Receiver Help

Hey ppl,
I am planning on a new component ht n i have some doubts about the avr i wanna buy.

About ma requirement

1. The ht is gonna be in the living room which is abt 400sq ft.
2. I am not an audiophile unlike.
3. I will be using it to watch 80% movies and 20% music.
4. I am more keen on the video aspect than the sound. To be more specific it would be gr8 if i have provision for dcdi processing(faroudja stuff)
5 . Since ma room is decently big enough I am opting for a 7.1 system.
6. Abt ma speaker setup , I might get some custom installed stuff. Is it advisable. Basically I am looking at dipole diffusion speakers for ma surrounds and three way center.
7. My total budget is about eighty grand inclusive of the receiver. I know this aint much but as i am not an audiophile i think this is okie for a startup.
8. The above budget is inclusive of speakers ,sub n receiver given that I don get custom installed stuff. by custom i mean importing tweeters , speakers n assembling them over here. It works out a lot cheaper. Besides for newbies like me , I couldn find much of prob with those. Any suggestions welcome.
9. also i am planning on a oppo dv-980 dvd player and popcorn hour A100 NMT for video streaming and dvd playback. this is excluded in the budget.
I am not planning on a blu ray at the moment cuz its gonna take atleast a year or year n half for the players to get subsidised n also the discs to be come a lot more cheap.
10. abt ma custom installation , the speakers were about forty grand totally with an active sub and i was looking at onkyo tx sr705 as it had thx certification and dcdi processing. any better receivers????

Wait for the new series from Yamaha RX-V663/863 $549.95/$999.95 and their review's........these could also be good, they dont have dcdi, but they could be better for sound..............i have heard that onkyo 605/705 have some overheating problems

YAMAHA RX-V663 RX-V863 seems like an especially bad deal, the only major upgrades are HD Radio ,which really isn't that exciting, and an additional HDMI input, yet it costs almost twice as much)

YAMAHA RX-V663 does not have DcDi deinterlacing or THX certification, it still have new features like(to name a few):

#Supports Deep Color (up to 36 bit), x.v.Color, a double speed Refresh Rates of 120Hz and 1080p/24Hz transmission, and Auto Lip-Sync compens inputsation
# Analog video to HDMI 1.3 digital video upconversion and deinterlacing with TBC.............

# full support for HD audio formats

for detail specs visit RX-V663

......BUT spec sheets aren't everything, and that Yamaha offers more refined sound at these price points.............it will be far better than onkyo's in the sound compartment


If you are interested in Onkyo ...sr 805 is a much better than 705 (it also doesn't overheat)

Thanks a lot mandeep.The thing is that of late i have hearing a lot abt dcdi so i am forced to thinking that it is mandatory. i aint some staunch patron of onkyo or anything.in fact this is ma first tryst with ht systems n i am clueless except for the fact that i am familiarizing maself with ht jargons....thasall.... if you could gimme a final verdict on the receiver it would be gr8..honestly i aint an audiophile n i am plannin on a 42 inch lcd and more on the video stuf with an equally competent audio at an affordable price..any suggestions on component systems would be gr8ly appreciated......

You might want to add these to your audition list.

a) OPPO DV-981HD 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI OR Denon USA | DVD-1940CI
b) Onkyo Europe - Imaginative Sight & Sound
c) Onkyo TX-SR605 + Tannoy Mercury F1 Custom 5.1 + £90 cable pack
d) Editor's Top Rated Televisions - Best Television Reviews at CNET.co.uk

Best Regards.

thanks mate.I have added the oppo player already if you didn notice. alright i have a doubt. the thing is oppo 981dv has the faroudja and 980 doesn. will the lack of faroudja in tx sr 605 be compensated by the availability of one in 981 dv. if not , then how better is it than 980 . is it worth spending that extra 60 dollars. cuz i am gonna get that n popcornhour nmt as a gift n i do not wanna burden ma benefactor.

You can connect the Oppo 981 directly to the LCD and use opti/coax for dig out to the AVR. And YES, i think its worth that extra 60 greens.

Or you can step up a bit and look into AVRs like Denon 2808 that comes with the Faroudja video processing and True HD Audio (if that matters to you, or else you can settle for 2308 or TX-SR705) and opt for a normal 980.

Why not go for a bluray player instead? may be a PS3 60GB ( also with SACD playback like the rest). The price diff isn't huge anyways.

Cheers.

thanks once again for the really quick reply...see the thing is ma budget for an avr is max 40G....so i really don much options...i live in chennai n o beleive we have one of the best grey markets in india...nevertheless i don kno if i can get one for abt 40G...talking about faroudja stuff...i wanna kno will it compensated for if its in the dvd player..i mean all receivers and players use the same chipset right...so mostly they shoud be somewhat equal..so what i am thinking of is , a tx sr 605 , oppo 981h and popcornhour nmt to finish...the only thing i would be lacking is a thx certification...other than that i have all...n yea since i am gonna connect ma player only thru optical ports i guess its a good enough set up for the money...i am open to suggestions man...n yea thanks once again....

N yea abt not going for PS3...its too early....i mean prices are definitely gonna drop n the mod hasn come out stilll...besides the movies are quite expensive at the moment..all put together it aint a good choice at the moment...probably yea it plays the normal dvd with better clarity n stuff but i don think i am that big an audio or videophile to notice the difference given that i shell out an extra 150 dollars.... i will consider it only by oct or nov....

Hi,

"Upscaling in receiver vs player": This has always been the subject of debate. I guess the general opinion depends on what do you want to upscale.

In your case, I would ask you this: Do you want to apply DCDi on your DVD picture only or even your cable TV? If your answer is that you want to DCDi for your cable TV also, then you need to find a receiver with DCDi. However, I would suggest that you do not go this route. My reasons are as follows:

(1) Every HDTV has an inbuilt de-interlacer and an upscaler. They will anyway upscale your cable TV (480i or 576i) to the native resolution of the TV (which means that the picture will occupy the entire TV screen).

(2) DCDi will not be able to work magic on your cable TV pictures because of the inherent content picture quality. It may only be marginally better that your TV doing the work.

(3) DVDs are the place where the real magic is seen. DVDs contain inherently progressive content which are stored in interlaced format. Which means if you apply correct de-interlacing, you should be able to correctly get the original progressive frame in 480p or 576p. Now if you apply scaling on this with DCDi magic, you get excellent picture quality. Now, it has been argued that the player is a better place for this processing (rather than the receiver) because the player has access to some of the flags (hints about the exact nature of the content) stored on the DVD which the receiver does not.

Now, the gist of what I am trying to say is that you should probably invest in a good DVD player such as the Oppo 981 and invest in a cheaper but better sounding receiver. If you drop the video processing from the receiver, the prices may drop significantly. And you have a wider choice of receivers from Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, Marantz etc. which are excellent for their audio capabilities.

Regards,
Prasad Redkar

PS: Did you know that Oppo has recently launched their flagship 983 DVD player with ABT de-interlacing and scaling technologies?

Highly discerning comments....thanks for sharing them!