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Video Quality Loss Going Through Receiver?

8157 Views 33 Replies 17 Participants Last post by MichaelJHuman, Aug 22, 2011

madduxsp

Discussion Starter · Aug 17, 2011

Just picked up a NR-809 receiver that should be delivered today and wanted to ask the experts a question. As long as I am using quality hdmi cables there should be no difference in how the picture looks whether I plug from tv to cable box vs tv to receiver to cable box right?

The reason I ask this is I picked a home theatre in a box a while back that uses the onkyo ht-r960 receiver and when we hooked up through the unit I could see a slight loss in the quality of the picture. I yanked it out and just plugged directly and it looks great so I have since left it like that.

Just curious if this unit I got is a lemon, a known issue, or if this is to be expected with any receiver.

1 - 20 of 34 Posts

Audiodork

· #2 · Aug 17, 2011

Hello,

The 809 has 2 of the finest Video Processing Chips on the Market with HQV Vida and Marvell Qdeo. It would take a 9G Kuro or separate VP for it not to be superior to your TV when upsampling to the Display's Native Resolution.

I am pretty sure the x09 Default is Through where it does not upsample so you might want to try 1080p provided you have a recent Display or whatever your TV's NR is. When a Display receives a Source of a lower resolution than its native, it processes it up to its native. Many AVR's do a superior job. With HDTV and BD, there will not be a huge difference, but with DVD's, VHS, Netflix, etc, the difference can be profound.

Cheers,

AD

MichaelJHuman

· #3 · Aug 17, 2011

Not in my experience.

jdsmoothie

· #4 · Aug 17, 2011

The 960 uses the antiquated Faroudja chip which would likely provide no real benefit, while as noted above, the 809 uses two much better quality chips so there should be some definite improvement noted.

superchuck500

· #5 · Aug 17, 2011

I had this same question - but more generically.

It seems that some owner reviews of the mid-range AV receivers (such as the Denon 1912) complain of a loss of video quality. If part of the objective is to have a switching AV receiver so you can run one HDMI through the wall to the mounted HDTV, losing quality compared to the Directv digital box feed (for instance) would certainly be bad.

Are these owners not doing something right or do you really have to go up to the $1K price point to get improvement?

Is there a consensus on what the best mid-range ($400 to $700) receiver is for its video properties?

Thanks!

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Audiodork

· #6 · Aug 17, 2011

Hello,

The Marvell Qdeo offered in many Pioneer and x09 Onkyo's in that price range would be the best Video Processor choice in my estimation. If you could find an Anchor Bay Chip based AVR in the Pricerange, that too would be excellent. That would be Denon primarily. After using Qdeo in my OPPO BDP-93, I have been quite pleased with its performance.

Cheers,

AD

superchuck500

· #7 · Aug 17, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by Audiodork /forum/post/20835030

Hello,

The Marvell Qdeo offered in many Pioneer and x09 Onkyo's in that price range would be the best Video Processor choice in my estimation. If you could find an Anchor Bay Chip based AVR in the Pricerange, that too would be excellent. That would be Denon primarily. After using it in my OPPO BDP-93, I have been quite pleased with its performance.

Cheers,

AD

Thanks for the info AD.

JonCr

· #8 · Aug 18, 2011

This is a very interesting discussion! This isn't the kind of thing the manufacturers seem to list on their web sites. How about the video chip used in HK 2650 - is it any good?

Audiodork

· #9 · Aug 18, 2011

Hello,

Many AVR's do make finding their VP Chip easily found, but with H/K that does not seem to be the case. I spent a few minutes looking around for the VP used and found nothing.

Cheers,

AD

swh01213

· #10 · Aug 18, 2011

Quick question, when watching a non-hd channel on direct-tv, with hdmi to the avr. Will he avr be able to convert it up to hd.

schan1269

· #11 · Aug 18, 2011

@swh

That is the whole point of scaling...

And why "which scaler is the best" is a discussion people have had for over 10 years.

afrogt

· #12 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by swh01213 /forum/post/20835738

Quick question, when watching a non-hd channel on direct-tv, with hdmi to the avr. Will the avr be able to convert it up to hd.

nope, garbarge = garbage out. If you've got a crappy SD signal coming into your receiver or TV cannot work miracles. Upscaling may help a little but you cannot expect to get HD quality from a SD signal.

What receiver do you have?

swh01213

· #13 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by afrogt /forum/post/0

nope, garbarge = garbage out. If you've got a crappy SD signal coming into your receiver or TV cannot work miracles. Upscaling may help a little but you cannot expect to get HD quality from a SD signal.

What receiver do you have?

None yet, had a 3311, but returned it based on, network card failure fear.

KidHorn

· #14 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by afrogt /forum/post/20835943

nope, garbarge = garbage out. If you've got a crappy SD signal coming into your receiver or TV cannot work miracles. Upscaling may help a little but you cannot expect to get HD quality from a SD signal.

What receiver do you have?

Couldn't agree more. Every modern TV converts the signal to it's native resolution, which in almost every case nowadays is 1080 lines. There's no reason to ever use video upscaling in a AV receiver unless your TV is an older HDTV.

