[Greg Matty]

I just hooked up my Epson 8350 after enjoying a Sanyo Z4 for the past five years.


First impressions are unfortunately mixed. The new PJ is much brighter with better black levels and those were two areas I really wanted to see improvement and so far I am pleased. Blue Ray looks great and the Epson indicates I am getting 1080P.


The downside is with 720P sources like my HD DVD player and 480P sources like SD-DVD's. I always demoed my Z4 with the HD-DVD BBC Planet Earth programming and when viewed on the Epson 8350, the PQ sucks big time. According to the information button the image is being displayed at 720P. Whenever anyone saw the PQ from the Z4 at "only" 720P their jaws dropped as did mine. The image with the Epson looks no better than an average quality SD-DVD. I won't buy every HD-DVD and SD-DVD title on Blu Ray so I am hoping I have a setting off.


I am running through an Onkyo 804 and have not changed any settings on the receiver, just changed out the PJ and re-connected all the same cables.


I'll give it more tweaking tomorrow but maybe someone here also watches material other than Blu-Ray and may be able to point me in the correct direction to get other sources looking at least as good as the Z4.


Greg

 

[dbldare]

Does your HD-DVD player not produce a 1080p image?


dbl

 

[Kilgore]

If your HD-DVD doesn't do 1080p, switch it to 1080i instead of 720p.


BTW, I went from a Sanyo Z4 to an Epson 6100 and was floored at the improvement. I was an early adopter of HD-DVD as well, and I saw a tremendous difference.

 

[Favelle]

What HD DVD player in the WORLD doesn't do 1080i/p????

 

[Ix]

Yeah something sounds wrong here, like the description of the problem. There wasn't an HD-DVD player made that didn't do 1080p. Maybe the 360 drive addon if you were using component cables, I dunno. Whatever the case I'm not sure what the actual problem is.


I would guess it's something do to with upconversion. As I recall you should always let your source do the upconverting/scaling and turn it off in other devices up the chain. Might be worth playing around with thought.

 

[Kilgore]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ix /forum/post/19600551


Yeah something sounds wrong here, like the description of the problem. There wasn't an HD-DVD player made that didn't do 1080p. Maybe the 360 drive addon if you were using component cables, I dunno. Whatever the case I'm not sure what the actual problem is.


I would guess it's something do to with upconversion. As I recall you should always let your source do the upconverting/scaling and turn it off in other devices up the chain. Might be worth playing around with thought.

Actually, many HD-DVD players didn't do 1080p (The A1,A2 and A3 from Toshiba only went to 1080i). The XBOX 360 add-on did 1080p, but didn't do lossless audio.

 

[Greg Matty]

After going to sleep on this I realized the problem; I think.


As my new PJ is an LCD it has a fixed pixel count just like an LCD computer screen. Anyone who has run an LCD at non-native resolution knows how much worse the image looks. Since this PJ doesn't up-sample the video and neither does my 804, I am seeing the same thing I would running my computer monitor at other than 1,600 X 950 or whatever it's native resolution is.


Good excuse to order a new Onkyo 608 which will upscale to 1080P. I am sure that will eliminate my problem. And yes my Toshiba A-2 is only 720P or 1080i. I'd like to buy a new in the box A-20 if there is one for sale, cheap.


Greg

 

[BBQ7]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Matty /forum/post/19600845


After going to sleep on this I realized the problem; I think.


As my new PJ is an LCD it has a fixed pixel count just like an LCD computer screen. Anyone who has run an LCD at non-native resolution knows how much worse the image looks. Since this PJ doesn't up-sample the video and neither does my 804, I am seeing the same thing I would running my computer monitor at other than 1,600 X 950 or whatever it's native resolution is.


Good excuse to order a new Onkyo 608 which will upscale to 1080P. I am sure that will eliminate my problem. And yes my Toshiba A-2 is only 720P or 1080i. I'd like to buy a new in the box A-20 if there is one for sale, cheap.


Greg

I think the 608 has the Faroudja DCDi Cinema (directional correlational deinterlacing) video processor in it.


It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has a high end video processor and if it drastically improved the projectors image.

 

[dbldare]

I can't speak specifically to the Onkyo, but I have a Yammy 663 and it upscales better than my Z5. Granted it's a 720p projector but I can tell a difference. As stated above, I usually let the player or receiver do the upscaling. All my sources are shooting out a 720p image.


As to the projector displaying an image that's not native to it's panel, you may want to check the menu and see if there's a setting to "force" it to. Most do by default.


dbl

 

[42Plasmaman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Matty /forum/post/19600845


After going to sleep on this I realized the problem; I think.


As my new PJ is an LCD it has a fixed pixel count just like an LCD computer screen. Anyone who has run an LCD at non-native resolution knows how much worse the image looks. Since this PJ doesn't up-sample the video and neither does my 804, I am seeing the same thing I would running my computer monitor at other than 1,600 X 950 or whatever it's native resolution is.


