All of the equipment and associated hardware are here. Most everything that can be is set up on or in the TV stand has been. Here’s the list of equipment, starting from the top:
Television: JVC HD61FH96 $3200
DVD Player: Samsung HD850 $150
Amplifier: Pioneer VSX-815-S $250
DVR: Motorola DCT6412 (Comcast Cable service with Microsoft Software) $10/mo.
Front Speakers/Subwoofer: KLH MP06HT $80
Rear Speakers: Pioneer XW-HT1 $90
TV Stand: South Shore Furniture City Life Classic $215
DVD Storage: Atlantic Oskar Multimedia Storage System $90
Primary Remote Control: URC-8811 $25
Backup Remote Control: URC-6131n $14
All I can say is WOW!!! It has certainly been worth the wait. I love the fact that we were able to build such a great home theater for relatively little money. We’ve been waiting FOREVER for the TV stand to arrive and everything just fits together great now. While I know that the up-conversion process done by the Samsung is not the best possible, it still looks damn fine, and I’m not sure I’ve ever sat and watched cable TV (in this case Discovery HD) for this long without even caring what I was watching. I have always tried not to be too overt of a snooty bastard because I know everyone has their own combination of finance/comfort level & A/V knowledge. Unfortunately, what we have here is a great way to start feeling uncomfortable with sub-par material. Each component has the ability to transparently pass hidden nastiness on to the audience. There are very few shows I can stand to watch in standard definition any more, let alone “zoomed in” to fill the screen. Some of the animated shows are alright, but there are others that already look borderline bad. Two of my favorite shows: The Daily Show with John Stewart, and The Colbert Report can be painful to watch. These shows look like crap on our TV, but the humor (and truthiness) keeps me coming back. We had some friends over a few nights back and someone wanted to watch the Mariners game on Fox Sports. I barely remembered where that channel was, and then immediately regretted it. The picture was just not right. On the other hand, I can honestly say you haven’t lived until you have watched sports in HD. The NBA playoffs, The World Cup, and Baseball on INHD are gorgeous and I never tire of them. From what I’ve heard, we are lucky to have a “local” TV station that broadcasts their news in HD. How come they don’t all do it yet?
While I’m complaining, I need to let TNT-HD have it. They usually have something good on, but you can’t always to tell what you will be getting. Sometimes the movie or TV show are in genuine Hi-Def, and it is wonderful indeed. The bad part is what happens when they don’t get to show a movie in it’s widescreen form. They have to do the same trick my TV does to fill the 16:9 screen with a narrow 4:3 image. While I will say that they do a visibly better job than my TV can (not that it is bad by any means) at stretching the image. What I don’t like is that when they do it, I can’t undo the distortion they add when they stretch the picture. Further, their show listings all say they are in HD, when clearly they are not. I don’t know if anyone else has seen this, but there have been numerous occasions when watching Alias where the voices (and probably everything else) are audibly lower in frequency than they should be. This can get rather distracting. I hope they can get all this fixed. :^)
Anyway, I’ve got links and lots of humble advice for anyone needing help finding the right equipment for their own home theater. I stand by all of the components we have, but know there are others that can be a better fit for other folks. My TV decision was a combination of upkeep price ($200 replacement bulbs really is GOOD), ability to match with a really nice (but still CHEAP) TV stand, and my wife’s desire for “the best picture we can get”. I think we did a good job.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
The TV has Arrived!!
We’re halfway there, at least for the moment! I was going to hold off on posting the results until both items arrived, but thanks to a certain party who has somehow found my blog I feel somehow obligated to add something here in the interim.
The TV has finally arrived, and it is really nice. I’m especially pleased by the way the screen handles light sources from behind and beside the seating area. No matter what kind of lighting situation I have tried to throw at it, we could always see a beautiful clear picture. Because the JVC is such a hulking dark monolith when turned off, we are looking for some way of obscuring the black hole when not in use. My wife wants to find some type of cabinet or hutch we can encapsulate it in, which I don’t mind the idea of either. We paid a few extra dollars up front for the (still not delivered) TV stand so that we wouldn’t have to pay any penalty (restocking fee or shipping) if we decided we didn’t want it. I really want this stand though, as I think it will look really good under this TV, and I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. I’ve got the left, center, and right speakers sitting on the floor waiting to be installed over the TV, and getting a different TV stand means the vertical center of the TV may change such that the speakers will [gasp!] look poorly placed.
