Andrew 875 setup

[matengawhat]

andrew my 875 arrives tomorrow - i will be setting up with an arcam solo logo and muso speaker package and a HD DVD EP35 and PS3 - can you give me a quick run down on the best settings to save me time - with thanks

 

[Andrew Everard]

Not much advice beyond a good solid read of the manual, rather than just rushing into plugging everything in and cranking it.

Any specific connectivity problems your dealer should be able to help you with, either by offering advice over the phone or showing you how things work on the demo unit in the shop.

 

[matengawhat]

should all sd stuff be fed into the amp at 576 and allow the processor to upscale or if feed in at 1080p will it still go through the chip and be corrected?

 

[Andrew Everard]

If it's fed in at 1080p it will just be passed through.

 

[professorhat]

In the case of HD sources, you don't want to be feeding in, say for example, a Blu-Ray at 576p and letting the amp upscale this as Blu-Ray doesn't need upscaling, it's already at 1080p. So setting your Blu-Ray player to output at 576p means you'll actually be losing detail...

 

[matengawhat]

i just meant for freeview, sd dvd or am i best letting the tosh hd ep35 upscale that? looking forward to seeing what improvements it can add to the wii!

 

[professorhat]

Ah, I see. I'd give it a go and see. From my albeit very limited testing so far with a PS3 and an Onkyo 905, the Onkyo was a tiny bit sharper. However, given you have to keep changing the output of the PS3 between 576 and 1080 when switching between DVD and Blu-Ray, I don't think I can be bothered unless it's a very special DVD!
On Freeview, depends what outputs you have on your Freeview box. Mine is RGB Scart which won't go into the Onkyo, so I tried S-Video into the Onkyo to upscale it and the native RGB Scart picture direct into the TV was still better.

 

[matengawhat]

i have a toppy 5810 so can feed in at 576 or 720p via hdmi - maybe will just have to play - with your ps3 i take it if a game drops it down to 720p your 905 kicks it back up to 1080p is there that friendly screen flicker!!!

 

[professorhat]

It doesn't actually as my set is an HD Ready set so I have the Onkyo set to Auto meaning it only upscales to 720p. I have my PS3 set to output 1080p though as I've found GT5 Prologue just looks better when it's set to that so I've stuck with it! This just goes to show that playing around is the only way you can find the best settings for yourself. The settings on the Onkyo may go up to 1080p at some point as well, I just haven't had a chance to play around with it enough at the moment - too busy watching films with the new awesome sound it provides!!