The "Official" Pioneer Elite VSX-82TSX Owner's Thread - Page 2

Yes but the OSD is in 480i.

I have this exact same connection setup and I haven't seen this. It sounds like your HDMI connection is dropping out. Some things to try:
1. Is the scaler on? What's it set to? Or does this happen to HD channels only?
2. Have you tried plugging the 82 into the tv via component to see if this only happens over HDMI?
3. Have you tried a different HDMI cable? I'm not a big believer in cable voodoo, but you never know.
4. Have you tried a different but similar source, like a progressive scan DVD player with a letterboxed DVD? Does it happen then?

I know that's a lot of questions, hope something helps.

I don't understand the firmware on this receiver at all. The contrast setting is only available in the AV Parameter menu if the you are working with 480i over component. I will admit the scaler seems to work well with 480i component sources.. other than it seems to be pretty weird as to aspect ratio and higher rez component inputs are very dark and contrasty. I don't know how you would get a firmware upgrade into this box but the scaler stuff sure needs one.

Pioneer may call those aspect ratio selections choices.. but too me they are just plain brain dead..... why would I want to scale to 1080i and then set it to 4:3... and why a zoom.... I bought an external ATSC tuner. HD 3150 Pro from Circuit City.. It does not do 480i .. it has 3 fixed choices only 480P, 720P, and 1080i.. The tuner over HDMI scales to 10801 internally much better than sending a 480P signal to the 82's scaler to make 1080i. I dug out my older Sony progressive DVD player set it 480i over component and agree the Pioneer did a fine job of upscaling that. I did have to make signifcant changes to contrast and brightness to get decent picture quality. So it seems to me so far that the Faroujdia or the Pioneer implementation are pretty poor overall. It is not like you want to go setting everything up to go through the scaler.....

The image adjustments are available for any analog 480i source, over any input--composite, s-video, component. I don't know why it's limited, I agree it's kind of silly.


To preserve the aspect ratio of the source? The real problem is that the scaler's stretches 4:3 by default and it doesn't appear that you can defeat this and leave 16:9 content alone. The 4:3 setting makes sense, if you think about the purpose of the scaler--to upscale SD sources, which are usually 4:3.


This makes perfect sense, actually. To get to 1080i, the tuner simply scales the 480i signal up, leaving the interlacing alone, in one step. Getting to 1080i through the 82, on the other hand, involves many more steps--first, the tuner deinterlaces the 480i signal, then sends the resulting 480p image to the 82, which scales it up and reinterlaces it to 1080i. Those extra steps involve significant signal degradation, which is what you're seeing.

Upscaling the DVD player, on the other hand, all takes place in the 82's Faroudja chip in one step, which is why that looks pretty good.


Changing the brightness and contrast doesn't mean the scaler is "pretty poor overall." It just means you had to change the brightness and contrast to get good PQ out of your TV. Although I do agree that you don't want to use the scaler for everything. It works well with 480i SD sources, which is what it's there for. But as with anything, it's garbage in, garbage out. If you're expecting a miracle, you're going to be disappointed.

just want to let everyone know this receiver is horrid for me...i dont even want it. i have gone thru 3 of them because my installer said they were bad and now Pioneer says it might be the reiceiver and they might not beable to fix it. i have my adelphia moxi box hooked up to the receiver via component and then out to plasma via hdmi. well pic looks great...only if its HD. the other channels are washed out. nothing fixes it. contrast doesnt adjust at all nothing does. if you put it on an hd channel and shrink the screen on the moxi then look at other channels its great but once it goes to the channel thats not hd...its just washed out. bad colors too soft...no way to change. i have tried everything. looks great if i bypass the receiver too. i doubt 3 units are bad. i am not happy. new everything and my wife is not happy either. i paid to have all wires run through the wall and now i cant get a componant through with the hdmi cable. oh well onother home theater waste. i feel snookered. what to do now? if i go to only component then the upconversion dvd player wont work. pioneer said they dont downscale so it wont work. i give up. now i just wasted 1500 in installation and 900 in parts. any help would be greatly appreciated. i am too frusterated to even write anymore. anyone who has a solution i will mail them a fairly new harmony remote i have. and its the expensive one not the cheap one. help help help. i am not kidding about the remote i have box and instructions for it!!!

