Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . . (1 Viewer)

[David York]

Hello all. Time to come out of (A/V) closet and make my first post here. I just became a new home owner (again)

and will be getting married later this year. We are both techies that have been very much looking forward to our own home theatre. I haven't looked any A/V equipment in over 5 years though. Time permitting, I have been researching it again (including reading this forum) but with so many different brands, prices, reviews, stores, it is a bit overwhelming.

Can you help me sort through some of the major choices? Having just bought a house and needing to furnish it with some of the necessities we have budget to work with that needs to stay below $10k for the home theatre system. I did a couple of installations years ago so I'm not totally new to the concepts, just the current equipment.

The home theatre will be in the living room which is 16x26 with high/vaulted ceilings and a gas fireplace. Some criteria I hope that we can work with are to have a TV 50" or bigger. Anything smaller and it just won't look right in a room that large. I doesn't matter to us if it Plasma, DLP, etc. as long as it has a great, clear picture with excellent blacks and contrast. Honestly, anything will be better than we have now but if we spend $3k on a TV it should gorgeous.

The audio must be 5.1 channel and of good quality. We don't need the biggest or the loudest speakers but they need to sound like fine wine tastes and hopefully match the rest of the gear. The layout of the room won't really allow for more speakers than 5.1 but we are perfectly fine with that.

You'll probably find this funny but I am a Systems Admin that has has no experience with HTPC. Incorporating a PC into my home theatre feels like a natural choice to me but I have no experience with it all. Should I even consider a HTPC or stick with traditional A/V components. I must admit that I like the idea of storing my DVD's on my home storage and watching them at the click of a button. Is this the way to do it?

Aside from the above, there will be a HD cable box from Comcast, a TIVO (the girlfriend already has that) and of course the main A/V reciever and whatever else is needed to complete this thing.

Two other things of concern, which are more of personal preferences than anything else, are having everything functioning from one remote (hopefully) and using appropriate, quality cabling. I've always made do with 2-3 remotes and would love to operate it all with only one remote. As for the cabling, since I'm starting from scratch, I want to try to use the best available connections between the devices.

We aren't brand particular so that should make it a bit easier. We just want good equipment for our money. Thank you all for reading this and I look forward to your responses and our discussion. Hopefully, this will help anyone else out there that might be in the same situation we are right now. In the meantime, I'll keep researching while awaiting your thoughts and suggestions.

This message will not self-destruct in 10 seconds . . .

 

[mylan]

Hello David, welcome to the forum. You have many questions, perhaps beyond the scope of a "basics" area thread. The best thing would be to ask for suggestions in the appropriate areas here, such as displays or receivers, amps, etc. Also, without knowing the room layout it will be hard to suggest specific products. I will tell you that if you are wanting dark blacks you will want to look at plasma but you will be hard pressed to find a 50" for 3K. Look at the Sony 1080P SXRD sets for a good compromise there. The TIVO you have will not record in HD so you may want to consider leasing an HD tuner/DVR from Comcast. I hope this will at least point you in the right direction.

 

[David York]

Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I've settled on this Samsung TV. Initially, I thought about hanging a TV on the wall until further studying showed me a 61" TV will fit the room very nicely. I'm always open to other suggestions.

What receiver would complement this TV? I need to stay in the $1500 (or less) range. I hope to get multiroom functionality so I can put speakers on my screened in deck.

On HDMI upconversion: should every component have upconversion or is standard fare that most quality components that have HDMI will have upconversion? If that's the case, assuming you can control which component performs the upconversion, what's the concensus on which unit should do it?

 

[Jack Briggs]

David, welcome aboard.

As someone has already noted, this is not a Basics area type of question. And since you seem focused presently on which display to get, I've moved your thread here. As for other components in your system-to-be, please post in the appropriate hardware-related areas.

The Basics section is strictly for general discussion about home theater at the beginner's level. Questions as to what to purchase should be asked in the correct area.

Thank you.

 

[David York]

Thanks for moving to more appropriate forum. I'm pretty much set on the display. I hope to get suggestions on the receiver.