CD junkie moving to Home Theater (1 Viewer)

[paulTgee]

Hi to all, nice board, seem to be a smart group here
Here we go:
CD junkie 2000CDs + 300 VHS tapes looking to move into the home theater realm, had VCR etc set up via TV/Stereo for a few years...Bose 901s + 301's, Onkyo amp, Pioneer 300 disc player..Sony 30 in TV
Will mostly listen to music DVDs (concerts etc), have small children so we don't do too many movies, but will use it as my main CD player as well.
Should I buy the Mag mrd200 that I have found for $100, keep it until I decide how and what to upgrade to? Don't have a huge budget at this point..
Is progressive scan an absolute necessity for music DVDs? I assume I will be able to plug my VCR into the system.

Thanks for reading

 

[Jack Briggs]

Paul, since you're asking for specific purchasing advice, I've moved your post to here, in A/V Systems.

 

[Jerome Grate]

Ahh, another mind to poison , I guess with the system you currently have, the question is does the receiver you currently have does Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1. If the receiver is Dolby Digital ready, then you would need a seperate decoder to connect to the 5.1 channel inputs of the receiver. But if does Dolby Digital and DTS through the receiver, then the only thing you would need is a DVD player and use the digital connections on the back of the receiver and DVD player via coax or optical. Please note that if the receiver is Dolby Digital Ready (meaning it has 5.1 channel inputs), it's almost impossible to find an outboard decoder. Therefore you would want to upgrade the receiver to a Dolby Digital/DTS Receiver. The second issue about Progressive scan is the t.v. requires component video inputs (red, blue and green) with a bandwith of 47hz or more to accept the progressive signal passed through by the DVD player. In this case I certainly hope the t.v. has S-VIDEO, not a must but a better picture than composite video (yellow connection). Please note that you can hook the DVD player through the vcr and simply change the output of the vcr, but with macro vision which is copyright protection, you can get altering picture from the DVD playing from the DVD player and through the vcr. Picture will go dim and brighten to protect the copying of the movie, even if you are not copying the movie. Hence you may want to just hook it up directly to an open video connection on the t.v. or through the receiver if it takes video inputs.

 

[paulTgee]

Thanks for the corruption:
The Magnavox I'm looking at is DD 5.1. So really I was wondering if the progressive scan is a must ? Thanks

 

[Phil A]

Paul, does your 30 inch Sony have component inputs? If not and you intend to keep the TV for a while then you really don't need it. There are very reasonable progressive scan players today though. If the Sony has component inputs what does the TV manual say about what it will accept as far a video signal?

 

[paulTgee]

Will look into the manual and get back with you