I had a moment of inspiration this afternoon when I realized that we could use a pair of curtains to close away the entertainment system. They would be of the type that attaches to the ceiling like they use in hospitals to divide rooms. I think they would look really good, but the wife still has to be convinced. Other areas where these curtains would be advantageous are sound absorption (the TV’s cooling fan is easily audible during quiet moments) and wire management (to conceal the wires for the speakers overhead).
I’m off to look for some alternative cabinets. Later!!
The TV has finally arrived, and it is really nice. I’m especially pleased by the way the screen handles light sources from behind and beside the seating area. No matter what kind of lighting situation I have tried to throw at it, we could always see a beautiful clear picture. Because the JVC is such a hulking dark monolith when turned off, we are looking for some way of obscuring the black hole when not in use. My wife wants to find some type of cabinet or hutch we can encapsulate it in, which I don’t mind the idea of either. We paid a few extra dollars up front for the (still not delivered) TV stand so that we wouldn’t have to pay any penalty (restocking fee or shipping) if we decided we didn’t want it. I really want this stand though, as I think it will look really good under this TV, and I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. I’ve got the left, center, and right speakers sitting on the floor waiting to be installed over the TV, and getting a different TV stand means the vertical center of the TV may change such that the speakers will [gasp!] look poorly placed.
I had a moment of inspiration this afternoon when I realized that we could use a pair of curtains to close away the entertainment system. They would be of the type that attaches to the ceiling like they use in hospitals to divide rooms. I think they would look really good, but the wife still has to be convinced. Other areas where these curtains would be advantageous are sound absorption (the TV’s cooling fan is easily audible during quiet moments) and wire management (to conceal the wires for the speakers overhead).
I’m off to look for some alternative cabinets. Later!!
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
TV and Stand Day Approacheth!
The next phase is on the way! We ordered the JVC HD-61FH96 TV, along with an interesting TV Stand from South Shore Furniture. Before these arrive I will need to figure out how I will be attaching the front speakers to the wall, so that I won’t need to worry about it once the TV finds its final resting place.
All we need after this will be a Series 3 Tivo! While we wait for that, I will be trying to find out if Comcast has a DVR with more hard disk space that I can swap for. I’d like to be able to start recording our favorite shows in HD, and then enjoy the high resolution goodness on the new TV. Right now I have a hard time justifying that as we can only record about 12 hours of HD material, and we usually have the hard disk about 60% full. That leaves us somewhere around 4.5 hours of room for HD shows. We come close to recording that much at least 3 nights a week, and usually don’t watch it all until a few days later. Definitely need more room.
All we need after this will be a Series 3 Tivo! While we wait for that, I will be trying to find out if Comcast has a DVR with more hard disk space that I can swap for. I’d like to be able to start recording our favorite shows in HD, and then enjoy the high resolution goodness on the new TV. Right now I have a hard time justifying that as we can only record about 12 hours of HD material, and we usually have the hard disk about 60% full. That leaves us somewhere around 4.5 hours of room for HD shows. We come close to recording that much at least 3 nights a week, and usually don’t watch it all until a few days later. Definitely need more room.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The Fog Gently Cloudifies
Indecisions, indecisions! The fun bit about not having taken the big bite and actually bought the “dream TV”, is that I don’t have to regret any glaring weaknesses for that particular product… On the other hand, I also don’t get to enjoy the glaring glory of my “dream TV” either!
