Hello to the forum. I've been browsing a little for the last day or so, and there is alot of great info here. So thanks to the hosts and members for a great looking forum. Silly of me not to have looked for this forum before I purchased and set up my HT system, but I think I did ok for being a newbie.
My system consists of:
Optoma EP771 projector
Optoma Greywolf II 120" manual screen
Harman Kardon AVR 247 Receiver
Klipsch Quintet 5.1 speakers, plus Klipsch 10" sub
Dell XPS 410 PC running Vista HP, with nVidia 8600 GT dual DVI GPU, and an ATI Theater 650 pro tuner card with built in ATSC tuner and analog tuner into which is connected my Dish Network signal via coaxial cable (the actual tuner box is downstairs in my son's room), and over-the-air TV antenna.
In addition to the PC, I have a Sony DVD/VHS machine, an Xbox, a PS2, and my XM radio hooked to the AVR 247, with a single DVI to HDMI cable running from the AVR 247 to the projector. The Receiver does the video source switching. My audio from PC to Receiver is an optical cable, and the DVD side of the DVD/VHS unit is connected with component video and coaxial audio. The VHS portion of that unit is connected via composite cables, which is all that is available for output for that side.
Seating is about 13-14 feet back from the screen, a 3 position sofa and a lazyboy recliner. The projector sits on a little table that sits between the sofa and chair, set back about 2 feet, so it is about 15-16 feet from the screen. The sub is right in front of the projector table. The control center is a behind the couch table from where I can use the PC and view the programming as well, so we seat 5 total.
I am VERY pleased with the system, I got some great deals from Best Buy, where I bought everything, and I paid Geeksquad to install the speakers for me, and they did a very nice job.
The AVR 247 upconverts anything below 720p, and passes through anything higher (1080).
I think that the picture is just fantastic, the projector is 3000 lumens with a 2300:1 contrast ratio. The room is windowless, but the image is very bright and viewable even with lights on. The sound is unbelievable, way beyond my expectations. The digital TV signals that I get from the tuner card are amazing---football is GREAT!!! Also, all the PBS science type programming is wonderful on the big screen.
The only disappointment is that my dish network (not HD) picture is pretty lousey when in full size on the 120" screen. But because it is going through my tuner in the PC, I can resize it in a smaller window, say about 50-60 inches, and then it looks decent.
Two questions come to mind:
1) Will a Blu-ray player look significantly better? It is difficult for me to imagine it being much better than what I have now, DVDs look SO good on this thing.
2) Would a direct connection from my Dish Network receiver look better than the modulated-over-coax signal I have going now? (Dish serves two TVs with one receiver--one direct, and the other is sent to the other TV by being modulated onto channel 60 and sent via coax to the second TV) It wouldn't be too hard for me to bring the box up here and send the modulated signal to my son's TV, we just set it up the way we did because he has a phone jack right next to the TV, and there are no phone jacks up here in the theater room, which would entail me having to wire one up. But I don't want to bother with it unless it will make a noticeable difference. It seems to me that this is really a shortcoming of non-HD satellite TV, rather than my display hardware.
Man, we just watched "Deathproof" last night---that is the kind of film that these systems were made for!
My system consists of:
Optoma EP771 projector
Optoma Greywolf II 120" manual screen
Harman Kardon AVR 247 Receiver
Klipsch Quintet 5.1 speakers, plus Klipsch 10" sub
Dell XPS 410 PC running Vista HP, with nVidia 8600 GT dual DVI GPU, and an ATI Theater 650 pro tuner card with built in ATSC tuner and analog tuner into which is connected my Dish Network signal via coaxial cable (the actual tuner box is downstairs in my son's room), and over-the-air TV antenna.
In addition to the PC, I have a Sony DVD/VHS machine, an Xbox, a PS2, and my XM radio hooked to the AVR 247, with a single DVI to HDMI cable running from the AVR 247 to the projector. The Receiver does the video source switching. My audio from PC to Receiver is an optical cable, and the DVD side of the DVD/VHS unit is connected with component video and coaxial audio. The VHS portion of that unit is connected via composite cables, which is all that is available for output for that side.
Seating is about 13-14 feet back from the screen, a 3 position sofa and a lazyboy recliner. The projector sits on a little table that sits between the sofa and chair, set back about 2 feet, so it is about 15-16 feet from the screen. The sub is right in front of the projector table. The control center is a behind the couch table from where I can use the PC and view the programming as well, so we seat 5 total.
I am VERY pleased with the system, I got some great deals from Best Buy, where I bought everything, and I paid Geeksquad to install the speakers for me, and they did a very nice job.
The AVR 247 upconverts anything below 720p, and passes through anything higher (1080).
I think that the picture is just fantastic, the projector is 3000 lumens with a 2300:1 contrast ratio. The room is windowless, but the image is very bright and viewable even with lights on. The sound is unbelievable, way beyond my expectations. The digital TV signals that I get from the tuner card are amazing---football is GREAT!!! Also, all the PBS science type programming is wonderful on the big screen.
The only disappointment is that my dish network (not HD) picture is pretty lousey when in full size on the 120" screen. But because it is going through my tuner in the PC, I can resize it in a smaller window, say about 50-60 inches, and then it looks decent.
Two questions come to mind:
1) Will a Blu-ray player look significantly better? It is difficult for me to imagine it being much better than what I have now, DVDs look SO good on this thing.
2) Would a direct connection from my Dish Network receiver look better than the modulated-over-coax signal I have going now? (Dish serves two TVs with one receiver--one direct, and the other is sent to the other TV by being modulated onto channel 60 and sent via coax to the second TV) It wouldn't be too hard for me to bring the box up here and send the modulated signal to my son's TV, we just set it up the way we did because he has a phone jack right next to the TV, and there are no phone jacks up here in the theater room, which would entail me having to wire one up. But I don't want to bother with it unless it will make a noticeable difference. It seems to me that this is really a shortcoming of non-HD satellite TV, rather than my display hardware.
Man, we just watched "Deathproof" last night---that is the kind of film that these systems were made for!
