astroglide's home theater: what i own, what i would buy today

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
I will probably be going flat panel in the living room this year for the same reason. We have a regular TV in an entertainment armoir type thing, and it looms like a frigging refrigerator in my living room. It annoys me more and more every day. Just typing this has made me want to go TV shopping.

[/ QUOTE ]

i abhor built-ins, cabinets, etc. the more enclosed spaces, the more i hate them. i've run into that before. somebody's talking about hdtvs, they don't know their viewing distance, they have a lot of disposable income...but they can't exceed 37" because they have to maintain compatibility with their built-in. i would rip anything out of my house, wall, or whatever if it was preventing me from making complete decisions about what i buy. to me it's like somebody having a tiny garage and saying they want the best new car they can buy except it can't be any larger than a toyota yaris. i'd rather buy what i want and park it on the street.

you seem to be implying that you'll get rid of your setup, which is cool. i'm not at all directing this at you, it's just a rant. i've always been a flat desk, open shelving kind of guy.

[Borodog]

It's cool. It's just that my psychological makeup has drifted over the 6 or so years since we got this entertainment armoir thing. The wife picked it out, and I didn't really make a fuss about it. But in the intervening years I have really become minimalist and anti-clutter in home furnishings. I really prefer open space. If you can believe it, it's one of the reasons I really enjoy dancing and taking and teaching dance classes. Just a big empty space with beautiful hardwood floors. So I'm really into cathedral ceilings, open second stories, open floor plans that move through most of the living space, low clean furniture lines, and electronics on/in the walls. I hate feeling compressed by the walls and "stuff" in a room, especially where I live.

[Paluka]

I just wanted to chime in and agree that mounting your tv over the fireplace is really really stupid.

[Dids]

astro,

I'm really surprised that you're talking about burn-in on plasma. Do you disagree with the conventional wisdom that it isn't an issue anymore with newer models.

I want a harmony remote really bad.

[MrWookie]

Well, it looks like if I ever get my money out of Neteller, I'll be treating myself to a new remote and a new HTIB. I have an earlier model of Sony's SXRD TV, and the 50", and I'll vouch that it's awesome.

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm really surprised that you're talking about burn-in on plasma. Do you disagree with the conventional wisdom that it isn't an issue anymore with newer models.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think the effects are dramatically overstated. you're not going to blow up your television by playing a video game, etc. but i have seen enough slightly smoked sets in-person to have lingering concerns about 4:3 black boxes, since i refuse to stretch. the bottom line for me is that a 0.25% or whatever chance of burn-in is too great when i get just as easily get 0.0%. it's the same thing as the dlp rainbows, not many people see them but i can avoid the risk entirely. i will take impossible over extremely unlikely if it's reasonable.

[goofyballer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm really surprised that you're talking about burn-in on plasma. Do you disagree with the conventional wisdom that it isn't an issue anymore with newer models.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think the effects are dramatically overstated. you're not going to blow up your television by playing a video game, etc. but i have seen enough slightly smoked sets in-person to have lingering concerns about 4:3 black boxes, since i refuse to stretch. the bottom line for me is that a 0.25% or whatever chance of burn-in is too great when i get just as easily get 0.0%. it's the same thing as the dlp rainbows, not many people see them but i can avoid the risk entirely. i will take impossible over extremely unlikely if it's reasonable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose it varies from person to person depending on what you like to watch, but very little of the content I watch is 4:3 anymore. Most of my TV usage is for HD sports, Xbox 360 (all games display in HD, and even a decent amount of Xbox games have HD support as well), and mostly mainstream TV shows. The local ABC and CW affiliates doesn't broadcast in HD (bastards) but I can download HD rips of shows like Lost or One Tree Hill and stream them over my Xbox. Pretty much the only thing I watch in standard definition are non-HD sporting events (which are becoming more and more rare), shows like Family Guy that don't exist in widescreen, and cable shows like The Shield.

What do you think about the picture quality of plasmas versus rear-projection TVs (LCD and SXRD)? I bought my KDF-E50A10 (Sony 50" LCD rear-projection) a little over a year ago, and I probably would have gone with a Panasonic 50" plasma instead if not for price ($3500 vs $2200). I'm happy with my purchase, although I do see the screen door effect to a certain degree during some programming, especially hockey games (something to do w/ the white background I guess). However, when I was shopping for sets and doing a lot of comparing in stores, I thought that the plasma displays had a noticeably better PQ than the RP LCDs.

That said, SXRDs were pretty new back then and I still haven't seen one up close; also, being able to get 1080p way cheaper on an SXRD than on a plasma these days is nice, and I've heard they're pretty hot.

[Soulman]

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The local ABC and CW affiliates doesn't broadcast in HD (bastards) but I can download HD rips of shows like Lost or One Tree Hill and stream them over my Xbox.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ok I'm a bit of a noob here...but do you mean a modified Xbox, a modified xbox 360 or a standard xbox 360? I was under the impression that an xbox 360 only plays WMV-video, not the gazillion different formats you download through various means...

Edit: after googling a bit, it seems no one has figured out how to stream directly to an xbox 360 from a pc through a local network connection, like you currently can do with the old xbox...so no need to reply [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[gusmahler]

Great thread idea. I have the exact same stand for my setup.

Top row: Sony VHS VCR; DirecTV HR-20 DVR; Xbox360 with HD-DVD add-on
Bottom row: Pioneer double cassette deck; Pioneer DVD player (480p output); Panasonic DVD-Recorder; Playstation 2; Denon AVR-2805 receiver

Speakers: Vandersteen 2Ce
Subwoofer: SVS PB-10.

Remote: Home Theater Master MX-700

The only upgrades I want to make now is a new DVD player (probably the Oppo 981).

Wishlist: TSU7000 remote control; Denon AVR-2807 receiver (same as mine, but with DVI switching); Surround sound system (undecided); Playstation 3

[Borodog]

gusmahler,

Get that mirror out from behind your system!

Otherwise very nice setup.