I've been stubbornly avoiding replacing my 10 yr old Sony receiver but it looks like its time has come. I realize that I have very little idea what is important feature-wise these days. I'd like something that supports video and audio input/output, preferably digital, and allows me flexibility around the new alphabet soup of HD tv.

Any recommendations or features that I should consider? Price range is $500-700 US. I'll consider anything except Sony.

Check out the JVC RX-D702B. Offers video up-conversion to HDMI for all of your video sources, and is considerably cheaper than any other receiver that does so. That said, I've never used it, but if I had to buy one today, I'd probably get that one for that feature alone. Also includes wireless connection with your PC to play music, which sounds pretty interesting. I don't know if it would be as good as a squeezebox or something like that, but it'd be a fun feature to have. Don't pay attention to the list price on the site. Can be found within or near your price range.

On the downside, the remote looks like complete crap, but you could fix that with a Harmony or other aftermarket remote.

My parents have this Denon and it's pretty nice. It will convert all video inputs to component so you can just leave your TVs input always on component. I was thinking about getting one to replace my aging Sony, but I don't think it has enough optical inputs. Otherwise, it would be my top choice.

You didn't say much about your home theater needs. Do you have HDMI devices? Do you have front speakers that can support bi-amping? Do you want automatic room "correction" (i.e., equalization, delay settings, etc.)? Do you want iPod integration? Do you want digital transport of SACD or DVD-Audio? Do you want HD (terrestrial digital) radio? XM radio?

The sheer diversity of features available is staggering, particularly as you look at more expensive gear. It all boils down to your priorities. Even for digital input of computer-sourced audio, I've seen receivers that pretend to be USB audio devices, receivers with Ethernet jacks, and receivers that specifically speak to iPods. Which you might want depends in large part on the larger context of what you're doing. The USB audio device, for example, would be fantastically valuable if you were trying to do a home theater PC.

The JVC RX-D702B looks good but some of the review on the CNET link suggest that its got some quality problems and JVC is having a tough time sorting them, especially with the HDMI. I like the feature set and low profile but it sounds like my Sony receiver's problems all over again.

The Denon looks good as a direct replacement for my Sony plus digital inputs. Perhaps a stupid question but why are receivers still the same size as 10 - 15 years ago? Has the technology not advanced any to allow a reduced size?

From my understanding, largely due to power supplies; it apparently takes large electronic doodads and heat sinks to make enough clean power.

On the other hand, they do have to have enough space on the back of the units to accomodate all of those input and output ports.

My home theater is pretty basic at this point so I'd answer no to most of your questions. My system currently is a Hush Media Center hooked into my old receiver through a series of noisy connections and then into my TV. I'd like to upgrade the receiver and then the TV to a HD TV but don't want the receiver to be a bottleneck in a year or two. Room correction? yes, USB? probably...ipod? not necessary...XM radio? at some point...SACD/DVD not needed. My biggest concern is trying to buy something that isn't obsolete by the time it's delivered because I've picked the wrong standard. Thanks for the questions though. It's clear I need to do some more reading.

Now is certainly the wrong time to buy then. HDCP copy protection is a lot firmer than it was a few years ago, but I wouldn't count on anything lasting. The HDCP really pisses me off, and is a great example of why DRM is a horrible thing that we should revolt against. I own a lovely LCD, which wasn't meant to be an HDTV, but has component inputs. If I want to buy an upconverting DVD player, it has to be hacked to even allow HD resolutions on the component outputs because they don't have DRM on them. This is from a non-HD source, upconverted and output over analog outputs. Samsung (a company I'm becoming more and more fond of by the day) is currently beind sued for making my DVD player.

Thankfully, the old HDTVs don't have DRM on them, so I'm safe for a bit.

Another example of why HDCP is so great.

Matthew

Actually, unencrypted component, which is an analog signal, is allowed, but unencrypted digital connections (DVI, basically) are not. I don't know why none of the upconvert DVD players have component output, and they may be wary of the encryption restriction, but I bet it has more to do with DACs being expensive. Another possibility is that the benefits of upconvert may be lost when the signal is travelling analogically instead of digitally.

