Surround Processor Reviews

The Rotel RSP-1570 is a direct passthrough, HDMI in to HDMI out. That is, it performs no video scaling or upconversion from its HDMI inputs. Therefore, only the video clipping and resolution tests, performed here as usual with a 1080p input, are applicable, and the processor offered clean HDMI passthrough.

The Analog section of our chart indicates how the device handles cross-converting a component input to an HDMI output. At least judging from our standard tests, the Rotel isn’t particularly effective at this. It failed most of the tests (and in the clipping test, it passed below black but severely clipped all of the white levels on our Spears & Munsil test disc, even those that extend several steps below white). Oddly, it excelled at the Analog scaling test (480p in, 1080p out). Also note that while the Video Input/Output Format table in the manual implies that the RSP-1570 will not produce a 1080p HDMI output from a 1080p component input, in our testing it did.

While we don’t recommend using the analog-in, HDMI-out cross-conversion in the Rotel for any but your least critical sources, most AVRs and surround processors we’ve tested that have this feature do a mediocre job of it at best. That doesn’t mean that you’ll always see artifacts with typical program material using cross-conversion, only that such artifacts are more likely to occur than in a product that passes our Test Bench challenges.—TJN