N E W R E V I E W S

DUELLING DOMAINS

Can Adcom’s GFR-700HD receiver handle video as well as it does audio?

For an audio receiver to be worth its salt today, it must be able to handle the intricacies of video with the same precision as it does audio. So rather than waxing poetic

on how nicely the GFR-700HD’s controls blend into its industrial-tech black and silver finish, I’ll start instead with the integral video scaler. It accepts video signals from legacy sources such as VCRs and DVD players, converts them into whatever resolution your video display prefers, then outputs the video to your display through an HDMI digital video jack.The downside to this scaler is that it only works on 480i standard-definition signals;video at resolutions of 480p or greater is ignored and output as-is. (A planned video board upgrade won’t have this limitation.) But 480i signals are the ones that need the most work.

There are many options for controlling the picture, such as deciding upon the aspect ratio and fine-tuning vertical/horizontal positioning of the image. Scaler settings for each input are

stored, so they will change automatically when you switch from yourVCR to your DVD play- er. And while upscaling a VCR to the 1080p resolution of my Samsung LED rear-projection display might seem crazy, the image from the videocassette of My Fair Lady, upscaled through the GFR-700HD’s National Semiconductor video processing chip, looks smooth.

I then switch to my Oppo DV-981HD DVD player (set to 480i and using component output), and try Enter the Dragon and the more recent Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Dragon looks steady and smooth despite its gritty film grain; Bruce Lee’s ruddy skin tones appear realistic to the eye. Pirates’ many panoramic vistas actually seem more detailed than they would on a standard-definition dis- play. (Of course, neither looks as good here as the Blu-ray versions of these movies do.) Using the HQV Benchmark DVD—a much more demanding trial than normal program material would be — I find Adcom’s upconversion

BY MARSHAL ROSENTHAL • PHOTOGRAPHY BY CORDERO STUDIOS