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Home Theatre Headache
DustyBottoms
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, so I just moved into an apartment and bought a larger TV (Samsung LN40D630) to upgrade from my old 23" Samsung... I'm totally happy with the TV but I'm fighting with my inputs a LOT to get the correct combination of superior display quality (I paid to get the higher refresh rate...) and correct timing and quality with the audio.
I did all of this while watching The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray through my PS3, with sound running through my oldish Yamaha receiver (YHT-550 I think?), which has no HDMI ports. I got a variety of different results.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through HDMI, and a digital optical audio running from the TV output to the receiver, I had the ability to turn on all the high-end display settings, and the picture was great. However, the audio was ahead of the video at all times, even when futzing with the audio delay option I found. If I put the TV in Game mode, the picture suffers but the audio occurs perfectly in sync.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through HDMI but the audio cable running directly to the receiver (and the PS3 set to output from the digital audio), I had perfect picture quality and the sound was perfectly synced up. However, I could only achieve Pro Logic II sound, no Dolby Surround, both as confirmed by the display on the receiver and my ears.
I think I may have mixed up the way I had things connected - I may have had things connected the first way but experienced the second result, and vice versa. I know for sure I was switching back and forth between these two setups and experiencing only those results.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through Component cables and the optical audio cable running directly to the receiver, I had good picture and correct audio syncing, plus full Dolby Surround. However, am I correct in assuming that I am not truly getting the highest possible picture quality by not being hooked up through HDMI?
Will (sooner or later) getting a new receiver with HDMI ports allow me to solve this problem by plugging an HDMI cable directly into the receiver? That would certainly cut back on my cable clutter, too. I think this may be the only way to get the best possible picture and the correct sound?
tl;dr: Am I getting lower picture quality from PS3 to HDTV by being forced to use component cables? And will upgrading my receiver to one that has HDMI inputs allow me to plug everything directly into the receiver without limiting my audio quality?
Oy!
I did all of this while watching The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray through my PS3, with sound running through my oldish Yamaha receiver (YHT-550 I think?), which has no HDMI ports. I got a variety of different results.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through HDMI, and a digital optical audio running from the TV output to the receiver, I had the ability to turn on all the high-end display settings, and the picture was great. However, the audio was ahead of the video at all times, even when futzing with the audio delay option I found. If I put the TV in Game mode, the picture suffers but the audio occurs perfectly in sync.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through HDMI but the audio cable running directly to the receiver (and the PS3 set to output from the digital audio), I had perfect picture quality and the sound was perfectly synced up. However, I could only achieve Pro Logic II sound, no Dolby Surround, both as confirmed by the display on the receiver and my ears.
I think I may have mixed up the way I had things connected - I may have had things connected the first way but experienced the second result, and vice versa. I know for sure I was switching back and forth between these two setups and experiencing only those results.
With the PS3 hooked up to the TV through Component cables and the optical audio cable running directly to the receiver, I had good picture and correct audio syncing, plus full Dolby Surround. However, am I correct in assuming that I am not truly getting the highest possible picture quality by not being hooked up through HDMI?
Will (sooner or later) getting a new receiver with HDMI ports allow me to solve this problem by plugging an HDMI cable directly into the receiver? That would certainly cut back on my cable clutter, too. I think this may be the only way to get the best possible picture and the correct sound?
tl;dr: Am I getting lower picture quality from PS3 to HDTV by being forced to use component cables? And will upgrading my receiver to one that has HDMI inputs allow me to plug everything directly into the receiver without limiting my audio quality?
Oy!
DustyBottoms on
0
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I believe the answer to both questions is 'yes'.
I'm in the same boat. I have an older receiver with no HDMI inputs, and I've been looking at upgrading it to reduce cable clutter and improve picture and audio quality from my blu-ray player.
Component can do 1080p, but a lot of TVs disable 1080p through component for silly reasons related to HDCP standards (basically, anti-piracy measures). They'll all do 1080i, though, which is what you'd want over 720p if your TV is 1080p native (which it probably will be given that size). If you output at 720p, the TV has to convert, and you'll lose some quality. (Technically it has to upconvert 1080i as well, but this is obviously trivial for a 1080p set.)
Definitely don't run the audio through the TV if you can avoid it, as you'll introduce lag. "Game Mode" settings on the TV generally turn off any signal processing that's going on, including things like frame interpolation and probably some other bells and whistles. Modern TVs can do a lot of fancy signal processing, and you don't want 90% of it, because it just fucks up the proper image to make it more contrast-y or more colorful or sharper than it's actually supposed to be. But game mode kinda nerfs the image, generally. Good for rhythm games (sometimes), bad for movies.
So you're outputting digital audio to the receiver, and it's making it there. That's good. It's only working properly if you send a component signal to the TV, though, and not if you use HDMI. This makes me think that the PS3 is being confused by the HDMI cable, and is sending the digital audio to the TV via HDMI and not over the optical cable (or coax, whatever you're using) to the receiver. If so, there's probably a setting in the PS3 that will help you. I know that somewhere in the config menus on the PS3 you can choose whether to send digital audio through HDMI or not. You'd want to turn this off if it is. I used to have my PS3 sending video to the TV via HDMI and audio to the receiver via optical and it worked fine. (It was even a Yamaha receiver.)
That said, yes, getting a receiver with HDMI inputs and pass-through will make everything simpler. Try to get one with upconversion, though, or you'll need to pass different cables to the TV for each input type the receiver is getting.
Good luck!
My poor receiver was state of the art 6 years ago when I got it. It had more component inputs (two, lol) than I knew what to do with and a crapload of S-Video and composite inputs for everything else. I guess I need to upgrade that. At least I can keep the speakers - they're still doing fine.
If anyone has any receiver recommendations or comments regarding upgrading the receiver, I'd be happy to hear them, but otherwise, I'm pretty sure my questions have been answered. Thanks again!
It's my understanding that the PS3 will only output 1080P content over HDMI and will at most output 720P/1080i over component, and this is not a technical limitation of component video bandwidth but a design decision by Sony to only allow the highest quality video over an HDCP-protected channel. So if you play a blu-ray from your PS3 through component to an upconverting HTR which then is connected via HDMI to your tv then your're taking a 1080P source, downconverting it to 1080i/720p (for component transport) and then upconverting it to 1080P (for HDMI transport) and it won't look as nice as if it was transported 1080P end to end.
To get the best video and audio out of your current setup you'll want (as Jeffe said) to set your PS3 to output 1080P video over HDMI (PS3 <----HDMI cable----> TV) and to output audio (AC3/DTS) over optical (PS3 <---optical cable---> HTR). You should be able to configure this in the menus and I'll take a look at my setup tonight and see if I can give some better instructions.