My latest reason not to get the big rear projection flat screen: processing delay. Many DVR victims are familiar with those instances when the sound and picture don’t sync up and while you can’t always tell which of the two is lagging the other, you can tell that something just isn’t right. This problem can be turned into a constant time warp by new HDTVs by way of too much video processing taking too long to put the finished pictures on the screen, thus the processing delay. Most decent Audio/Video Receivers perform some amount of processing and also incorporate delays to account for different speaker distances. Audio processing is pretty much cake compared to some video processing at this point. With the newest TVs displaying images at 1920x1080 (progressive “scan”) and most programming being presented in (some number)x480 (interlaced), there are a lot of picture to be pulled out of nowhere so it can look it’s best on the big screen. It’s no wonder the TV picture lags a little. There’s so many techniques involved, and many of them done on top of each other, that I am left rather amazed at what we are asking these magical machines to do. Some folks use a device which delays the audio before it gets to the receiver. I don't want to add this complication, or spend extra money to fix a "feature" of the TV I already spent so much on. Here's the one my wife won't like: it'll make video games suck.
My solution? Find the TVs that don’t have too many people complaining about sync problems, then feed it only 1080i signals so that the biggest job, short of minor picture tweaks, is to de-interlace the signal. This will require source devices that can supply video signals that are pre-scaled to 1080i. I’ve got the temporary measures in place. Our DVD player is a Samsung HD850, which is MUCH better than the 1st generation JVC player we had previously. It has what I’ve heard is an acceptable HDMI output, which is the key to making current DVD’s sing visually. The other temporary measure is the Comcast provided Motorola 6412 DVR. This one has a DVI output, and I have cables for each one to connect to the two HDMI inputs on whichever TV we get.
In near future, these boxes will be replaced by more capable hardware. The ideal machine would be a series 3 Tivo, and some sort of universal Blue-Ray/HD-DVD transport/changer. Even better: Have the Tivo control the disc player. There is a Sony media PC that comes with a similar 200 DVD transport/changer, which is connected via Fire wire to the PC. Can someone say Linux drivers? That shouldn’t be too hard right? I know. I shouldn’t be dreaming so much when I can’t even pick out the right TV.
Long story shortened, I am thinking about the one of the JVC models at this point now. DLP has too many moving parts and seems expensive to keep up (replacement lamps), so LCOS looks really good, but Sony has too much processing delay for its wonderful picture. JVC looks good, has cheap lamps, and doesn’t seem to induce too much processing delay.
Of course you know, the 2006 models are just around the corner. I’ll keep wiping the drool off my chin and tell you when I need another towel.
My latest reason not to get the big rear projection flat screen: processing delay. Many DVR victims are familiar with those instances when the sound and picture don’t sync up and while you can’t always tell which of the two is lagging the other, you can tell that something just isn’t right. This problem can be turned into a constant time warp by new HDTVs by way of too much video processing taking too long to put the finished pictures on the screen, thus the processing delay. Most decent Audio/Video Receivers perform some amount of processing and also incorporate delays to account for different speaker distances. Audio processing is pretty much cake compared to some video processing at this point. With the newest TVs displaying images at 1920x1080 (progressive “scan”) and most programming being presented in (some number)x480 (interlaced), there are a lot of picture to be pulled out of nowhere so it can look it’s best on the big screen. It’s no wonder the TV picture lags a little. There’s so many techniques involved, and many of them done on top of each other, that I am left rather amazed at what we are asking these magical machines to do. Some folks use a device which delays the audio before it gets to the receiver. I don't want to add this complication, or spend extra money to fix a "feature" of the TV I already spent so much on. Here's the one my wife won't like: it'll make video games suck.
My solution? Find the TVs that don’t have too many people complaining about sync problems, then feed it only 1080i signals so that the biggest job, short of minor picture tweaks, is to de-interlace the signal. This will require source devices that can supply video signals that are pre-scaled to 1080i. I’ve got the temporary measures in place. Our DVD player is a Samsung HD850, which is MUCH better than the 1st generation JVC player we had previously. It has what I’ve heard is an acceptable HDMI output, which is the key to making current DVD’s sing visually. The other temporary measure is the Comcast provided Motorola 6412 DVR. This one has a DVI output, and I have cables for each one to connect to the two HDMI inputs on whichever TV we get.