Good excuse to order a new Onkyo 608 which will upscale to 1080P. I am sure that will eliminate my problem. And yes my Toshiba A-2 is only 720P or 1080i. I'd like to buy a new in the box A-20 if there is one for sale, cheap.


Greg

IIRC, the Onkyo and most receivers will not upconvert HDMI content.

Make sure to check/research the upconversion abilities of a receiver.

 

[dbldare]



Quote:
Originally Posted by 42Plasmaman /forum/post/19601891


IIRC, the Onkyo and most receivers will not upconvert HDMI content.

Make sure to check/research the upconversion abilities of a receiver.

I don't know for sure because my projector is a 720p projector, but the Yamaha will upconvert all my other sources to 720p. I'm pretty sure it upconverts everything to 1080p, but can't try it with my current set-up.



dbl

 

[benareeno]

if you switch the player to 1080i, then there will be no upconverting required...only de-interlacing. I'm assuming the de-interlacing ability on a modern projector would be very good indeed...these other suggestions are making things a lot more difficult....just switch to 1080i.

 

[fitbrit]



Quote:
Originally Posted by dbldare /forum/post/19601560


I can't speak specifically to the Onkyo, but I have a Yammy 663 and it upscales better than my Z5. Granted it's a 720p projector but I can tell a difference. As stated above, I usually let the player or receiver do the upscaling. All my sources are shooting out a 720p image.


As to the projector displaying an image that's not native to it's panel, you may want to check the menu and see if there's a setting to "force" it to. Most do by default.


dbl

That's funny because I have the same Yamaha receiver, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't upscale - it just upconverts sources to HDMI.

 

[Favelle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Matty . And yes my Toshiba A-2 is only 720P or 1080i. I'd like to buy a new in the box A-20 if there is one for sale, cheap. Greg

1080i will look I DENTICAL to 1080p....I am not understanding your prolem. There will be NO scaling.

 

[Greg Matty]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Favelle /forum/post/19606729


1080i will look I DENTICAL to 1080p....I am not understanding your prolem. There will be NO scaling.

I had my Toshiba A-2 set to 720P so that is where the problem originated. I'll try to reset it to see what happens. That still won't help the SD-DVD's I watch.


Long story short, Onkyo 608 showed up today and it upscales everything to 1080P so the problem has gone away. This receiver is quite a bit shallower than the 804. I think width and height are about the same but it is at least three inches shallower. The receiver sounds fantastic and I am through spending more than $400 for a receiver. I'd rather spend $400 every other year than $800 every four.


I am very happy with the improved contrast and think the 8350 was well worth the money. But to be honest watching Blu-Ray or HD-DVD does not look noticeably better than they did at 720P as far as detail goes. I am not too surprised by this as even places like projectorcentral reported that the move from a 720P PJ to 1080P would not be night and day.


Overall I am very happy with the purchase and look forward to lots of viewing enjoyment.


Greg

 

[coderguy]

I found the difference to be fairly huge when comparing 1080p to 720p on a 100"+ screen when comparing a Sanyo Z5 to a Mits hc3800 or Epson 8500, but say less than 90" it wasn't so much.


Also, a lot of the movies don't have optimal lighting because they are going for effect over highlights and detail. Find a reference scenery disk or a movie like Apollo 13 that has excellent lighting, then the differences of 1080p and 720p are much more noticeable.


Hawaii, an island symphony comes to mind for a decent quality "immersive" scenery experience.

 

[KBMAN]

Just remember that 720P pj's will 'appear' to look sharper because of the screendoor (if it's LCD). When I went to 1080P the difference wasn't necessarily more sharp, but in contrast more filmlike and seamless. Then you get all of the beni's of what you already described; better blacks, better lumens, better colors, etc. It's unfortunate, though, that we have lack-luster transfers of great films now on bluray

But when a good one comes 'round, you will KNOW it

 

[coderguy]

I would also suspect screen material. Some screens (I owned one) cause loss in sharpness and even what appears to be pixel smudging which tends to give a perceived loss in resolution. Since upgrading to the HP screen, much much better, and more of a film like image.

 

[suade907]

I have the same planet earth hd-dvd running it off my xbox 360 at 1080p. I just got my projector a few days ago and experienced the same lackluster punch in the image. The next day at about 10-12 hours my projector started to make a grinding noise like a hard drive running really hard. Suffice it to say I'm kind of giving up on the 8350 and it's going back to the store. Maybe a large plasma is in the cards.

 

[msbklipsch]

the 8350 is my first FP and I am totally impressed with it

connecting via component cable from DVD player

and composite rca connection for TV from an OTA Zenith box with RS rabbit ears

all look great to me

using a Draper matt-white 92" manual screen