finally arrives tomorrow! 3 Day shipped on Tuesday!

The fact that you are getting your AVM50 before I get my D2 is just wrong on oh so many levels!

8)

Malleus,

I would consider that the A5 would be more than enough horsepower for your "smallish room" and B&W XT's. The biggest XT's (the XT4's) are rated at 50-150W. The A5 delivers 180Watts into 8 ohms with all 5 channels driven.

For reference, I use B&W 703 fronts and CCM-850 rears with an HTM7 center and I have the A5 driving them. I also have a VERY large room and listen to many multi-channel recordings at high volume levels and the A5 is plenty of horsepower for the 703's, which are rated for 50W-200W. I had initially thought of going with the P5 and am very glad I went for the A5 instead. It is a bit smaller, and fits very nicely in a rack, where the P5 would have required another circuit to be run for optimal power needs and is significantly bigger, so that the rack I have would not have accomodated it. I can honestly say, the A5 is never even breaking a sweat during any of my demanding listening or movie watching. I am VERY happy I have the A5/D2 combination. [Note, I also have an A2 powering my Zone 2 from the D2, and that is stellar as well!]. Of course, as with anything, let your ears be your guide, listen to the two, and others, and tell us if you hear a difference. Good luck with it!

Hope this helps,
Brian

Thanks for the reply.

I thought about selling the 20 and buying the 50, but the problem is the 50 is a lot more expensive than the current value of the 20 plus the cost of the upgrade.

There is a lot of buzz going on about the Onkyo's so maybe Anthem's huge demand will go away when people can finally buy something similar from the competition (if you want to call Onkyo an Anthem competitor lol).

I definitely like the firmware upgradability of the Anthem but the Onkyo has capabilities that the Anthem does not and will not with a simple firmware update. To say the Onkyo will be obsolete in 2 years is kind of hard to believe since it fully supports everything that HD-DVD and Blurry have to offer and beyond (deep color).

Regarding the sound quality not being debatable, I must debate this.

There have been many discussions about the DAC's used in the Anthems being not considered very good compared to other DAC's and of course there is that one thread with that millionare who owns every pre-amp known to man and says that the Anthems don't sound very musical compared to some of the others. The Onkyo is probably using the latest and greatest DAC's, and with a preamp, we are basically talking about signal processing. A huge chunk of sound quality comes from the quality of the amp. I know this because my Sunfire Cinema 7 amp was the best thing I ever could have done to improve my sound quality. I first added this, then the Anthem, and the Anthem didn't have a huge impact like the amp did. As long as the preamp part is done well and you have a great amp, you should be all set. So please explain why the Anthem using 6+ year old technology would sound better than the Onkyo when using it only as a preamp. I am not trying to cause trouble. I am genuinely interested in knowing why the Anthem would sound better.

Thanks,
Mike

This is just plain bizarre. If you asked me to design a projector to do this I'm not sure I could. The projector can't have any idea whether or not the video is processed -- particularly for Component input. But heck, if it works now then great!

As for your XBOX: Be sure it's Component output is set to no higher than 1080i/60Hz (or 1080p/30Hz). That's as high as you can go on Component video input to process the video in the Anthem -- which you need to do to transcode it to HDMI output. Component 1080p/60Hz can only go through the Anthem UNprocessed (which means it can only go to the Component output). [Processed HDMI input/output can go up to 1080p/60z.]
--Bob

The "Video Source: No Input" is suspicious. Even though you are playing a CD there is usually some on screen display video that should register. It would be interesting to see what this displays when your plasma's HDMI input is turned off, but I don't think you'll be able to do that on Component or S-video since the video input is copy protected according to the Select button status.

There is no sensible reason for your unit's Remote Control response to be failing this way, and I can't suggest any way for you to fix this yourself. The best bet at this point is that it is a problem specific to the V1.11g firmware. I would not be surprised if Anthem asks you to revert to the earlier V1.11e version.

The 5 second delay prior to things failing points to the source device deciding it is unhappy with the copy protection on the HDMI signal path. But it shouldn't even be worrying about that for CD playback. And I can't see how that would relate to Remote unresponsiveness.

At this point I think you'll have to work the problem with Anthem tech support.

Sheesh! This is our week for truly weird Anthem problems!
--Bob

Mike I can't really help you with your Onkyo decision, but for what it's worth I agree that Anthem has not met the expectations they created of a prompt upgrade path for AVM customers. It's a surprising lapse on their part given their otherwise excellent customer service record. Even if they ARE selling these things as fast as they can make them it should not be that hard to reserve a portion of shop time and video board production to service customers wanting upgrades.
---Bob

No to both. And also understand that these decoders require HDMI V1.3, and that modifying Anthem's existing HDMI V1.1 products to HDMI V1.3 (the D2, AVM-50, or AVM-40) would require a hardware change as opposed to just software because, at the very least, the HDMI V1.3 driver chips are different.

I would not expect to see an HDMI V1.3 product from Anthem this year. Next year is debatable.
--Bob

The D2 and AVM-50 have only one video processor, so you can't have two different types of processed video output at once.

