AV Receiver Reviews

The Rotel performs no video processing on HDMI inputs. 480i/p, 720p, and 1080i/p sources come out of the receiver with the same resolution they had at the input. Therefore, our chart shows few digital results. I did, however, check the HDMI-to-HDMI overscan, black-and-white clipping, and passthrough resolution at both 1080i and 1080p to ensure clean pass through and got good results overall. This is shown in the four digital pass scores in the table.

As with HDMI-to-HDMI, component-in-to-component-out exits the receiver at the same resolution it had at the input. It will not upconvert a component input to a higher-resolution component output. The component-to-component resolution was satisfactory at SD and HD resolutions (not shown in the table), but there was more rolloff visible in the highest frequencies in component than in HDMI.

But the Rotel will cross-convert and/or upconvert any SD or HD analog input to an HDMI output of up to 1080p. But as the chart above reveals, it does not do this very well—at least not with the test patterns used for our tests. The analog tests in the above table were taken with a 1080i component input upconverted and cross-converted to 1080p HDMI, with three exceptions. The 3:2 SD, 2:2 SD, and Scaling tests were done with a 480i component input and a 1080p HDMI output. The most serious failure came with the HD deinterlacing tests (3:2 pulldown and 2:2 pulldown). At press time, Rotel claimed a user- or dealer- installable firmware update addressed shortcomings in the video processing.

With the Sharp LC-52XS1U-S I used for many of these tests, the component-to-HDMI conversion produced a bright green image! As seen on a JVC DLA-RS1 projector, however, it looked correct. Clearly, the receiver was changing the source to a form the Sharp could not handle properly. It’s very possible that this issue could occur on other sets as well. HDMI-to-HDMI and component-to-component from the Rotel worked fine on both displays.—TJN