Newby questions - 60" Sony GWII - 811 coming Sat

JWBama

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Dec 4, 2003
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A couple questions from a newby with little clue with when it comes to the whole HDTV revolution. At this time I have a PVR 501 connected to my 60" Grand Wega with a S-Video connection. SDTV signals are not very good, especially with wide zoom, etc. I have ordered a 811 receiver that will be here Saturday. I was wondering, first and foremost, can you receive HDTV signals from local channels through the subscribed Dish signals that I currently receive on my 501 PVR, or must I have an OTA antenna. (May be a dumb question). Second, how can you receive widescreen format signals to match the format of my Grand Wega? Any help and input from Sony Grand Wega owners out there would be greatly appreciated.
 
JWBama,

I have a 60" GWII. You will need an OTA antenna to display your HD locals through 811 OTA module.

Format: The GWII native resolution is 768p. Right now I have a 6000 receiver and the GWII either will upconvert the 720p resolution to 768p or downconvert the 1080i resolution to 768p. So, I believe with the 811 it will work the same way. You may have to decide which resolution coming out of the 811 will be better 720p or 1080i. I can tell you that for my 6000 receiver I have it set to 1080i and the GWII does an excellent job with downconverting to 768p.

I guess you know but if the signal is HD then it will be 16x9 or widescreen.

I hope this helps. Also, the 811 has DVI and component output. Use the DVI connector to your TV. The GWII will look excellent through DVI. Component is fine as well but if you have a DVI cable then use it.

I hope this helps...
 
Thanks Sean Mota! Does the DVI help the SDTV signal at all? I imagine what you see is what you get, but I thought maybe the DVI input through the 811 might be a better picture. Any other pointers for better picture would be greatly appreciated!!
 
JWBama said:
Thanks Sean Mota! Does the DVI help the SDTV signal at all? I imagine what you see is what you get, but I thought maybe the DVI input through the 811 might be a better picture. Any other pointers for better picture would be greatly appreciated!!

SD is compressed and it will not look any better. As a matter of fact I only use my 6000 to watch HD. I also have a 721 which I connect to the composite input of the GWII to watch SD (the 6000 cannot output SD & HD simultaneously). Do not use the s-video of the GWII. It has been proven that the composite input of the GWII is a better input than the s-video (Yeah! I know this is not the normal). If the 811 can output both SD & HD simultaneously, I would use video input 3 in the GWII (or any composite input) to watch the SD programs.

Each of the inputs of the GWII can be calibrated independently in the General user menus. If you have not done this, calibrate the composite input with AVIA or Video Essentials. You would like to use the PRO mode instead of VIVID or STANDARD or MILD. PRO is very flexible and it lets you manipulate more than MILD. Some people like MILD (and I do sometimes). All my calibration was done using the PRO mode. I adjusted the user menu which you can find with remote control (using AVIA or Video Essentials). I also calibrated the hidden menu. But I will not go into this. There is a thread in another forum that has more than 100 pages in responses (PM if you want the link).

In order to do all this, you need to record your initial settings in a piece of paper so that if you are not satisfied, you can always go back. The VIDEO 7 (DVI) do not calibrate. For most people it will look excellent; others who are very picky will still need to calibrate. I use PRO mode for all inputs. I hope this helps...
 
Sean Mota,

Thanks for the info. I have a 50" GWII and will be getting the
811 this afternoon. What affect will the view options on the
tv have? What I am talking about is the wide zoom, full etc etc
 
Kevin_Texas said:
Sean Mota,

Thanks for the info. I have a 50" GWII and will be getting the
811 this afternoon. What affect will the view options on the
tv have? What I am talking about is the wide zoom, full etc etc

There are reports that SD looks better on a 50" (GWII). Not by much. What I always try to do is to watch SD in 4x3 if it's coming from the Satellite. Whenever you stretch or zoom the SD, it looks very bad. Especially when you are watching high action sports like basketball. If it is SD OTA (which is the best), you may zoom the picture and still will look great! I do this all the time with CBS survivor. I will not recommend zooming with SD from Satellite.
 
Sean Mota wrote
There are reports that SD looks better on a 50" (GWII). Not by much. What I always try to do is to watch SD in 4x3 if it's coming from the Satellite. Whenever you stretch or zoom the SD, it looks very bad. Especially when you are watching high action sports like basketball. If it is SD OTA (which is the best), you may zoom the picture and still will look great! I do this all the time with CBS survivor. I will not recommend zooming with SD from Satellite

Thanks for the response. I have had SD for some time and you are correct that the SD looks like crap. Have you heard of the UMR tweaks on AVSforum.com. I heard that by doing these tweaks it helps a lot. I have been waiting on the 811 before I did mine. What I was asking about is how the different view options look with HD
 
Regarding UMR DOES GWII thread at AVSforum Read Here (middle of the page).

With HD, I do not use zoom or stretch. In my 6000 since I using component, it is set to full. In input 7 (DVI), there again I let it default to full. Those options either stretch or zoom to much of the picture and you lose something. I don't bother with them. There are others who like to use it.

What I do with the 6000 is to ZOOM with the 6000 zoom feature to fill the screen when I am watching survivor. This is the only time I remember zooming the picture.
 
Sean Mota said:
I hope this helps. Also, the 811 has DVI and component output. Use the DVI connector to your TV. The GWII will look excellent through DVI. Component is fine as well but if you have a DVI cable then use it.

I hope this helps...

Have you done a/b comparision on HD content for Component vs. DVI through DISH or another HD provider. I would be very intersted in your thoughts. I am thinking about upgrading to the 811 and one of my points of contention is improved PQ using DVI.
 
WeeJavaDude said:
Have you done a/b comparision on HD content for Component vs. DVI through DISH or another HD provider. I would be very intersted in your thoughts. I am thinking about upgrading to the 811 and one of my points of contention is improved PQ using DVI.

I did the comparison with the VOOM receiver. I opted for DVI with the VOOM receiver because I found that the VOOM receiver exhibits a red push on the picture through component. I have not done it with any other provider. I did this comparison for two TVs the GWII and Samsung DLP and in both DVI was superior because of the red-push from the VOOM receiver. I also tested the same component with the 6000 and the 6000 did not exhibit a red push.
 
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