Hello.   I own the HK AVR-745 receiver and it says that it will upconvert all signals to 720p/1080i then send them through the hdmi to tv.  Does anyone know if this is an effective way to upconvert DVDs?  Should I just buy an upconverting DVD player and directly wire it to the TV ? 

My TV is 720p/1080i so I am not worried about 1080p.

 Thanks. 

Hi Matthew,

The Harman Kardon avr745 is their flagship receiver and uses Faroudja processing for video upconversion.  Upconverting DVD players, like the Award winning Oppo Digital DV-981hd also use the same Faroudja processing, so in theory, the quality should be very similar.  I would try the receiver out and see how it looks.  My guess is that is will probably look quite good.  If you want even cleaner video, you may want to consider an HD DVD or Blu-ray player as the next step.

Enjoy!

Mike Hopkins

Aperion Audio

I asked a shop about this the other day....

They suggested trying each option for upconversion because some do work better than others-in some cases the receiver did the best job, others the TV itself did the best job, and once the DVD player was superior. That DVD player, they said, was the Elite Blu-Ray player. Now this response is based on their experience with products they sell so....try it for yourself to see what works best.