Since the review came out in SGHT stating that the 1055/1066's do in fact support HDTV with 200 Mhz's worth of bandwidth I sent an email of to Mike Bartlett who's the VP for north america and my primary connact at Rotel asking for an explination. I heard back late last night and early this morning and its an interesting situation. I'm still learning some of the details on what's happened and what will be happening but here's what I know so far.
At some point there was a change made to these models to increase the video bandwidth from 10 to 200 mhz to allow for 1080i HDTV support. I'm trying to find out exactly when that change was made but it isn't as simple as saying all models using the newer firmware are HDTV complient. When I find out more on which models are affected I'll post an update.
For those of us with older models Rotel is looking into offering an upgrade patch similar to how the Denon 5800s were handled. We'll be charged a one time fee and will have to ship our units to Rotel and they'll UPS them back. Apparently its a rather expensive upgrade but our costs will be pretty reasonable. I've heard one figure but since its not set in stone yet I'll just say its more then I'd hoped but less then I feared
As I said a lot of these details are only just being worked out and since Mike's in asia right now its more difficult to get details from him due to time delays and his work load...but I do know he's trying to sort out the details between the various staff within Rotel.
For what its worth Rotel still says the 1055/1066 models don't support HDTV offically even though these new models do. I think thats likely a case of using a common denominator for the various flavours to make it appear like its an added bonus for the new models not a feature that was supported all along.
At some point there was a change made to these models to increase the video bandwidth from 10 to 200 mhz to allow for 1080i HDTV support. I'm trying to find out exactly when that change was made but it isn't as simple as saying all models using the newer firmware are HDTV complient. When I find out more on which models are affected I'll post an update.
For those of us with older models Rotel is looking into offering an upgrade patch similar to how the Denon 5800s were handled. We'll be charged a one time fee and will have to ship our units to Rotel and they'll UPS them back. Apparently its a rather expensive upgrade but our costs will be pretty reasonable. I've heard one figure but since its not set in stone yet I'll just say its more then I'd hoped but less then I feared
As I said a lot of these details are only just being worked out and since Mike's in asia right now its more difficult to get details from him due to time delays and his work load...but I do know he's trying to sort out the details between the various staff within Rotel.
For what its worth Rotel still says the 1055/1066 models don't support HDTV offically even though these new models do. I think thats likely a case of using a common denominator for the various flavours to make it appear like its an added bonus for the new models not a feature that was supported all along.
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