Onkyo TX-SR 705 upconverting issue (1 Viewer)

[Mike Romo]

hi all--

So my friend bought an SR-705 at my urging (I was planning on buying the same receiver because I want the new DTS-HD, etc) and unfortunately, we are running into some issues regarding upconversion. I did a quick scan but did not see anyone talking about this.

Everything is being up converted to HDMI.

1 - HDMI to HDMI (Tivo) - works fine, brilliant
2 - composite to HDMI (old DVD player, don't ask)- problem
3 - component to HDMI (Wii) - problem

The problem:
1 - blurry color, image
2 - a small single pixel green line along the bottom of the screen

This shouldn't be happening, obviously, but I am not sure how to attack it. The TV won't let me stretch the image vertically to "hide" the green line, but I am not sure that's really the way I want to solve it anyway.

I feel that it's most likely a technical support issue but if you have any tips or suggestions, I would be most grateful. I know that SR 605 has a firmware update, but so far, nothing for the 705.

all the best,
mike

 

[cwhite]

2 - a small single pixel green line along the bottom of the screen


I have the same issue with the 805 on standard video sources. But my TV underscans a bit anyway and I sit far back from it as to not see the line.

 

[Mike Romo]

hmm..that sounds really wonky. I don't understand why they would release a product that did this. I am also reading reports that when you have a component signal get sent to a 720p display via HDMI, it forces the picture into a 4:3 mode. Does this really happen? I don't see how that would make sense at all...

so confused, feeling very bad about helping my friend get this receiver...

 

[LanceJ]

Can you deactivate the upconverting feature? And by upconvert I really mean upscaling, the feature that takes a signal that contains fewer scan lines than the monitor's display and adds more to it (the source signal) to match the # of lines in the display.

If you can turn it off, try that and see what happens (all fixed-pixel HD displays already upscale internally, otherwise you would see blank lines when watching non-HD content).
IMO this is because of the lack of rigid standards for A/V formats nowadays, kind of the 21st century (audio) equivalent of not wanting to "listen to the man" I guess? But IMO it is more likely it's the fact so many corporations are under such intense pressure to produce fat profits as fast as possible, so they release gear that isn't fully tested. And testing and thorough quality control can be very pricey (I used to be a Q.C. inspector in the petrochemical industry and so have intimate personal experience with this field). Who DOES get to do the final round of testing? Why *us* of course! So I'm sure the advent of customer-installed firmware updates must have been a godsend to the cheapskates in those particular company's accounting departments. :rolleyes

 

[Mike Romo]

ah yes...I used to work in software QA and I know the feeling...but petrochemical QA? that just sounds scary!

Good question--we'll see if we can deactivate the upscaling feature...of course, things work fine when you bypass the receiver altogether, which is also an option, but, I mean, I would love to have all of the switching and associated conversion done in a central place...it just seems like a pretty high priority feature to have "work", you know?

ah, well. My friend is calling Onkyo now, we'll see what they say!

thanks,
mike

 

[yeolde]

Hi, I'm the friend in question.

I was not in front of my unit when I called Onkyo, but they suggested a factory reset and a remapping of all inputs. They will also call me tomorrow morning when I will be able to try out their suggestions in real time. I'll keep you posted!

 

[Brent_S]

The 705 doesn't officially support upscaling/upconversion. It only does transcoding (changing of format)...turning your 480i composite into 480i HDMI. Picture quality will then be determined by your display's scaler.

There's a "secret" menu that will allow you to force 720 upconversion, with the default being 480p (see the 705 faq thread at AVS for details). Selecting 720 can cause format problems with 4:3 signals. I'm not sure what this means for your Wii component signal...intuitively, it would suggest that component is first downscaled to 480p before transcoding to HDMI, unless you force 720.

If you use the same input/output connector on the 705, the signal isn't touched and should look the same as when connected directly to the display.

Disclaimer: Not an owner, just heavily researced the 705/805 as my likely upgrade path.

-Brent

 

[yeolde]

I tried resetting and remapping inputs per Onkyo's support suggestion -- no improvement.

I then tried forcing 720p upconversion -- that improved things somewhat for both my 420p component and my composite video, but the image was still squashed somewhat, stretching the picture horizontally a bit and adding a black bar above the image. Still, it got rid of the green line and the picture was less shaky.

More troubling, those bastards at Onkyo did not call me back at the specified time. Though the unit appears to have everything I am looking for, the lack of an intuitive setup process for dealing with upconversion to HDMI and the boneheads at customer support are making me start to regret this purchase. I guess I'll try exchanging the unit and see if that clears up any issues. Thanks for all the input.

 

[Mike Romo]

Very interesting. It sounds like we might just feed component into the receiver and then feed component out to the TV (or just feed the audio into the receiver and plug the Wii video directly to the TV, but I seem to remember the Wii cables being a bit short for that kind of thing), but what a pain. The whole idea was to simplify everything and not have to do switching at the TV level.

As far as compostite DVD, we may just either use the composite/S-Video out on the receiver and feed it to the TV...can't do much with that signal anyway.

G, that's ridiculous that they didn't call you! how infuriating...

thanks,
mike

 

[joshkarp]

I have a question that is very ameteur, I'm sure. What does one of these receivers that has an upscaling chip do if you already have a player that upscales. I have both a bluray and HDDVD player, both of which upscale. As I'm thinking about upgrading my receiver, would I run into problems with "double upscaling." Also have any of you had problems with HDMI to HDMI video switching/upscaling/whatever..? Thx!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Since your HD DVD and Blu-ray players will output in HD, there will be no "upscaling" unless you want it to. You would have to decide if the upscaling chip in the receiver is better than the one in your player and then set both accordingly for SD DVD playback (HD playback would presumably be passed through). Just to note, the same thing happens when you send a signal to your fixed pixel DLP, plasma or LCD display. Both the TV and the player have internal scalers and it is up to you to decide what player output is best for non-native HD sources.

 

[klepp1214]

I have the same problems, sorta. With my 805 and upscaling via wii. They advertise it but they leave out the part where it will upscale to a standard def aspect ratio so i get a fancy 720p square on my widescreen lcd.

So do i want a A) ugly pixelated standard def wii in widescreen or B) a nice tight high def 720p wii surround by black in 4:3

to be honest, neither.

firmware a possible fix? or is this a hardware limitation?

 

[Brent_S]

What you're describing is scaling. The 705/805's are not advertised as upscaling to 720p, only upconverting. As in upconversion from composite/s-vid/component -> HDMI.

With the 705/805 480i/480p in = 480p out via HDMI...720p component in = 720p HDMI out, 1080i/1080p component = 720p HDMI. The secret menu will allow you to force 720p upscaling, but there's a reason it's hidden from general view. Apparently, the Faroudja chip used, while it can do upscaling to 720, doesn't properly handle 480 16:9 material...I read something about assuming all 480 material is 4:3.

Keep in mind, if you have a fixed panel display, it will always up/down scale to its native resolution. It's then a matter of which device does the best job of scaling.

-Brent

 

[Jari K]

Good point.

 

[klepp1214]

well good sir, apparently my vizio isnt very fixed, or panel.. cause it doesnt scale the wii to its native resolution thats for sure. Stuck with a nice big widescreen ugly 480p while playing my wii.

Sigh

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yes it is a fixed panel. It may have a lousy upscaler, and garbage in usually equals garbage out, but it is a 720p display and it physically cannot output anything other than 720p. That doesn't mean it won't accept other resolutions, it just means all other resolutions have to be scaled and/or deinterlaced in order to be displayed at the native 720p. What you are experiencing is the usual disappointment brought on by an upscaled 480p source after viewing an HD source.