I've connected some analog sources to my AVR-254 and have noticed that the output from the 254's HDMI port has crushed blacks and whites -- meaning, IRE lower than 16 is clipped to 16, and IRE levels higher than 235 are clipped to 235.  This adversely affects the analog source video quality, and attempting to make any adjustments using the 254's brightness/contrast controls does not help.

Is there a menu option or hidden/service setting to not crush analog values outside of 16-235?

If not, is there a way to "pass-through" the analog video input to an analog video output so that it can go directly to my television without modification?