Should I have the resolution setting on 1080i or Original? Does leaving it on 1080i upscale the ouitput whereas having it on original just passes it through.

I find the manual generally short of explanations to help me decide which settings would be best, though I am absolutely delighted with my HDR.

The upscaler on the Humax is poor, if your TV has a decent one, Id set the humax to original and then let the TV upscale when it has to.

As for your assumption, thats correct on what happens.

This is an interesting topic

It has been discussed on here many times, just do a search to see all the opinions.

Yes, 1080i uses the Humax scaler, Original passes it through for the TV to do the scaling.

General consensus is that if you have a decent modern fullHD or HDReady TV, that the TV will make a better job of the scaling.

Also a fair debate has been had over Scart vs HDMI; again do a search on here.

Many, including myself, prefer SD via RGB Scart, and HD via HDMI.

But you should try all these options, and decide for yourself - there is nothing like the good old Mark 1 Eyeball, trust your own eyes.

Rgds.


Les.

By original I assume you mean leaving the v-format as 576i?

No, V-Options = "Original". Cycle through the options and it will come up.

Rgds.

Les.

Flyer 10 makes this statement appear as a matter of fact but, it is of course, only his opinion!

In my view I think the upscaler is excellent

Rather depends on what you are comparing it too. Of the 3 scalers I have access to, faroujda in a denon av amp, inbuilt scaler in a Sony KDL-40w4000 and the foxsat, the foxsat is a poor 3rd (in my opinion of course). Even Bob_Cat has acknowledged that the foxsat scaler's nothing special (comments Bob ?)

If you can see a noticeably better picture with it set Orig (or any setting other than 1080i) then that's for you. However, if you see very little difference, or can't make up your mind which you prefer, then chose 1080i for entirely different reasons.

When set to 1080i, the TV and HDR won't need to renegotiate HDMI when switching between SD and HD channels giving smoother transitions. Further, the HDR generated graphics (e.g. EPG) will be sharper as they will be in HD, and the inset picture when using the red button will have higher resolution.

From Bob_Cat @ Humax:

If you have a good brand of TV, then I should be right. If you have a poor quality TV, there might not be any difference.

"As our HD products have a fully* HD chipset they don't actually have what can be described as an "upscaler" rather an integrated multi-layer cross-scaler or multi-format scaler. It's really rather more flexible than I give it credit for, but TV scalers have more complex 3D pixel filtering and de-interlace filters."

"I have involvement in the specification of both types of product, they are substantially different in price. The chipset of a good LCD TV costs around twice the price of an STB chipset and it's only function is analogue to digital conversion, basic graphics overlay and advanced scaling."

Exactly, they are the 2 drawbacks but the offset is the better picture.

We arent going to agree whats best as some people will always prefer one or the other.

Sorry to quote my own post, but I meant, of course, V-Format, not V-Options

Les.

Just did a test on my Sony to confirm logically what should happen and theres no contest when I did a freeze frame, the Humax had lots of horizontal artefacts while the Sony was a lot, lot smoother.

Out of interest which is better the Denon or the Sony at upscaling?

The Denon is noticeably better but not by a massive margin.

Out of interest I have a Denon DVD player (1920) which has the same scaler in as the amp (1080i) this produces excellent pictures from SD DVD, interestingly my newer Sony Blue Ray looks even better with SD DVD scaled to 1080p but has a much poorer sound with CD's so I have both in service. Shame they don't provide external access to the scalers in these.

Is it just me, or does 'Original' not work? The picture doesn't change, the unit display still shows a 1080i icon for an SD transmission (after briefly flashing up 'Original'), and my TV still reports that it's receiving a 1080 signal. If I keep pressing V-Format until it says 576p however, I get a noticeable change in picture, the unit display shows a 576p icon, and my TV reports the new input res as 576. Seems that 'Original' isn't doing what it says on the tin?

The value you select on the HDR is what it will try and negotiate with the TV. If the TV won't accept that, the TV and HDR will negotiate something else between them. It looks as if your TV won't accept 576i and they settle on 1080i. Are there any settings on your TV that you could fiddle with to encourage it to accept 576i?

This happens on my set too (a Samsung M86). It seems the TV and Humax don't want to get along in this regard. I just leave it on 1080i.

Pretty sure this is happening to me as well (i've only had about 3 days watching it so far and little time to fiddle). Since I feed via my Sony amp (which has Faroudja upscaling) I'd assumed that 'original' was causing my amp to scale and hadn't got around to fiddling further (need some time when SWMBO and I are not sitting down together).

ah - so 'Original' is trying to negotiate 576i, and another press of the V-Format button is forcing 576p? (which my TV does accept). Is my understanding correct there? I'll fiddle with the TV a bit more. It accepts what the HDR tells me is576p with no trouble. Just on Original it sticks at 1080i.

Yes. Pressing the HDR's V-FORMAT button cycles through Original, 576i, 576p, 720p, and 1080i. It looks as if your TV won't accept 576i, which would explain why you don't get that option and why Original ends up as 1080i. When Original is selected, the HDR is capable of negotiating 576i or 1080i. Normally it would negotiate 576i for SD channels and 1080i for HD channels but, because your TV won't accept 576i, it selects 1080i for all channels. It's probably stating the obvious but, so long as it works, Original has the advantage that you don't need to change anything when switching between SD and HD channels. If 567i, 576p, or 720p is selected, the HDR will downscale HD channels.

[sort of SNAP - took too long to type!]

Original stays on 1080i for me too.

I have HDMI into Onkyo amp (with no scaling) for switching, and then out to TV.

If my amp is turned off, you can see the LCD screen flick through:
576i 576p 720p 1080i Original

If I turn the TV on, the 576i does not appear.
I assume this means 576i over HDMI is not supported.

I would prefer it to do 576p if original is selected, and 576i is not available.

It works 100% as it should here so 576i over HDMI is supported, maybe your TVs are just not negotiating correctly.

Kind of like how my Sony wont autoswitch with HDMI.

Exactly the same with my TV.

Also I can't see any difference in the picture quality regardless of what setting it's on anyway.

and


The HDR clearly supports 576i as an output, it is the TV that is not supporting 576i as an input.


But 576p is not an original resolution. If you mean that the HDR should permit 576p to be negotiated if the TV doesn't support 576i, that would cause all sorts of complications. When negotiating HDMI, TVs and source devices tend to settle on the highest resolution that they both support (and are permitted by any user settings). So, even if 576p was permitted when Original is selected, it would probably end up at 1080i anyway. If the HDR forced 567p for SD when the TV doesn't accept 576i, you would have a lot of people complaining that it doesn't upscale to 1080i. One can imagine some user settings in the HDR to cope with this but few people would understand what it was for and the opportunity for an unfortunate choice of setting could cause more problems than the option solved. This is the sort of user setting that, if provided, should be buried deep enough so that only the knowledgeable (or the foolish who deserve what they get) can get at them.

I've kept 1080i as my default setting on the PVR.

I have found that with my Panasonic Plasma and my Yamaha AV Amp there is no upscaling if HDMI is used. But it is possible to upscale from 576i to 576p, 720p, 1080i or 1080p via component (RGB). My Plasma can upscale with a scart input too. I presume most TVs and AV amps work this way. For me, the best picture is via HDMI.