What's the best "setup" for resolution?

[kvitense]

My Mitsubishi DLP in a 720P TV. However, the set will support pretty much all input resolutions by either up-converting or down-converting. My understanding is that if I only select 720P in the setup of the HR20, then the HR20 does all the converting and sends a 720P signal to my TV, right? Would that be best, or should I select all formats in the HR20s setup and let my Mitsubishi do all the up/down converting? Which will yield a better picture?

[paulman182]

The usual advice is, try it both ways and see which is better.

Some people can't see any difference, some can.

With my wife usually doing the channel surfing, I've just set my HR20 to always be on 720p so channel changes will be faster.

[matto]

My Mitsubishi DLP in a 720P TV. However, the set will support pretty much all input resolutions by either up-converting or down-converting. My understanding is that if I only select 720P in the setup of the HR20, then the HR20 does all the converting and sends a 720P signal to my TV, right? Would that be best, or should I select all formats in the HR20s setup and let my Mitsubishi do all the up/down converting? Which will yield a better picture?

You didn't mention how you're connecting the TV and the DVR; for a fixed-pixel display HDMI will give you the best quality.

The scalers in the HR20 and the TV are probably roughly equivelent, if not the exact same chips, though you probably feel the one in the TV is "better" since you paid a lot more for it. :)

If you are experiencing problems with the HDMI, be aware that falling back to component video will only cause a marginal degradation in PQ, which may or may not be worth it to you for the reduction in headache. Your call.

I'd lock the HR20's output at 720p, and let it deal with the scaling, since it seems to handle format changes pretty much instantaneously. If your TV also handles input signal format changes well, you could set it at 'native' and let it scale- whichever works better in your configuration.

[kvitense]

You didn't mention how you're connecting the TV and the DVR; for a fixed-pixel display HDMI will give you the best quality.

The scalers in the HR20 and the TV are probably roughly equivelent, if not the exact same chips, though you probably feel the one in the TV is "better" since you paid a lot more for it. :)

If you are experiencing problems with the HDMI, be aware that falling back to component video will only cause a marginal degradation in PQ, which may or may not be worth it to you for the reduction in headache. Your call.

I'd lock the HR20's output at 720p, and let it deal with the scaling, since it seems to handle format changes pretty much instantaneously. If your TV also handles input signal format changes well, you could set it at 'native' and let it scale- whichever works better in your configuration.

I've hooked up both HDMI and Component. Had a few issues with the HDMI though and I haven't tried it yet again since the new software update.

Doesn't matter to me which unit I use to convert, I just want the best picture.

If I leave native "off" in the HR20's setup, AND select all the four formats, won't the HR20 still send all the resolutions to the TV and let the TV convert. In other words, if the native is set to "off", does it even matter what formats I "check" in the HrR20s setup, or will it only send one certain resolution (ie. 720P) to my television?

Hope I'm being clear in my question.

[matto]

I've hooked up both HDMI and Component. Had a few issues with the HDMI though and I haven't tried it yet again since the new software update.

Doesn't matter to me which unit I use to convert, I just want the best picture.

If I leave native "off" in the HR20's setup, AND select all the four formats, won't the HR20 still send all the resolutions to the TV and let the TV convert. In other words, if the native is set to "off", does it even matter what formats I "check" in the HrR20s setup, or will it only send one certain resolution (ie. 720P) to my television?

Hope I'm being clear in my question.

NATIVE = pass formats on as the box gets them. If programming is delivered in 1080i, pass that to the display. If programming is 480i, pass that to the display. NATIVE mode means "do not scale in the HR20."

if you do not turn NATIVE on, you can select resolutions that the HR20 will scale to, and allow you to cycle through by pressing the FORMAT button on your remote.

[bonscott87]

I've hooked up both HDMI and Component. Had a few issues with the HDMI though and I haven't tried it yet again since the new software update.

Doesn't matter to me which unit I use to convert, I just want the best picture.

If I leave native "off" in the HR20's setup, AND select all the four formats, won't the HR20 still send all the resolutions to the TV and let the TV convert. In other words, if the native is set to "off", does it even matter what formats I "check" in the HrR20s setup, or will it only send one certain resolution (ie. 720P) to my television?

Hope I'm being clear in my question.

Matto explained well.

Here is some more info though.

If you have Native set to "on" then it will pass thru as is (based on the formats you selected) to the TV and your TV will do the work of any up or downconverting or stretching as you see fit.

If you leave Native off then the HR20 will upconvert or downconvert for you and send to the TV in the current resolution you have set via the format button. Your TV will up or down convert as it needs to if they don't match. So if you have a 720p set and you set the HR20 Native format to off and set it to 720p then you'll be sending 720p out and your set will get 720p. If you set your HR20 to 1080i then it will send all signals out as 1080i and your set will downconvert to your 720p resolution. Make sense?

Basically my advice is to play with it and see what looks best to you. It's taken me about 2 weeks of playing around with the formats and stuff to get a combo I like.

