I connected my Sony DVP-NS75H to Denon 3806 via HDMI. I then connected the AVR to my plasma Panasonic TH-50PX60U via HDMI as well. Everything works great except I'm getting macroblocking problem now when I'm watching DVD. Prior to connecting the DVD to the AVR, I connected the DVD player directly to TV via HDMI and I didn't get any macroblocking problem at all.
Is there any of you that have similar issue? Is Denon 3806 known to give you macroblocking problem?

Thanks.

My brother-in-law is running a Panny S77 (I think) DVD player connected via HDMI to a Denon 3806, and from there via HDMI to a Sony projector.

No macroblocking seen yet, although until we fixed some power problems we were getting intermittent brief bursts of snow on the projector.

The AVR won't create a problem with crawling blacks (or macroblocks, or "crunchy blacks") that's a drawback of DVD's awful resolution and encoding.

If the problem only appeared when you changed connections (say from component to HMDI) then I'd say to check to make sure the "superblack" or whatever the manufacturer calls it was set... to cover for it, most manufacturers will crush the blacks... so that everything, say... under 15 IRE will appear as a solid black. Gets rid of that distracting crawling.

But since you kept the same connection, just routed it through the AVR, at first blush it would appear the AVR corrects its own output to NTSC legal blacks. Someone else with experience with that model may be more help, though.

Bren R.

I forgot to mention that I did AVIA video calibration after I connected the DVD player to the AVR. I increased the brightness of the display as the result of the calibration. I think it was +1 prior to the calibration (which was when I connected the DVD directly to TV) to +7 after calibration (after connecting to AVR). I also decreased the color and tint slightly as the result of the calibration. Could it be my calibration actually the cause of the macroblocking issue showing up? I thought AVIA calibration should be the proper calibration

Yeah, I would blame the calibration. The greatest benefit of calibration is a more life-like color balance and saturation, in my opinion. Feel free to tweak the brightness up or down a bit to taste.

Oh, then yes.

Chances are the DVD-P is crushing blacks to hide the ugliness of MPEG... and then you went and brought the baseline pedestal up.

So yes, by all means, unless you're watching movies off BetaSX... set your TV to what looks good to you.

Bren R.

I too had a terrible problem with Denon product via HDMI. After contacting them about it my unit was sent in for repair. It returned the same. I needed a player for my reviews, on my site. In a jam I went out and got a SONY, a cheap unit compared to the the Denon - guess what... it put the Denon to shame. The Sony displayed a stunning HDMI picture on my 50' SXRD without any digital micro-blocking. I contacted Denon about this and they had nothing to say. I was sicken by this that a thousand dollar unit was out performed by a $129 one. I also found the Denon incompatible with many dvds = an issue Denon told me over and over was the discs fault. Since then I've re-tested much of the discs on the Sony and found them to now work. From this expericene I dropped the Denon banner on my site.

I decreased the brightness and increased the color and tint slightly. It seems to help with the macroblocking problem. It doesn't show quite obvious like before anymore but it darken the picture. The AVIA calibration showed better image when the movie plays bright outdoor scenes though. I guess I have to make the trade off.

The Panasonic doesn't have a white point setting I'm assuming? If so, you can drop the brightness, raise the white point and stretch out some divisions of video (much like gamma on a computer monitor) to sort of make up for it.

Or just complain to those producing DVDs to drop the 8 hours of "bonus material" or move it to another disc and use that storage for better looking video.

Bren R.

Nope, Panasonic doesn't allow me to adjust the white point.
I don't think I would have much luck asking the studios to drop the useless bonus feature from DVD
I guess my only solution is to get HD DVD or BluRay, but that's probably still 1-2 years away from me

The 3806 uses the Faroudja video processor, which causes MB. Your dvd player probably doesn't use the Faroudja. The 3806 is probably taking over the processing if you send it through there.

Hi Seattlelite,

Don't assume that HDMI will always deliver superior picture quality to component-video. Try your component video outs direct to the TV and also through the Denon, bypassing the internal video processing if possible. Compare the HDMI and component video connections and use the one that delivers better looking video with fewer artifacts.

There's a lot of digital anti-piracy "handshaking" garbage that goes on with HDMI connections that may in fact result in picture quality that is inferior to analog component video because the HDCP codes use up valuable digital bits. Analog component video is not encumbered with this stuff and is fully capable of carrying a high-quality high-def video signal.