Is upconverting to 1080P necessary or just a convenience? (1 Viewer)

[Brad Newton]

Really interested in the Pioneer SC07 receiver, but read that it will only pass thru hdmi sources. In layman's terms..........is this really a serious defect? My tv is a Samsung LN950A with Dish HD, & a blu-ray player.

 

[Bluzman]

Your TV looks like it's native resolution is 1080p. It automatically scales any signal that's less than 1080p to its native resolution.

 

[Brad Newton]

which means what in layman's terms? so is the lack of upconverting by the Pioneer a problem? Should I look for an alternative receiver that will upconvert the hdmi & component signals to 1080P?

 

[SethH]

I wouldn't be too concerned about it. That receiver does upscale any s-video or component source to 1080p when output through HDMI, but if it receives a signal via HDMI is simply passes it through at the original resolution. Most HDMI sources will be either 720p or 1080p anyway, so this shouldn't be a concern.

Also, your TV will scale anything it receives to it's native resolution.

By most all accounts the SC-07 is a great receiver.

 

[Brad Newton]

Please correct me if I am wrong.........but you are saying that regardless of the signal that my tv receives, it will process it as 1080P?? I would assume that to be good?

 

[Philip Hamm]

It's neither good nor bad, it just is.

Your TV is only capable of displaying at the native resolution of the LCD matrix, which is 1080P. Every non-1080P native signal regardless of source must be scaled to this resolution in order to be displayed at all. Whether the scaling happens in the source, in the reciever, or in the TV is largely irrelevant.

The main concern is that some scaling software may produce a more pleasant picture than other scaling software. The chances that some external scaler will do enough of a better job than the scaler in your TV for it to make a discernable difference in picture quality are very small. The chances that the scaler in a receiver, any receiver, will do a better job are extremely remote.

Another concern is that if the receiver is automoatically scaling everything to a certain resolution in order to add something like an on-screen menu, and that is not 1080P, then you may have two different scaling activities going on. There may be some visible picture artifacts generated by all this processing. Again, the chances that they would be discernable/annoying to you are fairly small.

Short version - I wouldn't worry about it. Pioneer does a great job with audio receivers; if you like the feature set, go for it.

 

[Batt]

Man, now I am completely confused. If my TV, a Vizio 47" 1080p, upscales everything to 1080p regardless of of the source, what good is an upscaling DVD player or, for that matter, a BD player?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

A BD player is an obvious improvement, native HD is always better than upscaling, given the same sources. But the improvement of upscaling in one component over another is more murky. I will disagree with Philip that the differences between a receiver or player upscaling and a tv upscaling are not discernable or very small. Some TV's are great at upscaling, but some downright suck. IHMO, there are just too many factors out there to give generic advice, the only way to really find out is to try them yourself.