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What type of receiver should I purchase?

post #1 of 3
7/7/09 at 8:16pm
Thread Starter 

Hello everyone

I am totally ignorant about current technologies, but I do want to upgrade my old equipment. I love front projectors, and I would like to purchase a Mitsubishi HC 5500 projector and a Blu-ray player (I do not have any particlar one, but probably Momitsu BDP 899 Region Free). My  question is could I use my old A/V receiver, which does not have any HDMI output. My current components do not have any HDMI. I just connected S-video cable from DVD player to a projector, and Coaxial cable from my receiver to DVD player, and it works quite well. I asked one home theater store and I was told that I have to purchase a upconverting receiver with HDMI output. What does "upcoverting" mean, and do I absolutely need a new receiver?

Thanks for your help!!

Henry

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post #2 of 3
7/7/09 at 9:17pm
"Upconverting" isn't strictly necessary.  It depends on how many types of video cable you are willing to run between your projector and your receiver, and/or between your projector and your sources.  "Upconverting" means that a receiver will take a source connected via composite/s-video/component, and convert it to HDMI output, so that you only have to run a single HDMI between receiver & projector.  Sometimes it will also deinterlace & scale the output to a different resolution.  Whether you'd want to get one depends on what switching capabilities you have now, how many sources you have (what besides Blu-ray, e.g. HD-DVR? game console?), how many cables you want to run.

Exactly how old is your receiver?  Does it do Dolby Digital + DTS?  Component video?  multi-ch analog input? What's the brand/model #?

To get the absolute latest audio codec support on the Blu-ray, receiver upgrade might be necessary, particularly if you get the Momitsu.  But if you are happy with legacy DD/DTS (difference small anyway), then it doesn't matter.
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post #3 of 3
7/7/09 at 9:21pm
You don't need a new receiver if your happy with the old one but you won't be able to take full advantage of the BluRay players hi-resolution DolbyTruHD and DTS-Master Audio. But you will still get the older DD and DTS surround sound.

Up-converting is a term usually  used when a device- like a receiver, dvd player or tv- takes a low resolution signal, such as 480i, and converts it to a higer resolution (with varying degrees of success depending on how good the device is). The term is also used when an analog signal like that from a vcr is converted to a digital signal for output thru an hdmi cable. The main reason for receivers having this up-converting ability is so all signals can be sent thru one cable to the tv making installation, setup and operation a little bit easier.

You should also use an hdmi cable from the dvd player to the projector if you can, or component cables since both are better then s-video.

Looks like Stephen beat me by 4 minutes!
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