Displaying 1080i problem. Any Advice please!

[aienco]

I have just purchased a Denon DVD2910. I am running into a Mitsubishi XD300 Projector which is cable of displaying 1280x768. When watching with the Denon set to 480p 720p or 1080i, the quality is there but there are fine horizontal bars or lines running through the image. I have tried all the setting on the projector and dvd player but cant fix this? Anyone Know why.

[edtyct]

What you may be seeing is a flaw intrinsic to the Denon's MPEG color decoding. As good as this player is in general, its digital output appears to suffer from CUE, the chroma upsampling error, which manifests as horizontal lines through colored areas. The larger your display, the more apt these unwanted artifacts are to be distracting. Do you see them through your component connection? I don't believe that the 3910 or 5910 have this problem--fat load of good that does you.

Ed

[AVMASTER]

I have just purchased a Denon DVD2910. I am running into a Mitsubishi XD300 Projector which is cable of displaying 1280x768. When watching with the Denon set to 480p 720p or 1080i, the quality is there but there are fine horizontal bars or lines running through the image. I have tried all the setting on the projector and dvd player but cant fix this? Anyone Know why.
i'll assume that the Denon is connected with a RCA to VGA (15 pin ) cable and that its' connected to the second port of the Mits, right???? try using the Denon without the progressive scan and let the chip in your projector handle the video; let us know if that helps

[edtyct]

Aienco and AVmaster,

Am I missing something? I just noticed that this Mits projector doesn't have a digital input, right? If not, how can the Denon scale to 720p or 1080i without using its HDMI or DVI outputs? Depending on the connection, I might revise my suggestion about the banding issue. Nonetheless, this player suffers from CUE via component as well as HDMI or DVI, but the reason why I asked about how component looked versus digital is that digital upconverting might exacerbate it. I agree with AV that letting the Mits do the processing might ultimately be the way to go.

Ed

[aienco]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your advice. You are correct I am using the component rca out on the Denon which goes to a D15 pin on the Mits. I am not sure what you mean when you say let the Mits do the work? If I set the Denon to Standard output, then the Mits will come up and say 625p or 525p depending on whether I am using a Region 1 or 4 DVD. As soon as I set the Denon to 480p, 720 p 1080i, The Mits. comes up with 1080i/a in its menu and this is where I see those bands. I have tried all settings, the only thing that makes a difference is on the Mits. there is a setting for Vertical Sync. If this is off, the picture is stable but with bands in it, if i set it to Auto (the only two settings are off and Auto) the bands dissappear, but the picture starts to jump all over the place. I can definatley see the diiference from 625/525p to 1080i. The image is so much more vibrant, but those bands are a real pain. Does this clear up what I am trying to say?

[edtyct]

Some of the facts still baffle me a little. AVmaster probably knows more about this projector than I do, but from my point of view, you look to be on the horns of a dilemma--select the Denon's progressive scanning and get what appears to be the CUE bug in the bargain, or select the Denon's interlaced signal, which eliminates the banding but at the cost of the Mits' slightly inferior processing overall. In other words, neither the Denon's nor the Mitsubishi's deinterlacing comes without drawbacks; you may have to settle for the lesser of two evils. The projector's slightly anomalous native resolution of 1024x576 at 16x9 (also the Matterhorn's) requires significant processing regardless of what it's fed, and even though a Faroudja chip is doing the work, your HD and ED sources may always look a little soft. This is not intended to detact at all from the quality of this projector, which by all indications is a winner.

I'm not at all sure that your 2910 is scaling to HD resolutions, regardless of the 1080i reading on the Mit's menu. From what I understand, the Denon scales to HD resolution only through its HDMI or DVI output, which you can't use. Otherwise, why wouldn't the projector's menu read 720p when you program the Denon as such? Since 480p doesn't seem to be on the projector's resolution roster, given its default of 540 lines, it simply might interpret the Denon's 480p signal as 1080i, though 540p would make more sense (while not appearing so impressive).

The vertical sync switch appears to be a red herring in this case, since the projector is equipped to accommodate the component feed through its VGA input. Maybe AVmaster will ride in on his white horse and come up with some definitive conclusions. But without knowing more details about this projector, it's a little hard to assess its interaction with the Denon.

Ed

[AVMASTER]

thanks for the vote of confidence but you know as much as i do about his projector; one of my co-workers was familiar with the Mits from a previous retrofit job ( switch the Mits for a Vidikron ). Your assessment would be pretty much the same conclusion i'd come up with, unfortunately my fellow worker is off today so theres' not much else i could add. I would be curious to see what happens if you reverse the process ( DVI-D to VGA) and let the Mits do the work

[aienco]

Good suggestion, didnt think of that. I will need to buy a DVI-D to Vga cable so i will let you know as soon as I can get one and try it. Thanks.

[edtyct]

Aienco,

Wait. You can't go from DVI-D (Denon) to VGA analog (Mitsubishi)--incompatible protocols. You'd have to start with DVI-A, which you don't have. However, even if you were able to stay within the digital domain from source to target, the Denon still might show CUE, unless it allows 480i to transmit digitally. But even if it did, the Mitsubishi's processing and scaling would take over completely, and you already know what that's like. True, the results could look better if freed from A/D conversion, but the work that the projector has to do to accommodate 1024x576 progressively from 720x480 would still have an inevitable impact on the picture. Can you substitute an inexpensive but good progressive-scan DVD player for the Denon and run your tests again? The cost need not exceed the price of a DVI-A to VGA cable, at least not by too much. I don't believe that the affordable Sonys suffer from CUE, and maybe not the Pioneers or Toshibas either. If you could get rid of the horizontal bands on color, I'm willing to bet your display would look very good.

Ed