Graham D Posted September 13, 2010 Posted September 13, 2010 My Sony TV has an HDMI port but my Denon AVR has only Component outlets, while my Denon DVD player is connected to the AVR with Optical. The TV is capable of accepting 720 or 1080 but in the present configuration has to settle for 480i or 576i coz that's what it is being fed. I see there are gizmos on the market that claim to upscale the Component analogue signal to HDMI digital which in theory should provide a far superior picture. Can anyone tell me if one of these this will in fact produce a better picture when playing my DVDs,( maybe in 720 or even 1080), or is this all smoke and mirrors ? Any first hand experience here ? Graham.
Ernie1553552694 Posted September 13, 2010 Posted September 13, 2010 Buy a new receiver that can upscale or maybe a DVD that can scale. It's probably the same kind of money, or less, as a video scaler. The Marantz DV6001 is a good deal (see Trademe). More money than most people care to spend on DVD players now, but still a fine machine if you want to watch DVD in full HD.
daver1553552689 Posted September 14, 2010 Posted September 14, 2010 Graham Doggett;132953 wrote: My Sony TV has an HDMI port but my Denon AVR has only Component outlets, while my Denon DVD player is connected to the AVR with Optical. The TV is capable of accepting 720 or 1080 but in the present configuration has to settle for 480i or 576i coz that's what it is being fed. I see there are gizmos on the market that claim to upscale the Component analogue signal to HDMI digital which in theory should provide a far superior picture. Can anyone tell me if one of these this will in fact produce a better picture when playing my DVDs,( maybe in 720 or even 1080), or is this all smoke and mirrors ? Any first hand experience here ? Graham. Probably not, I'd save the money for a new receiver. You don't say whether the TV is Full HD or not but either way you're probably better letting the analogue signal go relatively unmolested to the TV and have is scaled and digitised just once in the TV. The price of receivers has dropped and unless you're enthusiast ones that support numerous HDMI connections and 3D even are quite reasonable.
nixon76 Posted September 14, 2010 Posted September 14, 2010 Your telly has an upscaler in it as well, so in theory you only need a plain component->hdmi converter. Things being sold with built in upscalers (DVD players etc) are bargaining on their scaler being better than the telly's in built one.
Graham D Posted September 14, 2010 Author Posted September 14, 2010 nixon76;133018 wrote: Your telly has an upscaler in it as well, so in theory you only need a plain component->hdmi converter. Things being sold with built in upscalers (DVD players etc) are bargaining on their scaler being better than the telly's in built one. The TV is a Sony Bravia 40 inch LCD, a few years old now but working perfectly , and when purchased it was advertised as HD or HDMI 'ready'. Eventually I will probably go the Blue Ray way but in the meantime if I can find a simple and cost effective ( cheap !) way to improve the picture quality from my DVDs why not. I have just discovered that Jaycar have a component to HDMI converter for only $155 ! Might have to give it a go, particularly if I can arrange to returm it if there is no noticable improvement. Graham.
daver1553552689 Posted September 14, 2010 Posted September 14, 2010 Graham Doggett;133030 wrote: The TV is a Sony Bravia 40 inch LCD, a few years old now but working perfectly , and when purchased it was advertised as HD or HDMI 'ready'. Eventually I will probably go the Blue Ray way but in the meantime if I can find a simple and cost effective ( cheap !) way to improve the picture quality from my DVDs why not. I have just discovered that Jaycar have a component to HDMI converter for only $155 ! Might have to give it a go, particularly if I can arrange to returm it if there is no noticable improvement. Graham. I suspect it may be $155 for nothing. The convertor does component to HDMI but scaling is still done in the TV, in this case 576 to 720ish I would suspect. I would also expect you're actually introducing an addition conversion step as the component in on TV wouldn't be converted to HDMI inside the TV but would be introduced after the HDMI decoding.
Nigel Beale Posted September 14, 2010 Posted September 14, 2010 Quite frankly converters like these only assist those who don't want to update cables, especially if they are long runs stuck in walls and the like. They generally only convert to cable type and do not scale, so in all reality no benefort over component analog. Actually HDMI is still a component signal, just the digital version. Infact every conversion you lose data so you are more likely lower image performance by using this type of thing. You will get a better image result by buying a BD player (had for sub $300)with good upscaling ability and go direct to the TV with HDMI, carry on with the optical or coax to the receiver even though you don't get HD sound, although if you got a player with analog outputs you may improve both areas when playing a BD disk. The limit of course is still the TV in resolution, so ultimately the TV will scale the input to that default resolution, guessing that would be something like 1366*768. Here you would set the BD player to 720p output, being the closest to the scale of the TV. Some more expensive scalers can set the scale to match the tv resolution, however for the same money you could just buy a modern fullHD tv, scalers work well when you have multi sources coming into one TV or display unit that are mixed resolutions and signals, but are generally overkill for one source one display arrangements.
SpongyP Posted September 14, 2010 Posted September 14, 2010 Graham Doggett;133030 wrote: The TV is a Sony Bravia 40 inch LCD, a few years old now but working perfectly , and when purchased it was advertised as HD or HDMI 'ready'. How many hdmi inputs on your TV?
Brian Ono Posted September 15, 2010 Posted September 15, 2010 I assume that you could put a splitter onto your HDMI out and connect both directly to your tv and receiver to allow for hd audio content
Graham D Posted September 15, 2010 Author Posted September 15, 2010 SpongyP;133061 wrote: How many hdmi inputs on your TV? Only one. Graham.
Graham D Posted September 15, 2010 Author Posted September 15, 2010 Brian Ono;133067 wrote: I assume that you could put a splitter onto your HDMI out and connect both directly to your tv and receiver to allow for hd audio content I don't have an HDMI out. My DVD player and my AVR only have Component out. That is why I am asking if this can be upscaled to HDMI. Graham.
Paradox1553552678 Posted September 15, 2010 Posted September 15, 2010 Masterpiece;133043 wrote: You will get a better image result by buying a BD player (had for sub $300)with good upscaling ability and go direct to the TV with HDMI, carry on with the optical or coax to the receiver even though you don't get HD sound, although if you got a player with analog outputs you may improve both areas when playing a BD disk. I agree that this would be the best way to go - buy a cheapish upscaling bluray player rather than a converter.
daver1553552689 Posted September 15, 2010 Posted September 15, 2010 Graham Doggett;133104 wrote: I don't have an HDMI out. My DVD player and my AVR only have Component out. That is why I am asking if this can be upscaled to HDMI. Graham. Just remember for $155 gets you:- 75% toward a Blu Ray if you get the Dick Smith one 50% if you go for Panasonic one etc. 20% to new receiver
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