Video output resolution

[Banilejo]

Is there a way to set the 922 to output each channel's native resolution? 720p for example? Currently it seems everything goes to the TV as 1080i (or whatever you set it at). Would like to let my TV do the conversion instead of the box and see if that improve the quality or not.

 

[sA :: Shaggy]

not that I know of. It is that way in all Dish HD DVRs

 

[Banilejo]

Bummer, thought there may be a benefit of doing one up-conversion (like 720p -> 1080p) instead of two (720p -> 1080i -> 1080p) .

thanks for confirming, would have spent a ton of time looking at all the menus!

 

[breser]

There's no up-conversion in going from 1080i to 1080p they are the same resolution. The only thing that would have to be done would be de-interlacing. If your display is a CRT it may be capable of displaying the video as it is interlaced and won't do any de-interlacing. LCDs and Plasmas have to de-interlace the signal because of how they display images. So in general it's better for the display to handle the de-interlacing, since it may be unnecessary.

In the case of the satellite receiver it's much better for it to handle scaling. The receiver is much more likely to have a better scaler than your TV. But the biggest benefit of the receiver scaling is the audio sync. Scaling does introduce delays. The receiver can know the delay and keep the audio in sync even if you're not using the speakers on your TV. The delay is very tiny and most people wouldn't be able to recognize it either way, but in theory it should be better for the receiver to do the scaling.

 

[lakebum431]

No and thank goodness there isn't. The delay in switching between resolutions on my Pioneer Kuro is a pain in the butt!

 

[Banilejo]

Ah makes sense, I thought letting the TV do both at once would be better but between the audio sync and time it takes to switch resolutions I guess its fine the way it is!

 

[JoeSp]

All settop boxes (satellite and cable) will only output at the resolution you chose. AVR's with upconvert chips in the HDMI channel do the same thing as does your tv set. Depending on your set (720p, 1080i, 1080p) what resolution you chose is what your set will show. If you chose 720p then all 1080i, 1080p pictures will be downrezed to 720p and and SD will be upconverted to 720p. I am not sure if there is anything other then a DVD or BluRay player that can be set to not convert.

That is why SD can look so bad on a large HDTV screen. While it would be nice to see the actual true resolution of the video you are watching without changing certain settings, I am just not sure how that can be done - especially with current settop boxes.

 

[lakebum431]

All settop boxes (satellite and cable) will only output at the resolution you chose. AVR's with upconvert chips in the HDMI channel do the same thing as does your tv set. Depending on your set (720p, 1080i, 1080p) what resolution you chose is what your set will show. If you chose 720p then all 1080i, 1080p pictures will be downrezed to 720p and and SD will be upconverted to 720p. I am not sure if there is anything other then a DVD or BluRay player that can be set to not convert.

That is why SD can look so bad on a large HDTV screen. While it would be nice to see the actual true resolution of the video you are watching without changing certain settings, I am just not sure how that can be done - especially with current settop boxes.

Not entirely true, certain set top boxes do allow native resolution (some of the D* boxes for sure). So each time resolution changes from channel to channel your TV has to resync with that resolution.

 

[DishSubLA]

TiVo's (Series 3 and later) allow for native resolution of the digital output. While an engineer with instruments may be able to measure the difference (and while it could even be a mathematical truth) in quality, if you have a good display and a good box, even an engineer is probably not going to be able to tell the difference using his or her human eye. Certainly not worth the re-sync issues noted above if you have a good display. So, in general, I just set the Dish boxes for 1080i and let it fly, at least for HD content.

Now, there may be some appreciable difference with SD content via HDMI, but, again, a good display is going to make it difficult for most people to really appreciate a difference. No matter what you set if for, the HDTV still has to mess with it to display it--let's not forget the 768 displays out there, even in Native setting.

This is an issue for lower quality displays.