the sxrd is $300 cheaper and 1080p. the plasma is more svelte. nothing beats a side-by-side comparison to see which one is for you.

either would be a fine choice for the budget and respective technology.

gus,

jesus, that mounting job looks heinous to me. i don't even know what those top few components are? as for hiding the wiring:

1) there aren't really that many wires in that set up
2) unless you have in wall speakers, you're going to have to run the speaker wires out anyway
3) i've always found the body of my stereo to be a good enough object to block the view of the big pile of wires behind it.

I believe the top components are power amps.

The reason there aren't many wires is because the amps are in the foreground. They only have one input and one output. Look at the bottom right of the picture and you'll see where all the wires go.

And yes, you usually run the speakers in the wall with this type of setup. It's a dedicated home theater I got from this page:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=775209&page=6&pp=50

Lots more interesting setups there.

a downside of rear projection sets (lcd, dlp, etc) is that they have lamps that need to be replaced. it doesn't look like my set has an internal counter that tells you how many hours it's been powered up, but i'm curious. it's been on a ton for 2.5 years and the lamp hasn't popped yet. a replacement will run about $180. i guess i should buy one pre-emptively so that i'm not waiting on an order when the inevitable occurs.

For the record, when I say I would mount my electronics in the wall if I could, I meant specifically that I would build component recesses in the wall beneath the flat panel wall mount, not litterally "hide" them. I would do the same with the speakers. Hell, I would probably recess the TV flush as well. The only concern I would have would be what you addressed earlier, about being restricted by the size/shape of that type of "built in". But if I have the kind of cash flow where I'm building [censored] into the walls in the first place, I can have it redone if I need to.

But I am a floor space nut. If I had a fishtank I would build it into the wall.

Totally agreed. Stainless steel looks so damn sharp. Why hide it?

Because most adult women disagree with you.

You should see the crazy [censored] they do to blend subwoofers as furniture...

J

"Gosh, Bob, you sure do have one thumping Ottoman there."

And for the record, my wife loves stainless steel appliances.

Hello All......

Lot's of interesting posts in this string.

Some of them are fact and accurate: some are opinion and inaccurate.

FWIW, what is being discussed is the business that I've been in since 1970.

I'd be more than happy to share with anyone some 'no bs' info regarding almost any questions surrounding the issues that have been brought up here.

At this moment, it is the last day of the month, and as a sales weasel, I don't have the time to post anything of length here at the moment, but I would be more than happy to attempt to answer any questions that you might have.

One of the things that I will do when I have the time is attempt to address all the misinformation going around out there in regards to plasma/LCD screens; there is much 'bad' info, and it needs to be addressed.

Very quickly on plasma 'burn-in'.....The newer generation plasma sets are not as bad as the early ones in this regard, but they can still be burned in.

Depending upon which screen you might have, burn-in CAN occur in as little as three hours!

If you've run into this, don't fret, as there is actually an inexpensive way to deal with this, and I'll share it with you later on.

Right now, I've got to get to the office.....Business awaits!

Myrtle, where the heck were you when the last hundred or so HDTV threads hit OOT?

This contribution alone may be justify EDGD's existence.

myrtle i'm sure we all welcome any corrections or insight, but you could just post when you've got the time and let the facts speak for themselves instead of citing credentials. your post read to me like a kind of presumptuous "i'll clue you in after i'm done being a professional" announcement. please don't take this as a personal assault, i'm just saying i think it's a bad approach. imagine if somebody went to a strat thread and said, "i'm a pro holdem player, and most of you have it wrong." especially if they didn't claim what or why.

Doesn't anybody have projectors?

I throw a standard TV 100" diagonal image that looks great as long as the signal quality is there. HD is literally jawdropping and I don't even have that great of a setup.

You can pick up a nice 720p projector for about $1000 now and a standard manual screen is roughly $100. You can pick up a ceiling mount off ebay for $50.

For less than the price of a 42" HDTV, you can be shooting a really nice 100" image and everybody will think you dropped five or ten thousand on it.

If anybody is interested www.projectorcentral.com is the best reference on the web and www.avsforum.com has an excellent forum on projectors.

Just as an example this image is on a 9 foot diagonal screen.



edit: Had to add this one because it gets the message across.

Anybody willing to spend 2-4k on an LCD would be better off spending that on a high-quality projector that will put up an HD image 2-3 times bigger.

I have an HD1000U Mitsubishi and am just gaga over it.

I made a 100in screen myself using this technique, but i painted it on a 4x8 piece of dry-erase board and had it framed. Total cost was just under 200 bucks (130 was for the frame).

I have an Onkyo 790 boxed audio setup

And an oppo 971 Upconverting DVD player.

I'll put up some shots of the setup later if anybody wants. I can say without a doubt that this is the best purchase i have ever made. For the price, it's unbeatable (about 1k for the projector), as the only downside are the blacks, which are still quite amazing. However, movies like Dark City don't look as good as they would on an LCD (though i'm largly nit-picking, as they are still very presentable)

The only downside is that you really need to control the light in your room, you just can't watch anything with sunlight in the room. Ambient light from any bulbs is acceptable, but you really want the room to be as dark as possible, so i'd really only recommend getting a projector for movie watching (though I use it for TV watching with no problems)

I got the Harmony 670 for Christmas and it is awesome! Super simple to program and customize - burns through batteries as noted, but I just picked up a bunch of the 15 minute charge ones and it is not a problem.

Logitech has good customer service as well - the screen stopped functioning (think the kids dropped it) and they sent me a new one by DHL within a couple of days.

Other stuff in the home theater:

TV - Vizio 50" Plasma - Couldn't beat it for the price ($1499) - picture is great! Also has 2 HDMI ins which came in handy. Remote sucked - plan on getting an all in one if you don't have one.

DVD - PHL DVP5960 Philips Up convert DVD Player with HDMI - Bargain at $60 and I don't need to worry about the format war going on.

DVR - Scientific Atlantic Time Warner box with HDMI.

Stand - Techcraft Plasma Stand - Sturdy and lots of access in the back to wire things up.

Surround Sound - Sony Home Theater System (HT-DDW700) - This was pretty cheap at $180 but sounds good and is plenty for my space. The speakers are pre-wired and the sub isn't powered, but overall a good starter. I did spend quite a bit of time and bought good speaker wire and fixtures and ran the runs from behind the home theater to the back of the room through the walls so I can upgrade the system in the future and don't have any exposed wires.

Games - Regular Xbox and Wii with Component cables. Love the Wii - Wife, kids (3 and 4), and I have a ball with bowling.

I got everything except the remote and Wii at thanksgiving. I am not sure why I decided to replace everything I used to have, but it was fun doing it myself, not too expensive, and it is plenty for everyday TV with the occasional DVD marathon.

Orange

I just toured a new visualization-wall facility last week that is 14'x10', 6400 x 4096 resolution. It's fairly impressive.