Originally Posted by
bpl07 
Yamaha RX-V663 Official WebsiteYamaha RX-V663 Manual
The best advice I can give you is to first read the manual, then this FAQ, then ask your question if you still don't understand. In fact, I will label each section of this FAQ with the appropriate pages of the manual so you can do your own research. Almost all of my advice came from reading the manual and testing stuff out. Some members (not including myself actually) are bothered by simple questions, so please show some courtesy and try to figure out your problem first before posting.
INDEX
1. Why buy the 663 over other receivers?
2. Why buy the 663 over the 863?
3. What is the best price I can get?
4. Known issues
5. General Background on HDMI as related to the 663
6. Connection tips
7. Best setup for other devices (TV, DVD, etc.)
8. Yamaha Sound Field Discussion
9. How to optimize your speakers (YPAO)
10. Why is there only (2,5) lights lit up on my receiver when I am using more speakers than that?
11. Should I bi-amp my fronts with the surround back terminals?1. Why buy the 663 over other receivers?
I will layout why I chose this receiver over the most popular alternatives available when I was shopping. This is really just a summary of what I gathered from reading the respective threads on avsforum.
Onkyo TX-SR605 - This receiver is notorious for speaker popping issues, heat risks, and the inability to matrix 5.1 pcm to 7.1. I was dead set on this before the 663 was announced.
Onkyo TX-SR705 - More expensive, power increase negligible, noticeable hdmi syncing issues, slight heat issue.
Yamaha RX-V661 - No transcoding to hdmi, no internal decoding of TrueHD and DTS-MA
Pioneer 1018 - This receiver isn't out yet, so comparing them is really trivial at this point. Many have opted to wait for this instead, though.
2. Why buy the 663 over the 863?
Price. Why spend $400 more for one extra hdmi input, a negligible amount of power, a phono input, and upconversion to 1080p? It just isn't worth it, especially at this price point. See this
thread for why upconversion/upscaling is generally a joke. Long story short: regular DVD content is 480i, your TV most likely already scales the signal anyway, everything else is just making up info where it wasn't before.
3. What is the best price I can get?
When this receiver was announced, it was discussed in great detail how to get this receiver for
$400 shipped from J&R. You can still do this to this day. Simply phone in your order (price not available online) and request the receiver for $400.
Recently, someone reported purchasing the receiver for
$350 shipped from 6ave.com. This may or may not be available, you'll have to check.
It has also been reported that the Best Buy employee discount price is
$320, so if you know someone who works in an electronic store...
If you find a price lower than $350 shipped, please check the Yamaha website (link above) to ensure that the seller is an authorized dealer. If not, potential headaches await you if your receiver is faulty. Yamaha only honors their warranty if you bought it from an authorized dealer. Is the warranty really worth $20? I think so, you may disagree.
4. Known Issues
If this receiver decodes a bitstream HD audio source, it cannot matrix it from 5.1 to 7.1 (Edit Oct 08: Several users are reporting that True HD can be matrixed to 7.1, but not DTS MA). If the source is 7.1, there is no issue. If the player decodes the audio and sends it as PCM, there is no issue. The 5.1 to 7.1 issue only happens when you try to make the receiver decode and matrix. This should only affect you in the future if/when players stop decoding audio and can only send them as bitstream.
When you switch from an analog video source, such as the on screen display (OSD), to a digital source, such as HDMI, your picture may be green or generally discolored. This is an hdcp handshake issue and can easily be resolved by switching to another digital source and back. This problem does not occur every time; in fact, I only see this issue with my 25ft PC DVI->HDMI connection. Others have reported the problem with older cable boxes.
The remote control has 2 power buttons, one for turning on the unit, and one for turning off the unit. This can be troublesome when programming universal remotes. My dish network remote can only turn on the receiver; I can't find a way to program it to turn off the receiver. Harmony remotes can easily be programmed to control both power buttons, so it's not really a big issue, just something to be aware of.
This receiver has been reported to not pass
Blacker Than Black. The HDMI standard says that video should use level 16 for black and level 235 for white, but most other receivers do full BTB. This one doesn't.
5. General Background on HDMI as related to the 663
A lot of people ask questions about converting to hdmi, transcoding hdmi, etc. so I thought I'd put my most common answers here.
(19 manual, 23 pdf) You can transcode every possible input except 1080p component (xbox360) to hdmi. You cannot convert hdmi to anything else. This is not a receiver thing, it's an hdmi rule.
(18 manual, 22 pdf) This receiver can upconvert 480i analog to 480p, but it doesn't do any other kind of scaling/upconverting. See thread above about why upscaling is usually a joke anyways.
If you want to have HD audio, such as TrueHD or DTS-MA, you must use hdmi. Optical and coaxial digital do not have the bandwidth to allow hd audio.
Don't worry about buying $80 monster hdmi cables. $6 monoprice cables work just fine.
