5th Meet @ George's house, 9-16-06! (In Cleveland, but everyone welcome.) (1 Viewer)

[George_W_K]

Hello everybody,

Place: George's. (PM for directions.)
When: 4:00 until the last person leaves, September 16th, 2006

It's that time again. I'm hosting another HT get-together at my place on September 16th. That's a Saturday for those who don't have a calendar nearby. I'm located in Cleveland, Ohio, but the meet is open to anyone who'd like to attend.

Since my last meet, I've upgraded my projector and now have 720p resolution, upgraded my center channel, have a working HDTV tuner, and an Xbox 360. I also plan on upgrading my two rear channels before the meet.

If you haven't been to a meet before, it's a good way to get together with fellow HT enthusiasts and share each other's knowledge of our hobby. And it's fun to go around and check out other people HT's to see how they deal with the space they have to work with, whether or not they do a full blown theater or have a nice set-up in their living room. It's also great to compare notes and give suggestions on areas that may or may not need improvement. But, most of all, it's a great way to just be able to talk about HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, DTS, DLP, LCD, Plasma, CRT, projectors, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, home automation, RF remotes, and so on and so on, without getting looks of confusion in return. Trust me, if these weren't fun, I wouldn't travel around and attend meets in Cincinnati, Dayton, or Michigan, and I certainly wouldn't be hosting a fifth one.

So, if you're free, come on over. (Ear plugs optional.)

Right now, I don't yet have an itinerary planned, but will edit this as we get closer to the 16th. I'd like to get an idea of how many will be attending first.

Feel free to bring whatever you'd like to demo. Bring your favorites CDs, movies with your favorite demo scenes, or some DVD-Audios if you have any. I don't have SACD capability so if you'd like to bring a compatible player, we can hook it up.

Or if you've upgraded to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and would like to demonstrate the new technology for us, that would be great. Want to compare projectors? Bring yours along. The meet is open to anything you'd like bring and demo.

Please post here if you think you'll be attending so I can add you to the list. I'll also have a thread @ AVS, and the Spot! if for some reason you only like to post at a particular forum. I'm flexible.

----------- LIST OF ATTENDEES --------------------

Jim
Robert and Michelle
Greg
Roger
Chris
Mark and Kim* (tentative)
Ward
Jeff and Shannon
Tony

 

[George_W_K]

Wow, past meets have had good interest from this forum. Where is everybody? So far AVS is in the lead, the Spot! has one member, and no one from here yet. But, there's still time.

 

[George_W_K]

Still time to jump in, if interested. About a month and a half until the meet. So far, about 14 scheduled. Plus a few others who aren't sure.

 

[BillSXT2002]

Missed this by one day! I'm new to the forum, new to HT, but not new to audio. This would have been fun. Maybe next time...

 

[George_W_K]

No problem, Bill. And though it was a great time, it won't be the last time.

Whereabouts in the area do you live?

 

[BillSXT2002]

I'm on the east side in University Circle, grad student at Case Western Reserve. I'm originally from the Warren/Youngstown area.

 

[George_W_K]

Here's a mini-recap of the last Saturday:



To start our day, Charlotte and I still had some painting to finish. (With the OT I had earlier, combined with me wanting to keep the theater in operation as much as possible, painting took longer than expected. ) As soon as we woke up we finished painting the stairway that goes upstairs. The time? 1:00. I was guessing the first guests were going to arrive around 2:00. How's that for close, huh? :p

This is the finished room before my guests arrived:




Caesar keeps his reputation of showing up when a camera comes out.






This is Caesar and Noble's reaction when finding out another meet is "today".


This is Chewy's first meet, so he doesn't know the constant decibel bombardment he is about to receive.


The last step of preparation: My famous sign, maybe in its final year. (Notice the "F" covered up in HTF. I was surprised by no one from here replying to this thread before the meet.)

 

[George_W_K]

Here's a mini-recap of the last Saturday:



To start our day, Charlotte and I still had some painting to finish. (With the OT I had earlier, combined with me wanting to keep the theater in operation as much as possible, painting took longer than expected. ) As soon as we woke up we finished painting the stairway that goes upstairs. The time? 1:00. I was guessing the first guests were going to arrive around 2:00. How's that for close, huh? :p

This is the finished room before my guests arrived:




Caesar keeps his reputation of showing up when a camera comes out.





