Built in Freesat/Freeview and AV processing

[admin_exported]

Hi

Possible numpty question here but if you had say the Panasonic plasma with built in Freesat/Freeview would it still be possible to get the benefits provided by a decent upscaling AV box? Or is this only possible by feeding an external Freesat/Freeview box into the AV then into the TV?

Thanks in advance.

 

[professorhat]

To feed the Freeview / Freesat signal into an AV receiver for upscaling, you would have to have an external device - you couldn't output the signal from the TV to the receiver and then back into the TV again.
Remember though, the TV will also be upscaling these images and may also have a better internal tuner than the one in the external box. So even if you bought an external device and plugged it into an AV receiver with great upscaling abilities, there's no guarantee the picture would be better. The only way to know is to try it and see.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks professorhat.

I'm learning lots but also getting confused as well. All the recommendations seem to be towards a seperate good AV receiver but if I were to plump for Panasonic with built in Freesat/Freeview would I still get much out of one apart from when I play old DVDs through one? Presumably the sound would still be enhanced/amplified even though the vision was not on regular TV?

 

[professorhat]

Well, it depends on your needs - what you have already and what you're planning to get in future (if anything). An AV receiver's primary purpose is to provide surround sound - if you're not interested in this then I wouldn't look at getting one. You would need to plug an old DVD player into an AV amplifier via its audio out connection to get surround sound. With a TV with inbuilt Freesat tuner, these will have an optical out connection as well, so you could plug this into the AV amp to get 5.1 sound where available on the channels provided on Freesat.
With an old DVD player, depending on the player and what video outputs it has, it might be possible to plug this into an AV receiver with an excellent upscaling chip in (such as the Onkyo 875) and get a better picture than if you just plugged it straight into the TV. This all depends on the TV's upscaling abilities as well e.g. I've heard some of the Pioneers produce a better picture with DVDs than the Onkyo.
It can be quite complicated to figure out which is the best way to go on this, so it might be better if you have any ideas in mind of what budget you have, what components you're thinking of and then people who own these items or have tried them out can give you some advice on whether they think it would work or not.

 

[Anonymous]

All new professorhat, complete system refresh, old rear projection taken away, old denon surround sound being re-located to conservatory. Although I keep changing my mind everyday (the more I learn), my current plan is a new 42" Panasonic with in-built Freeview/Freesat, one of the new Panasonic Blu-ray players, and I like the look of the Denon AV (1909 I think the model was). Haven't looked at speakers yet. But I am concerned that watching/listening to Freeview/Freesat via the Panasonic, that the AV would only benefit me when playing Blu-ray or old dvd's through the Blu-ray player, where 95% of the time we will be watching SD/HD TV.

Thanks for your help, most appreciated.

 

[professorhat]

Well, as I say, a Freesat TV will plug into the AV amp to give 5.1 sound if a channel is broadcasting this. Even on the standard Dolby Pro Logic / stereo channels on Freesat and Freeview, you'll still benefit from the better sound if the TV is hooked into the receiver - most TVs have pretty weedy sound. I guess it depends on what kind of programs you watch.
But for picture, it may be possible to get a better picture with an external device connected into the receiver compared to the inbuilt tuner, but this is by no means guaranteed. Without knowing the specific models involved, it's impossible for anyone to say - in most cases, the only way to tell is to suck it and see...

 

[blakenhall]

Hi,

I've found these posts very interesting as we are in the process of purchasing Freesat/avr/speakers for our conservatory and are in exactly the same position of which way to go, LCD with built in Freesat or external Freesat box.

I wonder if this is an area that the WHAT HIFI team can look into?

Proffesorhat: Don't know if you have seen this Website before, but I found this discussion about Freesat very interesting.

http://roundtables.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/round-table-4-hdtv/presentation/hdtv-overview.html