AV Receiver Reviews

This Marantz boasts an Anchor Bay video-processing solution, which is the technology employed in OPPO’s highly regarded Blu-ray players, among other components. This processing solution can convert analog component and lower-resolution HDMI signals to 1080p HDMI, and it’s an excellent performer with standard- and high-def sources, input over analog component or HDMI. All of our HDMI digital tests, at 480i and 1080i/p, were passed with flying colors except the highest-resolution chroma burst at 1080p, which was just slightly down in level. It’s a common but surprising failing given that other Anchor Bay–powered products we’ve seen pass full chroma resolution, including the OPPO BDP-83 and BDP-83SE. Deinterlacing with all sources was excellent, and analog up/cross-conversion to 1080p HDMI was very solid too, although here the highest chroma frequencies were absent. The highest chroma frequencies aren’t as critical to our perception of image detail with program material as luma. However, over analog component, scaling from 480i to 1080p showed the highest luma frequencies a bit rolled off. The SR7005 also offers the ability to convert 480i and 1080i movie material to 1080p/24. You must select the 1080p/24 output manually in the Input Setup Menu, which is tedious, and it forces that cadence once selected. If you leave this feature on and the next thing you play is not a movie encoded with 3:2 pulldown, there is no auto-detect that will select the appropriate deinterlacing mode. Aside from typical quibbles, this is the kind of excellent performance one expects and deserves at this price range.—SCB