2. home-theater
  3. 1183314229

Denon 2930ci Looks Like Crap on 1080P LCD?

Greetings Agoners.A little over a week ago I jumped on a brand new Toshiba 42" 1080P LCD for my small home theater system, moving up from an older 37" Philips LCD.For the first week I was sourced by a Denon DVD 1920 set at 720P output & the pic was STUNNING.Of course being the typical A/V Phile I figured a new 1080P upconverting DVD/P would really put my tv over the top.Well yesterday I drove 250 miles round trip to pick up a brand new Denon DVD 2930ci.Got home & spent the next 1/2 hour getting the old deck out & the new deck in.Set up all the video parameters & threw in the first disc.NO!!!!!The pic was crap.Processing lines could be seen & it was totaly soft.In went disc after disc with the same result.I went through EVERY video parameter,trying all levels of output,1080P,1080i,720P & even 480/576P&i.Nothing made a bit of difference except to get even worse.W.T.F.?I put the old deck back in along side the new one & the pic was back to it's awesome status.I really want to keep the 2930ci because it's audio output is fantastic & a definite step up from the 1920 but don't think I can justify keeping the $850.00 machine just for an audio disc player.Video cable is an Audioquest HDMi3(top of the A/Q line)& the deck is set up on VibraPods & pluged into a digitally isolated recep on my Pure AV power conditioner.I even tried plugging sraight into the wall but that didn't help either.Any suggestions on what the problem may be & how to fix it?Thanks in advance for any help provided.
freediver
tarsando
578 posts
 
Listen to the music. Forget the pictures.
jdlepera's avatar
jdlepera
234 posts
 
Look up the Toshiba and the Denon here. http://www.avsforum.com The best place for video ?'s
Does the older Denon not upconvert and the newer one does maybe?Let us know the solution when you find it.JD
freediver OP
1,171 posts
 
I've spent the entire day going through just about every dvd in my collection & here's the low down.Discs with so so authoring look really bad.Lots of noise & flat color.Cueing up a disc of Batman The Animated Series & The Animatrix showed superb color saturation BUT revealed themselves to be computer generated with heavy motion artifacts.Spinning discs of Smallville & JAG yielded a picture unlike any I've ever seen.The picture however was SO GOOD that you could see EVERY line of makeup on the actors.I swear Clark Kent looked like a drag queen.It appears that this deck is capable of such accuracy that there is no middle ground.It's either too good or not nearly good enough.Inserting the DVD1920 back into the loop brought back the balance needed to enjoy the tv.Animation had no motion artifacts & very good color saturation.Poorly mastered discs upconverted to 720P provided a good enough base signal to the tv to allow it's scaler to do a very good job of eliminating video noise,with good color saturation & detail.Clark Kent was back to his old self,not quite the color sat.of the 2930 but much better balanced & just soft enough to cover the makeup.Bottom line I think is this deck would KILL with a good projector set up or direct view tv thats sized correctly for viewing distance.HOWEVER if you've got a big screen direct view & sit close I don't think this or any 1080P upscaling player will cut it.If I didn't have such a sizeable dvd collection I'd consider an HD DVD or Blu Ray player.So the 2930 is going back to Magnolia & the 1920 will stay in the system for now.Gee I wonder how the Marantz DV7001-1080P with its Faroudja processor would perform??????
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
This is a common problem with very high resolution products. They reveal every defect in the source material, little of which is mastered/manufactured/shot/recorded for very high res viewing/listening. Bummer!!!! Many of us have been there. Try watching a heavily compressed analog video signal that has been converted by your local cable provider to digital on a high res display, esp. if it then upconverts/scales. Virtually unwatchable. Yet feed the same display a good quality signal in its native resolution and it can be amazing (except of course for seeing the ear hair or pock marks on your favorite aging actor!!)
More to discover