Video processing in receivers is a vestage of something that was useful several years ago, but is no longer needed for the most part.

superchuck500

· #15 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by KidHorn /forum/post/20836834

Couldn't agree more. Every modern TV converts the signal to it's native resolution, which in almost every case nowadays is 1080 lines. There's no reason to ever use video upscaling in a AV receiver unless your TV is an older HDTV.

Video processing in receivers is a vestage of something that was useful several years ago, but is no longer needed for the most part.

That makes sense to me, but where I have the problem is the desire to have a single sourced HDMI running to the TV because of a clean wall mount with in-wall cable connection.

Should I try to get a receiver with video processing that will (at minimum) not detract from the digital signal from my DTV box, or should I instead run multiple HDMIs through the wall?

rkwak

· #16 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by KidHorn /forum/post/0

Couldn't agree more. Every modern TV converts the signal to it's native resolution, which in almost every case nowadays is 1080 lines. There's no reason to ever use video upscaling in a AV receiver unless your TV is an older HDTV.

Video processing in receivers is a vestage of something that was useful several years ago, but is no longer needed for the most part.

I think it depends on the quality of the video scaler. Just because every tv has a scaler doesn't mean that you won't get better scaling from an outboard scaler. It's somewhat analogous to av receivers and their amp sections - there are significant qualitative differences between the amplifications sections of different receivers (and of course between receivers and pre-pro/external amp combos) beyond just total watts. Would you get better scaling from a receiver with a faroudja scaler than in a good new tv - probably not, but you would probably get better scaling from a receiver with a Marvell scaler.

KidHorn

· #17 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by superchuck500 /forum/post/20837317

That makes sense to me, but where I have the problem is the desire to have a single sourced HDMI running to the TV because of a clean wall mount with in-wall cable connection.

Should I try to get a receiver with video processing that will (at minimum) not detract from the digital signal from my DTV box, or should I instead run multiple HDMIs through the wall?

If you're going from a DTV box, go through the receiver using HDMI passthrough or whatever setting that tells the receiver to pass the HDMI "as is" to the TV. Chances are near 100% that your DTV box is going to convert everything to either 1080i or 720p anyway. Having the receiver also try to clean up or upgrade the signal will likely result in some weird enhancements to the picture.

KidHorn

· #18 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by rkwak /forum/post/20837637

I think it depends on the quality of the video scaler. Just because every tv has a scaler doesn't mean that you won't get better scaling from an outboard scaler. It's somewhat analogous to av receivers and their amp sections - there are significant qualitative differences between the amplifications sections of different receivers (and of course between receivers and pre-pro/external amp combos) beyond just total watts. Would you get better scaling from a receiver with a faroudja scaler than in a good new tv - probably not, but you would probably get better scaling from a receiver with a Marvell scaler.

Anyone buying new equipment should plan on having a clean 1080i signal coming from whatever source they have. Be it blu-ray or DTV box. In this case, it's more likely any video processing done by the receiver will distort the picture or colors rather than clean it up. If you have SD content from a DTV box, the DTV box will automatically upscale it to 1080i or 720p. Same with a blu-ray player playing a regular DVD. In most cases, you have no choice. The upscaling will be done, like it or not.

schan1269

· #19 · Aug 18, 2011

Here is my set-up...My Directv HD boxes are connected to their respective HT this way....

1. HDMI

2. Component/tos-link

3. RCA analog(in case we want Fox News or the "radio stations" in Zone 2)

Why do you ask?

My AVR all have "input specific" settings. When I watch ESPN HD, I have the HD box via HDMI. When I watch the Military channel I switch to the input where the component/Tos-link reside. Why?

I have the HDMI input set as "through"

I have the component/Tos-link set as "scale to 1080I"

And with the two HT "brains" I do this with, they are both Integra(DHC 80.2 and DTR 8.8...coincidentally, used to do that with the Denon AVR 4810 when it resided in my bedroom. Between the 4810 and 8.8, I don't see a difference...but both are better than the scaling the TV itself does. A 1080I only NEC plasma, and yes...it does have a scaler)

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rkwak

· #20 · Aug 18, 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by KidHorn /forum/post/20837800

Anyone buying new equipment should plan on having a clean 1080i signal coming from whatever source they have. Be it blu-ray or DTV box. In this case, it's more likely any video processing done by the receiver will distort the picture or colors rather than clean it up. If you have SD content from a DTV box, the DTV box will automatically upscale it to 1080i or 720p. Same with a blu-ray player playing a regular DVD. In most cases, you have no choice. The upscaling will be done, like it or not.

How does one plan on having a clean 1080i signal when that's largely out of the consumer's control? For starters, not all content is 1080i at source - VOD, digital broadcasts, recorded media, etc. all come in many different native resolutions with varying levels of artifacts and noise. If you are talking about having your source components output all of that at 1080i, then the source component is doing the very scaling that you are criticizing. My Pioneer receiver certainly does a much better job scaling lower res content to 1080i than either my PS3 or Motorola cable box do (or my tv for that matter). Also, not all 1080i content is equal -I don't know whether it's because of artifacts or noise present in the original broadcast signal or introduced by my cable box, but native 1080i video output direct from my cable box to my tv definitely has more artifacts and noise and is generally less clean than when run through my Pioneer's Qdeo processing.

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