You think that's bad? What about the thousands of TVs without HDCP that cost thousands of dollars that are not going to be able to play HD-DVD and BluRay at full resolution?

I have a LiteOn LVD-2001 upconverting DVD player outputting to my 42" Panny CRT rear projection at 1080i and it looks really awesome. It only has component output.

Cool! Where did you get it and how much was it?

Component out is allowed at 480p, nothing higher. A few of the early models got through before they realized that this was a "problem". A few current models allow non copy protected movies to be output at HD resolutions. The new HD standard is going to be really generous and output 960x540 over unencrypted (analog) connections. That'll be worth $50 a disc all right.

Matthew

Well, there are different restrictions with the HD DVDs, but when I researched it about six months ago, I understood that, for example, TV receivers could produce component output (which has no encryption capabilites) for channels that would require encryption for digital output. I suppose it's possible that I misunderstood and that it would only be at a lower resolution, but I'm pretty sure I read that full-res component was allowable.

Of course, all of this is really stupid considering that HDCP was broken even before any devices that used it were released. All it's doing is restricting people who, at worst, wouldn't have a significant impact on their bottom dollar (at best, would have no impact on it at all and simply want to use their technically, if not politically, capable technology), while allowing organized criminals to copy those DVDs at their leisure. Kinda like the CD anti-rip schemes.

I bought it from Buy.com as a Norcent DP-501M which is just a re-badge of the LiteOn model. I flashed it with LiteOn firmware since it's kept more up to date. At the time of purchase, the LiteOn branded one had already been discontinued. It seems that the Norcent version is also not made anymore.

A quick look on ebay shows that neither are available at the moment, but one recently sold for only $46 + outrageous shipping. I'm pretty sure I paid somewhere around $170 for mine.

TV is different, and I don't know of any devices that requires copy protection to watch. The upconverting DVD player restrictions are courtesy of whatever trade group manages the DVD standard.

Matthew

Now that you say that, what I'm talking about may have been in reference to the shot-down "Broadcast Flag" thing.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Yamaha receivers in this thread. I purchased a RX-V2500 about six months ago and love it. While it does not support HDMI the latest model does. I'm not sure how important that is anyway as I expect that I will have only one source that requires it. When HD-DVD and BLURAY finally GTST I will purchase a projector that is HDCP compliant and use the HDMI input for DVD's.

Yea, I've been watching Class-D amps for a couple years now.. TI's chips have come a long way. A friend of mine picked up one of the Panasonic Class-D based units recently, it sounds just fine, no problems that I could tell.

Those CiAudio units are neat, although still a bit spendy.

But it won't upconvert over component:

Quote:
A special video processing circuit upconverts all signals to high-definition 1080i (more than a thousand lines of horizontal resolution) via HDMI output for use with compatible televisions.

Matthew

While we're discussing upconverting DVD players and HDMI, allow me to briefly rant about the Toshiba SD-5980, which we recently got to go with my dad's new Sharp Aquos LCD panel.

Setup is painless. You run one cable and you're done. Use is painful. When you power the thing up, its HDMI output is 1080i. If you DVD happened to be 4:3, then it will be stretched out to 16:9. There's no "aspect" setting anywhere in the thing, but there is a button on the remote helpfully labelled "HDMI", which cycles between 1080i/720p/480p. The only way to watch a 4:3 aspsect video in 4:3 is to cycle to 480p and then the TV will let you adjust its own aspect settings. And, to make matters more annoying, there's no way for the DVD player to remember it's output settings. When it powers up, it goes back to 1080i. I don't know if it's at least smart enough to ask the TV for its preferences, or if it's just always 1080i no matter what.

My feeling, for what it's worth, is that it's better to have a DVD player that specializes in the deinterlacing part (480i -> 480p) and then let your TV do the rest of the work.

I bought that player and returned it because I was not satisfied with picture quality over hdmi, general slowness of the player/interface, remote sucked, felt like it wasnt worth the money.

I bought a panasonic s77 over christmas and am really happy with it.