Video Routing

[barona]

Is it better to connect everything to the pre-amp or directly to the back of the TV??? I currently have everything running individual to the TV, will there be any quality loss running it through the pre-amp?? Here's what I got for equipment:

Rotel RSP-1066
Pannie DVD-RP56
Sony KP-43HT20 TV
Pioneer PD-F1005 CD changer

[George Bellefontaine]

I have always cabled video direct from the source, but even though many experts say that is the way to go, I know of many that route everything through their amp, controller or receiver and they seem to be happy. Try both ways to see if you can see any discernible difference, if not then I guess it doesn't matter. In my case I am projecting a pretty big picture with an lcd projector so I just go direct to be sure I am getting as clean a signal as I can get. Others here may chime in with other opinions.




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[David Meek]

Jeff, welcome to The Guide!

IMO, you should have as clean a path as possible between source and output devices. This will give you the best possible picture by eliminating any extra hops that could degrade the image. However, if you have multiple input sources and your TV can't handle them, or just for convenience's sake, then routing the signals through a pre-pro/receiver and using it as the switcher may be your best option. If so, make sure that the video channels in the pre-pro/receiver will accomodate the full bandwidth of the signal you are passing.




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[barona]

Thanks for the advice, I'm currently running everything directly to the back of the TV. It is sometimes a pain to keep jumping around from one source to another. I know that Monster Cable has been dissed a lot on this site but at the time I purchased many of the cables I didn't know any better and I'm not about to drop hundreds of $ to upgrade all of my cables, and I didn't want to buy more if I will lose quality......guess I'll just have to live with it

[Andrew Pratt]

Barona monster cables aren't usually bad cables and since you already own them are working for you great!

Regarding video switching its usually best to route all the video directly to the TV but for some of us that just isn't practical (25 foot distance from source to TV) so we route the video though the pre amp. Obviously though since the Rotel doesn't do video conversion you'll have to run component to the TV as well as s-video +/or composite anyway if you want to maximize the resolution offered by the various video sources.

[Brandon B]

Monster gets dissed a lot because of some of their pricing vs. quality. As Andrew says, none of their stuff is bad, just some is priced where you can get better for the money pretty easily. Some of their stuff is actually a reasonable value too, though.

BB

[barona]

Andrew you just lost me.....
Why do I have 3 composite, 3 S-Video, 1 component and 1 optical output?? Shouldn't I be able to plug all of my sources into the 1066 and run one component output to the TV??

[Andrew Pratt]

No the Rotel can not convert one signal type into another. Typically converting one signal type into another degrades the quality unless you're using very high end conversion equipement which you aren't going to find in any reciever/pre amp.

[barona]

OK Andrew,
I'm kind of following you on this one about conversion. But what good are those outputs?? Wouldn't they just pass the signal through. Say for instance I run composite out from the DVD player to the 1066, then composite out from the 1066 to the TV. Are you saying I'll lose clarity because a process needs to take place and the 1066 can't do it??

[Andrew Pratt]

No running composite from the DVD player and composite from the rotel will work fine...the issue is why are you using composite from the DVD player when s-video or component will provide you with a much better image. Using the component inputs and outputs on the rotel though will mean that you'll have a run of component to the TV's component inputs. Now when you want to watch the DVD you'll have to select that input on the TV. Now if you don't have any other component capable devices there's no need to use the component video switching on the rotel since you have enough inputs on the TV. But what happes if your TV only has one s-video input but your VCR and satalite dish both use s-video? You choices here are either change one of those components so that they're using a composite cable instead of s-video or connect both the dish and vcr to the rotel with s-video cables and then run an s-video cable from the rotel to that input on the TV. Now when you choose VCR on the Rotel it will route the VCR's s-video input to the s-video output on the rotel...you'll still have to switch the TV to its s-video input to see the image but at least it allows you to use the highest video quality for each device.

Now some receivers/ pre amps have the ability to upconvert composite into s-video and some newer ones claim to be able to convert composite all the way up to component BUT its questionable how good this will look vs running a non converted signal directly to the TV...its a trade off between ease of set up and video quality.

[barona]

Component, damn, I meant to say component. That's what I'm currently running from the DVD to the TV. I don't have a VCR and have two sat. (one with Ultimate TV) hooked up and their both running s-video so yes, I'm only running one set of components currently. If your wondering the why, the two sat. are for twin view picture with the Sony TV.

[Chris D]

Andrew-

I've also been following this thread, but from the perspective of the 1098 that I'm interested in. As I think I read from another one of your posts, the new 1098 is supposed to upconvert other video signals to component, correct? What are your thoughts as to Rotel choosing to do this, and do you think they've answered the quality issue for this conversion in the 1098 specifically?




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"