Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems HD621 Set Up Questions

If we were taking a signal purity perspective on the Radience, I'd split the incoming signal to video and audio immediately, and delay the audio output to be synchronous with the video output.

Cheers,

John:

Appreciate your well reaoned and thought out post and, after giving the issue I described more thought I do not think that there is an issue...but, of course, would like your fruther opinion so please read on...

The reason why I do not think that there is an issue is because there is NO NEED to configure the 800 with both an MHR audio and an HDMI audio connection because 1) the 800 does not do any of the HD audio codecs and 2) which in turn means that the one MHR connection is all that is needed whether listening to an audio CD or a DVD...the whole -- an only purpose -- of configuring the DVD player once physically as DVD and once as a phantom for CD was to use different default surround modes, nothing more.

While having a type A personality can sometimes be good it is sometimes not with a simple case in pointbeing that I stayed up until 2:30 AM playing with MConfig and further discovered that having one HDMI connection from the RadianceXE to the 861 does NOT cause a problem as MConfig allows the one to select the same MHR input (in my case MD2 as MD1 will continue to be used for 800 to 861 connection for CD palyback) for all source devices that connected first to the RadianceXE and secondly to the HD621. With that it appears -- continuing on the above paragraph -- has thought things out in that they will allow one and only one HDMI/MHR audio output from the 800 which makes perfect sense to me...

With that, your feedback and thoughts would be appreciated...

Thanks in advance,


Joel

My HD621 was just delivered by UPS. I did a quick test to see what was happening with the HDMI video in/out.

For this test, I placed the HD621 bewteen a Blu-ray player and a video processor. The player allows me to force 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and RGB. The video processor reports what is coming in.

I tried all three video modes and the HD621 would pass the same format out that came in. This is great news! At least this is what happened in my quick test. Tonight I will test between video processor and display.

I will be putting the HD621 after the VP50Pro and before the display because of the adaptive lip sync in the 50Pro. As I have stated, the amount of lip sync changes based on the content. (interlaced vs. telecine vs. progressive)

Doesn't one have to place the video processor first to optimise picture quality? My understanding, which could well be wrong, is that a VP adjusts for the interaction between each source (Bluray, DVD player, xbox etc) and the display. If the VP comes after the HD HD621, won't the VP treat the output as one source type ie the HD621, which means the video will not be properly corrected for each source. At the moment I have a Radiance XD which I might need to upgrade to an XE because of this issue.

Rob

Rob,

The easy answer is yes, you are correct.

Some video processors have memories that you can assign. In theory you could use automation to switch inputs on the HD621 and then switch memories on your video processor.

Great news...very much looking forward to your report particularly since you, like me, are putting the your video processor in front of the HD621...

Joel

It's funny but I started my thinking the way you suggest (ie that the video processor should be the last piece of equipment before the display) but not exactly because I thought the VP makes adjustments for each input. Rather I thought that the best thing to do is separate the audio stream as soon as possible and before the Radiance does it video magic.

My Radiance XD was calibrated using an external signal generator only using the controls in the VP working with light meters, etc measuring the image coming from the display. So the calibration is not source specific. In theory, I suppose, each source might need to be tweaked in such a set up but basically I thought that such tweaks would be minimal and I might not even notice much difference after such input specific tweaks on the Radiance.

Based on discussion in this thread and over at Lumagen, I've started to change my thinking to the point of considering putting the HD621 AFTER the Radiance since Meridian states that the HD621 doesn't do anything to the video signal and such a configuration allows one to attach more sources to the HD621. In my particular case I'm thinking about my music server which only has SPDIF and optical out; I can't attach it to the HD621 but I could run the audio into the Radiance.

With no source specific tweaks on my current set up I think the PQ is terrific on my set up but now you have me thinking again.....What to do? I understand that it should be possible as, Stacy suggests, to configure the HD621 and the Radiance to switch inputs but until I have my hands on the HD621 I'm not entirely sure how to do that.

So a mundane Meridian set up question. If one puts the HD621 after the video processor is there any need to include the source devices in the Meridian config file since the Radiance will do all the audio (and video) switching? All the Meridian processor will see is one input from the Radiance.

I thought about this last night when playing with MConfig and decided to include source (actually phantom) source devices as this would allow me to use different default settings (i.e. MRC profiles [i.e. screen up versus screen down], DSP defaults / presets, etc.)...

I hope this helps...

I have my setup as follows:

BD/DVD (via HDMI) -> iScan VP50 -> HD621 -> 568.2MM

I have found the lipsynch seems fine with this setup.

I have not been able to figure out how to individually adjust the configuration of the video for the separate sources into the VP50 (a subject for another forum).

One thing though, on a music BD, I get a continuous (obviously unlistenable) crackling noise if the DSP preset is changed to Ambisonics, but not with discrete or cinema. Any ideas?

Hmm. Yeah I guess I'll have to play around with my config to see if I will have a need for that. I don't really do anything fancy with DSPs etc in my current set up. All two channel music is Trifield, multichannel music is discrete, and multichannel movie is cinema. One point: I would have thought MRC is based on the room rather than the audio source. I don't use a projector so I didn't even know that you could specify something like screen position with an MRC profile.

I could be wrong but I thoguht you could only use ambisonics on a disc that is specifically mastered for ambisonics of which there are very few.