when you bypass the receiver, are you going via component or HDMI? have you tried another adelphia box?

adelphia had a party at my house...it started with their subcontractor calling another...then those two called a adelphia tech which called the route supervisor who inturn called the dvi specialist. so i have adelphia change out 3 boxes and when it goes directly to the tv dvi wont work handshake issue. so now what?

so component to the tv works fine?

is the problem only when the scaler is set to HD resolutions, or even when it's set to "pure"?

have you tried any other SD component sources, like a progressive scan DVD player, to see if they're washed out?

WOW, havent been by here in awhile and Im glad to see that this thread has picked up. Unfortunately I have no useful info to post as of yet bc I havent even got mine out of the box yet. Still waiting on the last piece of the puzzle-the stand to get built.

zanner- sorry to hear that you are having so many problems, I hope you get it all worked out.

Ok, I tried everything you said and then some. I have come to some conclusions aswell.

I tried many different cables and came to the conclusion it was not that.

Whether the scaler is on or off does not matter. Even when set to pure I get flickering. If I use component out from the 82 it does not flicker. So it would seem it has to do with converting component to HDMI.

I tried my progressive scan DVD player (also connected through component) while using HDMI from 82 to TV. There was one scene in Gladiator where it would flicker and I played that with the DVD player putting out 480i and 480p. For the 480i run, upscaled to 480p, 720p, or 1080i made no difference and there was no flicker. When switched to put out 480p to the 82 however, Pure, 480p, 720p, and 1080i all produced flickers.

So it would seem that my receiver is having trouble converting HD signals from component to HDMI.

This seems to be a very specific problem and something may just not be working properly in my receiver. I'm thinking I should run it back to the store and exchange it for a new one and make sure before I ditch it. I really like the look and sound of it and I will miss it if I have to go back to my old one...

This does sound very odd, especially since I have the same setup and haven't seen anything like your flickering. I'm interested to see if this happens with the replacement unit, keep us posted.

The upscaling is not selectable by input, sadly. However, it won't downscale anything, so if you turn it on and set it to, say, 720p, it'll pass your dvd player's 720p or 1080i signal untouched. I have a 1080p upscaling dvd player and it works fine with the 82 set to 1080i.

The only way you'll run into a problem is if you have the 82 set to 1080i and your dvd player set to 720p. I don't know why you'd do that, since your panel will have to rescale one of the two, but if that's your setup, the 82 isn't going to be ideal.

Ok so let me know if this will be a problem with the 82.

I have an older DVD player a Sony DVP-NC685V that outputs 480p

I am not going to upgrade it until they whole Blu Ray-HD DVD controversy is settled and I pick up one or the other (although I may break down and get an Oppo if it takes to long)

I am doing all the switching through the Receiver.

The 82 will have one HDMI To DVI cable out to my Toshiba 46H83 which can accept 480p, 720p and 1080i

I have a directtv HD DVR (new Mpeg4 version) that will be connected via HDMI to the 82.

PS2 which is conncected Via component to the 82

and the Sony DVP connected via component to the 82.

With the upscaler will the 82 try to upscale the 480p from the Sony even though its coming component and going out HDMI?

If it does is that going to be a problem? My Monitor will be set on 1080i

If you have the scaler on, it'll upscale the 480p from the Sony. I would set the scaler to 1080i to match your TV (I'm assuming you have a CRT).

Basically, at some point in the signal path that 480p image has to be scaled up to 1080i to show up full-size on your screen. The 82 can do it, or you can turn the scaler off and let the tv do it. Whatever looks best to your eyes is all that counts. I personally think the Faroudja in the 82 looks much better than whatever's in my Samsung 4695, but your tv could be different than mine.

Keep in mind that 480p out of your DVD player is a lot different than the 480p out of an ATSC tuner. The DVD player doesn't have to deinterlace the image on the DVD, because the DVD is already progressive. OTA SD broadcasts picked up by a tuner, on the other hand, are interlaced, so the tuner needs to deinterlace them to make 480p. So the scaler in the 82 should do a pretty good job of scaling your DVD player, because there isn't going to be a lot of image manipulation involved.