In near future, these boxes will be replaced by more capable hardware. The ideal machine would be a series 3 Tivo, and some sort of universal Blue-Ray/HD-DVD transport/changer. Even better: Have the Tivo control the disc player. There is a Sony media PC that comes with a similar 200 DVD transport/changer, which is connected via Fire wire to the PC. Can someone say Linux drivers? That shouldn’t be too hard right? I know. I shouldn’t be dreaming so much when I can’t even pick out the right TV.
Long story shortened, I am thinking about the one of the JVC models at this point now. DLP has too many moving parts and seems expensive to keep up (replacement lamps), so LCOS looks really good, but Sony has too much processing delay for its wonderful picture. JVC looks good, has cheap lamps, and doesn’t seem to induce too much processing delay.
Of course you know, the 2006 models are just around the corner. I’ll keep wiping the drool off my chin and tell you when I need another towel.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Under-Appreciated Audio
I’m feeling the need to express my feelings for the under-appreciated audio components used in our home theater. This would mostly mean the speakers (which I will get to later), but credit is also deserved for our receiver, a Pioneer VSX-815S.
For the price (we got ours a grand total of $255), I don’t think you can find any better unless you already have the necessary equipment to accurately set up the EQ / crossover / time-alignment for your system. I didn’t have anything but my own ears, and I didn’t want to leave it to them alone if some certain persons of small stature were to inadvertently press the wrong buttons. I won’t go on much longer about the receiver, as it has already gotten much credit and has a bit of a following in the Bang-For-The-Buck camp. Let’s just say that it is Very Flexible, with assignable component video and digital audio inputs, and line outputs to mirror each amplified speaker output. Add decent power output and choice of manual or automatic calibration, and this is an amazing deal. Really. If you don’t have a home theater receiver, or (like me) have an older model with no digital audio capabilities, this is a great way to get your foot in the door. One misnomer I have read a number of times is that this receiver comes with a learning remote control. It doesn’t. It does have a preprogrammed remote which can be set up to control a variety of components. I’ll tell you right now that I don’t enjoy using it. It provides access to virtually every function possible, but that also complicates it beyond my desire to hold it in my hand. Get a good aftermarket universal remote for everyday use. Because I’m cheap, I have to recommend a UEI (One-For-All & Radio Shack) non-kameleon model. To get an idea of what these remotes can do, run on over to www.hifi-remote.com.
On to the speakers! While our home theater speakers don’t have some remarkable pedigree, they perform wonderfully well for our living room layout. We have a mix of speakers from Pioneer and KLH.
The Pioneer XW-HT1 wireless speaker system is a nice little package consisting of a processor/transmitter and an amplifier/speaker cabinet. The processor features Circle Surround from SRS, and has 3 modes for each of its two inputs. I leave ours on all the time, set to Wide Stereo, and feed it the line outputs from the back surround channels of our receiver. It also has a subwoofer output which can be used if you need more low frequency response. Audibly speaking, this system isn’t much by itself, but I’m lazy enough about running speaker wires that this was worth it, especially when our receiver has the required line outputs. This system is more ideally suited for folks with just a TV and DVD player, as its processing can be used to generate rear-channel information all by itself. The one fun bit about using these speakers is that, like so many other consumer electronics, it uses the 2.4GHz band. Thus it is possible to produce audible effects from the speakers by way of interference. It was fun to juggle frequencies to get our cordless phones, wireless network, and wireless speakers to all get along without stepping on each other’s toes. It’s more fun when my neighbors also have wireless devices. A few months back we started hearing some strange clicks coming from the speakers and found that somebody had set up a network access point using a conflicting frequency. Don’t tell anyone, but I checked out their setup from my laptop and found that they hadn’t enabled any encryption or security settings on their system, nor had they changed the default factory password. I took it upon myself to change the channel they were using to something less obvious to my speakers. I don’t think they will know or care.
Our main speakers are a set of KLH MP06HTs. KLH does not go out of their way to advertise themselves, but they have quite a following, and are known for producing high-quality products. This set literally came with everything you need: Subwoofer, five matched speakers, wires, mounting brackets, and wall hardware. Right now we are only using 3 of the 5 sats, but it is comforting to know that our 7.1 channel receiver is ready to make use of the two spare speaker should we so desire to use them. While these speakers can be had for a very low price, don’t be fooled. They are very well constructed and have gold-plated 5-way binding posts that can accept huge wires.
