What HDMI cable???

aliEnRIK

Leopard wrote: »

aliEnRIK,

Pondering kwikbreaks' question overnight brought back another one to my mind. One that I've wondered about before but never asked.

Suppose one has two pieces of good kit, both of which are capable of upscaling from SD to 1080p.

In my case – to make the question clearer by giving them identities, for the purposes of the argument – this would be a Sony RDR-HXD995 DVD recorder with built-in Freeview tuner and a Sony KDL-52w4000 LCD television with its own Freeview tuner. Same generation of Sony tuners, then (I think).

The aerial signal passes through the DVD recorder and goes to the television; so, they are also accessing the same RF signal.

If one wishes to view on the television the Freeview picture produced by the DVD recorder (by means of a given HDMI lead), should one get a better result by:

a) letting the DVD recorder pass the SD Freeview signal directly to the television and letting the television upscale it entirely?

b) letting the DVD recorder pass a 720p signal to the television and letting the television upscale that to 1080p?
or
c) letting the DVD recorder do the entire upscale to 1080p and then send that to the television?

In other words, should the fact that it is more demanding of an HDMI cable to ask it to transmit a 1080p signal than a 720p signal result in a poorer picture when viewed on the television, or would this effect be outweighed by the fact that it is being upscaled in more stages?


Curiously, I find we get a better picture (slightly sharper and a little richer in colour) by watching Freeview channels output by the DVD recorder in 1080p and sent by HDMI cable, than by watching them on the television's own Freeview tuner!

well option 'b' is out the window as it would be scaled twice (At detriment to quality)

So were down to cable quality and how good the scaling hardware is and how the good the actual 'tuners' are
In general id hazard a guess that the tvs upscsaler would do a better job. Most dvd recorders have relatively poor scalers in them

Its really a case of try them and see what you think (Very hard to do I admit as the 'material' being watched is changing all the time)

If you set the dvd to upscale make sure it isnt doing anything else at the same time (Some add artifical 'sharpening' of the picture and suchlike which is a bad thing)

Obviously in this case the recorder looks better to you so id guess its because the actual tuner itself is better

nitr02007

aliEnRIK wrote: »

You know full well it isnt, but you keep clutching at straws

ANY interference; jitter, echo, attenuation, cosmic radiation, etc could, in theory, affect the digital HDMI signal but unless its over a certain threshold to corrupt bits, which in turn cause sparkles, then that interference is irrelevant. Thats the great thing about digital signals they are robust enough to cope with low levels of interference.

Soure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital

Disturbances in a digital communication do not result in errors unless the disturbance is so large as to result in a symbol being misinterpreted as another symbol or disturb the sequence of symbols.

nitr02007

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Yes, they say 'most' cables

Youll find that the VAST majority of the cables they tried were pretty/VERY expensive ones and they tried a few cheapie ones which were known to be pretty good in the american market

If theyd tried a cheapie ebuyer or ebay cable then you might have something.

regardless, they MEASURED errors and nothing could be seen on screen (that was an 'obvious' error)

They also tested them under pretty 'perfect' conditions. There are plenty of other factors involved in 'real world' viewing (source used, jitter involved, RFI etc etc)

I rest my case

Well thats the Audiophile in you - you believe because something can be measured then it MUST make a difference to the end product. Nothing could be seen on the screen because the measured differences were below the error threshold of the digital stream - and therefore did not affect the data.

aliEnRIK

Ive already rested my case nit'

What you deem to be right or wrong is ENTIRELY upto you

I believe what I believe because I HAVE tested them for myself.

nitr02007

Agreed you are completely entitled to your own opinion no matter how unscientific or illogical.

I have given proof many times in this thread - you have given opinion.

I rest my case.

aliEnRIK

nitr02007 wrote: »

:THahaha -you said it.:T Either put up the evidence or shut up.:rotfl:

I lose interest with people SAY they who have the evidence somewhere but never produce it.

Bullsh*t - the only evidence you have is from What Hi-Fi who are in bed with cable makers.

Not laughing now though are we

Paddy2eyes

How is some measured jitter on a DAT machine (from 20 years ago) using a SPDIF output relevant to whether we can see any difference in a video signal using HDMI? If there are measurable errors which cannot be seen or heard, who cares?

nitr02007

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Not laughing now though are we

What? I can laugh at you if you want or continue to rubbish your unscientific opinions until the cows come home - up to you.

I thought we were graciously going to agree to disagree - but it seems you wish to continue...

Leopard

aliEnRIK,

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Obviously in this case the recorder looks better to you so id guess its because the actual tuner itself is better

Yeah; that's what I've always figured. Seems bizarre to me, though, that Sony would put a better tuner in a £190 DVD recorder than it did in a £1,900 television of the same generation.

Thanks, as always, for your advice. :money:


(PS. I'd leave the others to stew, if I were you. You've put the information out there. If you know something that they don't, and they don't want to listen, who's the loser? You've got better things to do, matey. )

aliEnRIK

Paddy2eyes wrote: »

How is some measured jitter on a DAT machine (from 20 years ago) using a SPDIF output relevant to whether we can see any difference in a video signal using HDMI? If there are measurable errors which cannot be seen or heard, who cares?

Because there comes a point where people WILL notice them