On the other hand, I hear that new Oppo is some hot ****.

Thank you that is exactly what I had hoped. I hear good things about the Faroudja scaler as well.

One other question, I know that it has the direct cable connection (and comes with the cable which is great) for the Ipod. Currently My ipod is connected via an ipod dock that has component stereo out to the receiver (old one) and then has a power cord so that it can charge the ipod too.

The question is, I assume the cable coming out of the 82 has an end that plugs into the bottom of the ipod just like a regular cable would, could I just plug it into the dock that I have so I can keep it in the dock (which is nice because it stands it up and charges it) or will that create a problem?

Is anyone upscaling using S-Video inputs and HDMI out to the monitor. I have an old Pioneer Laser Disk and a satellite DVR and both only have S-Video outputs. I'm picking the receiver up tomorrow and hope to see an improvement in the SD output. I have a Tosh HD DVD player and I will leave that connected directly to the Pio 5071 via HDMI. Thanks.

I just tried this with my iPod dock and it does not work. I have an older dock, though (from a B/W 4G 30GB iPod) and so yours could be different. I know Pioneer sells an iPod dock for $99 that's designed to work with the Elite series. It's kinda BS if you "need" their dock, because it's really not doing anything special. I guess they're doing better than Denon and Yamaha, though, because at least they give you the cable upfront.


Scaling SD sources like that is exactly what the Faroudja chip is best at. I have my PS2 connected via s-video and it looks great when playing back FMV sequences in games. Again, it's not going to work a miracle, but it will look noticeably improved.

Why are you bypassing the 82 for the HD-DVD player? It should pass the video signal through untouched to your plasma, and it'll reduce the amount of switching you have to do.

Thanks again, I have the same dock as you, I guess I will use that dock for travel or something like that and get the Pioneer one. Your right at least we get the cable, and the dock at $99 is cheaper the the Denon one.

I have never bought a dock for my iPod because I have the charger and Mac connection cables, but in case you didn't know, the Pioneer cable charges the iPod whenever the Pioneer is on. (It doesn't charge when it is off, however.) I find this is all that I need.

I haven't hooked anything up yet since I pick up the receiver tomorrow. I've been lucky with the Toshiba so far, I read about so many problems others are having with it and I have two HDMI ports on my plasma. I planned to let sleeping dogs lie.

You shouldn't have any issues with the HDMI pass through.

The thing is that scaler does a much better job with a 480i source over component than it does with a 480P... using through as the aspect ratio. It does much worse with a 480P over ccomponent, and if it a 480 p over HDMI the aspect ratio is simply silly.

I have several different DVDs hooked up. My best results so far have been with a couple year old Pioneer DV-260 set to interlace not progressive. In fact it looked darn good with one of the most challenging pieces of material I have.. the Two Against Nature Steely Dan DVD. Also I don't know if it was a new component cable from Monoprice or what but it appears to have knocked out the component function on my 2 sony players... sad because the DVP-NC85H won't play with the Elite 82 through HDMI...

The scaler did really nice work on the Steely Dan DVD tonight... on the Pioneer Player. It also did well with the cheap single disc Sony until the component ports went south. So I can see the potential in the scaler but it is basically for 480i analog sources through component, s-video, or composite. My tv has trouble syncing to HDMI sourced 8300HD stuff at 1080i over hdmi. All in all quite an adventure.

So much for reducing clutter and simple HDMI to HDMI connections.


Edit.. I actually had two bad components cables.

A brand new one from Monoprice, and an old cheapy set that I used successfully in the past. I had a very longish 3rd set that I should have pulled out sooner. No bad component ports.. how the heck do you get two bad sets of coponent cables one new and one old. That will make you crazy troubleshooting. So much for working with what is supposedly "known good". I acutally did not want to have to use component stuff at all, why buy an HDMI switching receiver with 3 inputs if you have to go to component to get optimal results?

If the goofy scaler implementation and the Sony NC85H only intermittenly working on HDMI not was enough of a pain, then getting two bad component cable was icing on the cake. Well... I am glad I was not paying someone by the hour to sort all that out for me.