This is Caesar and Noble's reaction when finding out another meet is "today".

This is Chewy's first meet, so he doesn't know the constant decibel bombardment he is about to receive.


The last step of preparation: My famous sign, maybe in its final year.


Chris was the first guest to arrive, closely followed by Robert and Michelle from Indiana. I'm very glad that Robert was finally able to attend a meet since he is overseas most of the year.


Robert is telling Chris about the progress of his theater. Michelle has pictures of it on her camera.

Meanwhile....



Charlotte is loading the fridge with the generous amount of beer provided by Robert. (Thanks again, Robert.)

Using my Xbox 360's streaming capabilities, I had a slide show of past meets, older configurations of my theater, and other general movie related photos, running while theater music provided by Angela and Art Sonneborn was playing in the background. The slide show ran as more guests arrived at the 4:00 official start time.


Here's Leif, Roger, Gino, Michelle, and Chris's head. Noble is looking to see if anyone is eyeing his bone.


The first demos I showed were some HD movie trailers that I have on my 360. During the trailer for "The Descent", Gino jumped and almost dropped his beer when the first glimpse of the underground creature was shown. It was pretty funny. After the movie trailers were a couple of game demos. When I was showing them Geometry Wars, an Xbox Live Arcade game, I had my highest score ever, so I didn't want to stop. :p Thanks for bringing me luck, guys! Finally, we began to watch some movie clip demos.


Ward, Chris, Robert, Michelle, Gino, and Roger enjoying some movie clip demos.


During one of their "smoke" breaks, Ward shows Robert, Michelle, and Leif his DIY rear speakers. I wish I would have taken more photos, he did a nice job on them.

 

[George_W_K]

After some more movie clips, the pizza arrived.


Here's Steve about to enjoy some classic "pizza and beer".


And Greg doing the same.


After the pizza we compared my Infocus 4805 with my Samsung H710-AE.

The obvious standout difference between the two, was the SDE with the 4805. Another thing I pointed out was the light spill from the 4805 compared not having it with the 710. Since I barely use the 4805 anymore, I forgot about how much the 4805 lights up the wall above my screen.

I'm glad that Ward was able to see the 4805 on a high gain screen.

After the projection comparison, we turned on the Toshiba HD-DVD player and watched the demo disc I put together the night before the meet. The upscaling of this player is phenomenal, IMO. I was stunned when I saw the Toy Story 2 demo. (This was the first time I actually watched this scene on my 710.) During some of the bass heavy clips, Robert wanted to go and hear what my theater sounded like outside. He said that a piece of my aluminum siding was flapping. He really liked my PB12+/2 and Axiom QS8's.

Of course, SD DVD clips weren't the only stuff we watched, I also showed off my HD-DVD movies throughout the night. I did a direct comparison of a scene from the movie "Equilbrium". I imported the HD-DVD version from Japan and it arrived the day of the meet, much to my pleasant surprise. The scene I compared was the "puppy" scene. The colors of HD-DVD and the obvious extra detail are amazing. I really hope the general public buys into the HD formats as I don't want to buy any more SD-DVDs after being spoiled by the few HD-DVDs I have.

I also did another Xbox 360 demo with the game "Burnout: Revenge". It's a fast paced racing game, with lots of crashes and explosions. The surround sound of the game is very well done. Greg, Ward, and Leif all gave it a try. It was difficult to pry the controller from Ward's hands.

Finally, at the end of the night, a few stayed around to watch "Serenity" in HD.


Steve, Lief, and Ward watching "Serenity".

Todd, Steve, and Leif.

I had a fantastic time at the meet and I'm glad that everyone was able to enjoy my theater. I thank Robert for providing the alcohol, Charlotte for putting up with the loud noise (although she did take a break and ran up to the bar for a few hours), and my neighbor for not complaining about the all day and night noise. Thank you all for coming and I hope you'll come back for future meets.

Final List of attendees:

Chris and later in the night, his wife Kathy
Robert and Michelle
Leif
Ward
Gino
Roger
Greg
Steve
Todd