All of these components work very well together and should easily meet the requirements of most budgets. I still consider myself lucky to have found them all, and then to have found great deals when purchasing them. They look great and, more importantly, sound phenomenal. Everyone has their favorites, but if you are in the market you really should check them out!
For the price (we got ours a grand total of $255), I don’t think you can find any better unless you already have the necessary equipment to accurately set up the EQ / crossover / time-alignment for your system. I didn’t have anything but my own ears, and I didn’t want to leave it to them alone if some certain persons of small stature were to inadvertently press the wrong buttons. I won’t go on much longer about the receiver, as it has already gotten much credit and has a bit of a following in the Bang-For-The-Buck camp. Let’s just say that it is Very Flexible, with assignable component video and digital audio inputs, and line outputs to mirror each amplified speaker output. Add decent power output and choice of manual or automatic calibration, and this is an amazing deal. Really. If you don’t have a home theater receiver, or (like me) have an older model with no digital audio capabilities, this is a great way to get your foot in the door. One misnomer I have read a number of times is that this receiver comes with a learning remote control. It doesn’t. It does have a preprogrammed remote which can be set up to control a variety of components. I’ll tell you right now that I don’t enjoy using it. It provides access to virtually every function possible, but that also complicates it beyond my desire to hold it in my hand. Get a good aftermarket universal remote for everyday use. Because I’m cheap, I have to recommend a UEI (One-For-All & Radio Shack) non-kameleon model. To get an idea of what these remotes can do, run on over to www.hifi-remote.com.
On to the speakers! While our home theater speakers don’t have some remarkable pedigree, they perform wonderfully well for our living room layout. We have a mix of speakers from Pioneer and KLH.
The Pioneer XW-HT1 wireless speaker system is a nice little package consisting of a processor/transmitter and an amplifier/speaker cabinet. The processor features Circle Surround from SRS, and has 3 modes for each of its two inputs. I leave ours on all the time, set to Wide Stereo, and feed it the line outputs from the back surround channels of our receiver. It also has a subwoofer output which can be used if you need more low frequency response. Audibly speaking, this system isn’t much by itself, but I’m lazy enough about running speaker wires that this was worth it, especially when our receiver has the required line outputs. This system is more ideally suited for folks with just a TV and DVD player, as its processing can be used to generate rear-channel information all by itself. The one fun bit about using these speakers is that, like so many other consumer electronics, it uses the 2.4GHz band. Thus it is possible to produce audible effects from the speakers by way of interference. It was fun to juggle frequencies to get our cordless phones, wireless network, and wireless speakers to all get along without stepping on each other’s toes. It’s more fun when my neighbors also have wireless devices. A few months back we started hearing some strange clicks coming from the speakers and found that somebody had set up a network access point using a conflicting frequency. Don’t tell anyone, but I checked out their setup from my laptop and found that they hadn’t enabled any encryption or security settings on their system, nor had they changed the default factory password. I took it upon myself to change the channel they were using to something less obvious to my speakers. I don’t think they will know or care.
Our main speakers are a set of KLH MP06HTs. KLH does not go out of their way to advertise themselves, but they have quite a following, and are known for producing high-quality products. This set literally came with everything you need: Subwoofer, five matched speakers, wires, mounting brackets, and wall hardware. Right now we are only using 3 of the 5 sats, but it is comforting to know that our 7.1 channel receiver is ready to make use of the two spare speaker should we so desire to use them. While these speakers can be had for a very low price, don’t be fooled. They are very well constructed and have gold-plated 5-way binding posts that can accept huge wires.
All of these components work very well together and should easily meet the requirements of most budgets. I still consider myself lucky to have found them all, and then to have found great deals when purchasing them. They look great and, more importantly, sound phenomenal. Everyone has their favorites, but if you are in the market you really should check them out!
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