Well I ran it back to Best Buy last night and told them it was flickering and I wanted a replacement. They wanted to see it happen so they plugged it into their TV at the store. Thankfully it flickered even more often and violently when they did it. So I brought home a brand new un-opened one 82.

However, I hooked it up and experience the same problems... I guess that either Magnolia has a bunch of busted ones or my luck is incredibly bad. I'm not sure I want to go through the exchange process again. I think I may just return it and start shopping around for a different receiver.

I suggest you turn OFF the progressive scan on your Sony and let the scaler get its prefered 480i input and then make 1080i out of it. It will do a very nice job with that. Probably way better than your TV will scale up 480P out of the player.

On the other hand, I just got a Tosh A1 and its upscaled SD stuff is simply awesome.. so I am still looking at how I can really usefully take advantage of the scaler in the 82. I may take a look at the Samsung external ATSC as it has the option to ouput 480i in addition 480/720P and 1080i like the Pro Brand..

I still have a hard time believing the scaler in the 82 does worse with 480 P content out of my tuner making 1080i then my $200 tuner does itself. This compaison is over component because the 82 doesn't seem to want to scale 480i over HDMI... which is a real shame (probably a chipset limitation). Also downright stupid that scaling is either on globally or not... That is a feature of the firmware that is plain rediculous. Whie I am griping I can't understand why the Pro Brand 3150 Tuner won't output 480i... maybe a 4 position switch cost to much money

I guess I will weigh in with some thoughts on the scaler as well. I know many people are eyeing this receiver to see if the extra money for the scaler is worth it. I had been looking at it for some time until I decided to pull the trigger yesterday and pick one up. My setup consists of a Mitsubishi 52725 Medallion DLP, an older Panasonic DVD player (Still waiting on the HD war to finish), DirecTV HD tuner, and a XBOX. The satellite tuner is hooked to the Pioneer via HDMI, and the Panasonic DVD and XBOX are connected via component.

With the scaler turned on I have not seen a whole lot of difference with the DVD's, I have tried 720P and 1080i but haven't seen much improvement over the component connection. I luckily had already taken a vacation day today so I will play with some more settings and see what the end result is. With the HD satellite tuner it's a different story though. I have set the Pioneer to 1080i and have observed this so far... On HD channels the 82 doesn't seem to be degrading anything which is great. On many SD channels the scaler works nicely and the material is nice and crisp. On other SD channels the signal quality (or PQ) is lower and we are just transcoding trash. Which makes the new 1080i signal look horrible with too many artifacts. So far I haven't viewed this as a problem with the 82's chipset, but rather a limitation. As another poster stated, if you are putting trash in, you will be taking out a transcoded and upscaled piece of trash.

I have been trying to take advantage of the scaler trying this and that.

480i is the ticket input into the scaler to get it's best 1080i conversion. It does pretty well. This means component. I took my SA 8300HD off HDMI and put it on component through the scaler. Much to my surprise the color output was much richer and more saturated than it had been over HDMI even on the unscaled digital high def channels.

Previously going straight from the 8300 to the TV I never really saw a difference in PQ between HDMI and Component. So naturally I preferred HDMI for its simple cable management. Needless to say I was quite surprised by the PQ quality improvement I got with the receiver over component. The scaler circuitry appears to be much more optimized for component input then it is for HDMI.

Perhaps the default contrast, brightness and hue settings just happen to be a near optimal match to the 8300 HD. In any case I am quite pleased with the end product. I now have the best looking picture I have ever seen from Cable Box.

gtgray,

So you are using component in from the STAB to the 82, are you then converting to HDMI or keeping it component to the display? I see you are using the SA 8300YD, has anyone with the Motorola 6412 connected this way and care to comment on the picture.

I'm looking at the 81 & 82 and was beginning to think that the scaler wasn't worth the extra $$ since I'm also planning on a Toshiba HD-A1 and would use its scaler for it SD-DVD.

In response to gtgray's comment about the scaler performing better with a component connection, I can confirm this. I just killed the HDMI connection from my sat tuner and replaced it with a component cable. For whatever reason, the scaler DOES perform much better this way, and I still haven't seen any degredation on the HD channels.