Changing processed video output settings involves going into the Setup menu and entering the desired new values. This is not that hard, but it's not as simple as just pressing a button on the remote.

The Anthem has two memories for the entire set of Setup settings -- User and Installer. They save the same stuff and can be used interchangeably. You could, I suppose, save the settings you want for one display in the User settings and the settings for the other display in the Installer settings and then go into the Setup menu and Restore Saved User Settings vs. Restore Saved Installer Settings each time you want to make the change.

What most people do when they want to save their projector bulb by using a secondary display is to cable the second display via Component on the Anthem's Zone 2 output, and then set it to be an UNprocessed version of the Main path's video. The HDMI to the projector would be the processed Main output.

This would have all Main path source video processed to the projector, and Component video from the same source "passed through" unprocessed to the secondary display. You would depend on the processing inside the secondary display itself to handle different input resolutions for example. This will work fine so long as the sources are cabled for Component video as well as HDMI to the Anthem.
--Bob

I don't know if they caught all of them since it seems with testing so far that I received a D2 with a bad video board. I received it last week after a month of waiting and have been working with Nick for the past week trying to fix it. And no one here seems to know what is wrong with it either. Kinda dissapointing after waiting so long for it to arrive.

Thanx, Bob.

No trouble here Since I have not heard the Onkyo (or read any reviews for that matter) I can only go by the many many many reviews of the 20/30/50/D1/D2 specifically speaking about the audio portions. My own observation going from Onkyo (TS-DX series, so 2 generations ago) to Anthem was nothing short of an epiphony. I also followed the preamp thread you are refering to and dropped it after it started to get silly.

If you can find one to listen to, please get back to us and let us know what you think. As you have had the Anthem for a while I certainly would be interested in your opinion on the Onk. As always it is 'your' ears that matter.

For the time being I'll stick with the 'probable' upgradeability and great service and support from Anthem. I emailed Onkyo twice about a problem I was having and never received a response. Every time I email Nick I get an answer within 2-3 days, sometimes within hours. As has been said, it is getting VERY frustrating waiting for this upgrade, so I feel your pain

thanks, bob - the output from the XBOX is definitely 1080i right now - but it will not display as processed output on the Epson - either with component or with HDMI? Sounds eerily familiar to my original problem - does anyone on this forum have the XBOX 360 working on the AVM50 outputting through HDMI??

Strange that they didnt catch that one. My local dealer told me on Monday that Paradigm told them that my AVM50 had cleared customs and passed QC and that they were 3 day shipping it to them, for receipt today.

If my AVM50 ends up with the video problems, still, I wont have any choice but to return it for a refund and will just have to get another processor. I hope I wont have to do that as I have been waiting for quite some time, now.

When did you place your order? My wait is now over 4 weeks.

4 WEEKS or MORE Might be a good thing if you read this POST by Rob

I did see it. That's why I was asking.

Well, Rob, I've got the D2, but still don't have the RS-1 (so much for being in the pre-order. I wonder if I'll get it before Christmas).

So which of us is in better shape right now?????

Personally, I've never believed ANY manufacturer that future upgrades will occur. Been burned by Proceed with the AVP/PDSD, TIVO with the HR-250 HD-TIVO, and a multitude of others.

So, considering that Anthem has done the D1 > D2, I would put them way ahead of almost all manufacturers.

I know that doesn't help you one whit, but I do think they deserve some credit. Hopefully, at some point you will get your upgrade path as well.

What is it you WANT them to talk about????????

I hope you have a Blackberry so you can communicate
with all of us on-the-road.

Well, that is an excellent question Doc (just how many docs do we have here anyway )! I am very happy with my RS1 upgrade. It was a bigger improvement over my 720p DLP than I thought it would be.

That said, I think the D2 has a lot more to "play with" in terms of tweaking. I have no doubt that the D2 will keep me busier in this regard. It comes down to how much you enjoy tweaking.

I'm glad I have my RS1. But I wish I had the D2 as well. I don't think I could tell you which I would rather have received first.

As a follow up to the previous discussion of converting the 1080i/60 signal from HD-DVD or Blu-ray, I guess it has pretty much been confirmed that none of the VP's are currently doing this correctly.

In the Crystalio thread, for example:



These new formats can really be a pain in the a**!

Rob - The D2 does 24fps to 60 fps PERFECTLY.

It will do 24 fps to 24 fps - Perfectly if you have the
right video timings - which are all tweakable by the
end user or anthem if they make a preset for your
JVC.

As for 60 fps to 24 fps - None of them do that right
and in my opinion - who needs it? The only reason
for having 24 fps is for movies because that is the
frame-rate they are recorded in. If something is
already 60 fps - try to get back to 24 creates a
newer set of problems than going from 24 to 60.

I like 1080p/24 from the Elite to the RS1. I really do notice a difference. I would like to see that same improvement from my HD-DVD player that outputs 1080i/60, but as you say, none of the VP's are correctly converting that to 1080p/24.

I have the solution to that problem for you

Through out the HD DVD player that is NOT DOING 24 fps

Is there a HD-DVD player that does 1080p/24? I know some of them are supposed to receive FW upgrades to allow this, but has this happened?