6. Connection Tips(93 manual, 97 pdf) Many people are puzzled by the labels on the back of the unit. Every input can actually be renamed and relabelled, so the words on the back are really just guidelines for quick setup. This is not true for analog audio (red/white or Left/Right) and composite sources however; when you call the VCR source, you can only call the vcr analog audio or composite. In other words, You can call any component or digital audio input for the vcr source, but you can only call the vcr analog input. There is no way to reassign analog audio/video sources.
Example: I have a nintendo wii, which has component video and analog audio. I connect the audio to the vcr analog input and renamed the vcr input as "WII". I then assigned Component C to the vcr (WII) source. When I hit the vcr button on my remote, it calls Component C for video and whatever is hooked up to the vcr analog input for audio.
You can reassign more than one video/audio input for each source button, but the higher quality source will always take precedent. Therefore, if you want to use one source button for more than one input, make sure the higher quality unit is turned off when you want to use the lower quality input.
Example: I have my Wii and PS2 hooked up to vcr (PS2 analog (yellow) video to vcr analog video, ps2 optical to optical 3, wii video to component C, wii audio to vcr audio). If both are on at the same time, I will get PS2 optical audio and wii component video.
(
100 manual, 104 pdf) Here are my connections for all my devices, which enables me to use the yamaha remote as a universal remote for everything except the PS3.
PS2: Analog VCR Video, Optical 1 Audio. I use the VCR Button on the remote to call this input.
Wii: Component C Video, Analog VCR Audio. I use the VCR Button on the remote to call this input.
PS3: HDMI 1. I use the DVD Button on the remote to call this input.
HTPC: HDMI 2 Video, Coaxial 1 Audio. I use the DTV/CBL* Button on the remote to call this input.
Dish Network DVR: Component B Video, Optical 2 Audio. I use the DVR Button on the remote to call this input.
*I use the DTV/CBL for my HTPC because the remote can only control one unit per source and this is supposed to be set to control your tv. I have nothing to control on the pc with the remote anyways, so it works.
If I had an xbox360, I would connect the video directly to my tv via component to get 1080p, and coaxial to the receiver for audio.
I prefer the source buttons (DVD, DVR, VCR, etc.) to the scene buttons (1,2,3,4). The scene buttons were incredibly frustrating, but you may disagree.
7. Best setup for other devices (TV, DVD, etc.)
For your tv, search avsforum for the best settings for hdmi on your tv. The settings for my Sony KDL-40V3000 are amazing.
For your dvd player (normal, blu-ray, and hddvd), if bitstream is available, use this. Make sure dolby digital and/or DTS are turned on, or you won't get digital audio. This ensures that the audio decoder you are using shows up on the front of the diplay, which a lot of people are worried about. If you use pcm, it won't tell you the decoder you're using because you won't be using a decoder.
One caveat: If your hd audio source is
5.1, but you want
7.1, you must use the player to decode the audio so the receiver can matrix it to 7.1. Switch to pcm to do this.
For your ps3, set it to pcm. The ps3 cannot output truehd as bitstream, so it must do the decoding for you.
You cannot get the receiver to show TrueHD on the front panel with the ps3 (it will show the tiny graphic, but not the big letter display).
For your wii,
make sure you have the tv type set to 480p and 16:9. The games still look good when transcoded to hdmi, unlike other receivers I've heard of which stretch the video. Also, set the audio to dolby digital PLIIx
For your ps2, I use analog video because the receiver can convert 480i to 480p, so component progressive scan with the ps2 is not necessary. By using analog video, I am able to combine the ps2 and wii in to one source button (vcr in my case). The yamaha remote can control the ps2, in case you were wondering.
8. Yamaha Sound Field Discussion(72 manual, 76 pdf, yamaha article) The yamaha sound fields use the data collected during YPAO along with the appropriate digital decoder to optimize the sound for your room. I would suggest trying each out for it's respective situation, but if you aren't satisfied, switch to straight or surround decode. I currently have a 5.0 setup but for a few weeks I had a 3.0 setup. I found the sound fields useful when I only had 3 speakers, but now that I have surround speakers I stick almost exclusively to surround decode. I try to minimize as much as possible the amount of processing done to the audio.
If you have 2 channel sources but want more than 2 speakers running them, try surround decode PLIIx. Use Movie for movies/tv and Music for music sources. You don't really lose much by not having speakers for the extra data, but if you want to try to use the extra data try one of the sound fields.
9. How to optimize your speakers (YPAO)(32 manual, 36 pdf)
Yup, that's all I'm gonna tell you. Completely described in the manual.
10. Why is there only (2,5) lights lit up on my receiver when I am using more speakers than that?
The lights indicate the input channels, not what's being output. This let's you know if you're getting the dolby digital or truehd you want, not whether you are using them effectively.
11. Should I bi-amp my fronts with the surround back terminals?
Read this
article to see if it is practical for you to do it. I didn't feel like doing internal surgery on my speakers, so I left it alone.