[kvitense]

Makes sense now.......I think.:grin:

So, it's my understanding that by checking all four boxes of formatting in the HR20 setup that it will allow the HR20 to send any of those signals out to my TV. Additionally, the HR20 will only send out the format that is currently "active". Even if all formats are "checked" in the setup, the HR20 will not, on its own, decide which format to send to the TV. I, as the user, have to tell the HR20 which format I want it to send to the TV. Are these accurate statements? (Obviously, these thoughts assume native is set to off).

[bonscott87]

Makes sense now.......I think.:grin:

So, it's my understanding that by checking all four boxes of formatting in the HR20 setup that it will allow the HR20 to send any of those signals out to my TV. Additionally, the HR20 will only send out the format that is currently "active". Even if all formats are "checked" in the setup, the HR20 will not, on its own, decide which format to send to the TV. I, as the user, have to tell the HR20 which format I want it to send to the TV. Are these accurate statements? (Obviously, these thoughts assume native is set to off).

Exactly correct to what I have seen so far.

I personally only have 480i and 1080i checked and switch between the 2 as needed. My TV is 1080i so I just let the HR20 upconvert to 1080i first on 720p stations as I see no difference in my TV on it's upconvert so I eliminate one step that way.

So unless your TV does an amazing downconvert for 1080i signals I'd probably set your HR20 to 480i and 720p and that's it. I don't know of any 480p programming other then maybe if your locals OTA send that way during non HD hours. But right now we can't do OTA anyway.

[bobojay]

Keep up this conversation, it's helping me ALOT! Understand how the 2 units work together.
If your TV up or downconverts to 720p like ours, why would you have the HR20 set to anything other than native off & 720p? That's what confuses me...:confused:

[bonscott87]

Keep up this conversation, it's helping me ALOT! Understand how the 2 units work together.
If your TV up or downconverts to 720p like ours, why would you have the HR20 set to anything other than native off & 720p? That's what confuses me...:confused:

I want to send the 480i signal as 480i to my TV for these reasons:

The HR20 stretch modes for 480i are terrible. Just terrible. IMO anyway. So I want to let my TV do the stretching. Can't do that if it's an HD signal (720p or 1080i).

So by sending out 480i I can use my TV's much suprior stretch mode and it's much suprior 480i upconversion and let it do what I payed thousands for it to do. I would prefer to use Native mode on but the cycling and time changing channels isn't worth it at this point.

Now if you don't ever stretch your SD programming then yes, leave it at 720p with Native off and forget it. It is the easiest way.

[kvitense]

I set "pillar" on my display options, so the sd signal doesn't get stretched anyway. (my wife likes a non-distorted image even if it has side bars-I don't really care too much one way or another). That being the case, would it be best to always have the output format set to 720P on the HR20, as my TV is a native 720P unit?

BTW, why even have the format boxes in the HR20s setup? If you want to change output format, just hit the format button. Seems like it's a needless step/feature. I'm sure I'm just not "getting" it, regarding my own question. There's probably a perfectly logical reason and I'm confident one of you will enlighten me.:) Is it to save a few seconds of NOT having to scroll through a given format that a TV might not support?

[matto]

BTW, why even have the format boxes in the HR20s setup? If you want to change output format, just hit the format button. Seems like it's a needless step/feature. I'm sure I'm just not "getting" it, regarding my own question. There's probably a perfectly logical reason and I'm confident one of you will enlighten me.:) Is it to save a few seconds of NOT having to scroll through a given format that a TV might not support?

Exactly. If you aren't paying attention, it would be easy to panic and think that the DVR is malfunctioning, if you had to cycle through resolutions your display didn't support. Also, each resolution change does take a few seconds, so letting me skip ones I'll never want seems to make sense.

[bonscott87]

BTW, why even have the format boxes in the HR20s setup? If you want to change output format, just hit the format button. Seems like it's a needless step/feature. I'm sure I'm just not "getting" it, regarding my own question. There's probably a perfectly logical reason and I'm confident one of you will enlighten me.:) Is it to save a few seconds of NOT having to scroll through a given format that a TV might not support?

Yes. That way when you hit the format button it will only cycle through what your TV supports. Some TV's can act weird, go into protection mode or worse if you try to send it a format it can't handle.

[spidey]

Matto explained well.

Here is some more info though.

If you have Native set to "on" then it will pass thru as is (based on the formats you selected) to the TV and your TV will do the work of any up or downconverting or stretching as you see fit.

If you leave Native off then the HR20 will upconvert or downconvert for you and send to the TV in the current resolution you have set via the format button. Your TV will up or down convert as it needs to if they don't match. So if you have a 720p set and you set the HR20 Native format to off and set it to 720p then you'll be sending 720p out and your set will get 720p. If you set your HR20 to 1080i then it will send all signals out as 1080i and your set will downconvert to your 720p resolution. Make sense?

Basically my advice is to play with it and see what looks best to you. It's taken me about 2 weeks of playing around with the formats and stuff to get a combo I like.

dont seem to find were one sets up native on/off??? Never mind i see the setting now missed it on the screen

[bobojay]

I think after all this discussion that I'll try changing the HR20 to 720p only and try it. We have pillar mode on also, as any other way so far just doesn't look right on the TV. I'm not stretching any SD signal either. Looks OK to us even with the bars on the side.
We'll figure this out eventually. This discussion has helped immensely! Thanks....