amps for upscaling to YPbPr outputs with HDMI 1.4 (str-da3500es/rx-v667/vsx-920)

milkkart

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looking to buy my first AV amp for somewhere around £300 but i have a slightly odd requirement. i have a now fairly ancient philips 42PF9945/12 'HD-ready' plasma and it only has a component input for HD so preferably it would be able to upscale and convert any input to 1080i and output it over the component outputs (excepting hdmi obviously, thanks to HDCP, boo hiss). also HDMI 1.4 is kind of a must have for future proofing. trouble is finding an amp at a reasonable price with both seems to be pretty hard. after scouring richer sounds catalogue and downloading manuals to examine for a week i've come up with a few contenders.

(apologies for the wall of text, questions at the bottom feel free to skip the rest)

sony STR-DA3500ES - £250
-can upscale to component output but only has HDMI 1.3 and sonys of this age don't seem to be able to do full-HD 3d passthrough (not seen the 3500 mentioned specifically, if it actually can that would give it quite an advantage).
-it has the best selection of connections out of my picks, one more component in and out than the others, extra optical/coax digital inputs (though some appear to be assigned to audio only) zone 2 a/v out and zone 3 audio out. 1 less HDMI than the yamaha though.
-there is also the faroudja scaling/conversion chip which is supposed to be good (though apparently they were bought out and the name used to sell inferior gear at some point?) and the supposedly better sound quality due to it being ES.

pioneer VSX-920
-can definitely upconvert through the component output not sure about upscaling to it, the manual is unclear. full 1.4a 3d support. also has some funky features like internet an ethernet port for internet radio, USB port to play music off connected storage, video too for ipod. ethernet can be used to control it from an iphone app too (not that i have one but maybe something for PC can be hacked together) and theres a port for a bluetooth module to stream music to it wirelessly (anyone know if pioneer make modules that do other stuff to connect to this port?).
-no multi-channel analogue in/pre-outs. less digital audio inputs than either of the other two but they are assignable. 1 less hdmi than the yam and one less pair of component connections than the sony.

yamaha rx-v667
-looks like upscaling is definitely just to HDMI, definitely will output composite/s-vid to component. 1.4a compatible too. has an optional bluetooth module like the 920 too.
-has analogue multi-channel in and pre-outs, an extra digi coax over the pioneer and an s-video in which neither others have, a total of 6 HDMI ins, two composite outs.

so, at the moment im leaning towards the pioneer despite it being unable to upscale to the component out (if i really want upscaling i can use hdmi out and an hdmi to YPbPr box), the features (internet radio, usb/bluetooth audio, video from ipod, remote control apps) seem more useful than the analogue surround in/outs on the yamaha and it definitely seems better to have hdmi 1.4 compatibility.

questions: anyone know exactly which features of HDMI 1.4 the 667 and 920 support (hdmi ethernet for instance)? are there any known problems with either of them or features i haven't considered? any suggestions for other amps in this kind of price range i should look at?
 
Why the need for HDMI 1.4, when your TV doesn't even have HDMI?

Why the need for upscaling on the component input, when its quite likely that he scaling of your TV will be better than an amp in your budget?

AFAIK most amps that have upconversion will upconvert all inputs (except HDMI as you mentioned) to both the component and HDMI output.

Reconsidering your requirements, will open you up to a lot more possibilities.
 
as the tv is quite old and im unlikely to be buying another amp for a long time the tv will probably get replaced before the amp so i thought it would be best to have 1.4 for future proofing.

from what i've read the video processing generally in the tv is pretty bad, maybe the scaler isn't the cause though. having had a look at the manual the panel in it is only actually ~800x500 so id actually just be scaling it up with the amp for the tv to scale it back down again to fit the screen which would probably give worse results than just letting the tv handle it.

what i definitely would like though is for the the amp to be able to send all the analogue inputs to the component output, that way all the source switching can be handled by the amp instead of having to switch sources on the tv. the cheaper amps i looked at specified in the manual that they could only switch analogue inputs to the hdmi output, otherwise you would have to have one cable for each source type.
 
I thought all amps (even without upconversion) will output analogue video inputs (like composite) onto the component output. I know my Arcam 350 does this and it does not have upconversion or even audio over HDMI.
 
they can do it if they don't have an upscaler but do have an upconverter, a converter is necessary to change between signal formats because you need to split the composite (effectively sync, red, green and blue in one signal) into YPbPr component (one signal for sync and luminance combined one for red and one for blue).

not many of the <£300 receivers richer sound carry seem to have composite to component conversion but i've not checked them all yet. the sonys seem to have it as an analogue to digital only converter built into the upscaling/processing circuitry for the HDMI output because they can only convert composite and component into HDMI.
some just flat out don't have a converter like the pioneer VSX-520

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screenshot of the bit in the manual about it.
guess its just an easy thing to take out to knock down the cost.
 

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