I would definitely say go with a 50" plasma unless you want to use it as a computer monitor. Take a look at Panasonic, Pioneer, and Samsung. I own the newest model Samsung 42" and love it. I have it in a bedroom where the farthes away I sit is 8 feet. I feel only the Pioneer Elites were better, but they were twice as expensive. Really though, you can't go wrong with any of these brands Plasma's.

Okay so I think that the lamp has died on my Samsung 46" DLP. The picture comes on briefly when I turn on the TV and then goes black. This doesn't sound like the way the describe lamp failure, any other ideas on what could be wrong?

I just got the 50" Pioneer plasma and it is unbelievable. Definitely can't go wrong in that direction. I'll post pics of my setup when I get the speakers all hooked up. It is going to look and sound unbelievable.

ty guys for the help.
i have heard from a few sources that Sony's are wayyyy overpriced, so maybe I won't go that way. A friend of mine who is big into TVs swears that Samsung is the best way to go. good advice?

DL & others,

Pick up consumerreports and call it a day.

I am a huge AV nerd as well and have owned two Samsungs. Only other thing I would consider are Sharp Aquos LCD's and Pioneer Plasmas.

Everyone looking to buy, make sure to check Amazon.com. If you buy actually from them prices tend to be among the cheapest and you get free shipping with guaranteed good return policy.

You guys are lifesavers here. The advice in this thread, as well as on avsforum.com (linked from this thread) is top notch.

I bought a 720p Panny 42in Plasma that fits my needs perfectly and got a good deal on it too.

However, I haven't the slightest clue about audio to be honest. I live in a small-ish apartment and I only spent ~$1100 on the TV so I'm thinking a budget of $400 (or $500 including a DVD player) but that's flexible. I want good (but can't afford great) quality audio/video, and to be able to plug my Wii in.

Should I go with a Home Theater in a Box or buy everything separate?

onkyo HTIB, no doubt

and if i get a 5.1 system, a few questions:

if i decided to only want two speakers and a sub hooked up, is there a setting to turn the 5.1 sound into 2.1 sound? does this question even make any sense?

Pretty sure you can just connect 2 speakers. Don't think they take anything out of the two front speakers to put it in the back, they just add to make it 5.1. Obviously a very precise, technical answer.

To answer the first question, I would not get the home theater in a box. You can get some nice receivers for around $200, then just add some good speakers as you can afford them. You configure the receiver for the speakers you have hooked to it, then it sends the audio to best speaker choice. You can't really have 5.1(7.1 is the newest thing) without rear speakers, but the audio will come out of the front speakers.

Edit: I would add speakers as follows: Two good front, a sub woofer, back and then center. If you really have a large room and the seating is in the middle of the room, then 2 mid speakers for 7.1 would be cool, but not necessary otherwise, IMHO.

While I was waiting for my mail order center speaker (a
Canbridge Soundworks MC300 I hooked my Onkyo 7.1 first as a stereo, later as a 3 speaker setup (with a temporary center channel), then later as a "5.0".

I say 5.0 (rather than 5.1) because I use a passive sub-woofer that was part of the the old CSW Ensemble II setup. The passive sub is hooked up to the front left and right speakers (also MC300's).

The receiver is pretty smart and uses a microphone for setup but you can tweak it on your own. I think this is pretty standard.

~ Rick

I just ordered these AV123 bookshelf speakers today on the recommendation of someone in this thread. The cool thing is that I will use them as my mains, but if I expand to a 5.1 setup later I can get the towers for the front and use the bookshelfs for the surrounds. They were $260 with shipping and have great reviews.

Great speakers when combined with the X-sub, I have AV123's Reference 0.5's and an X-Sub in a 2.1 setup with a Harmon Kardon AVR 335 receiver.

Please, everyone, do not buy home theatre in a box. Everything that is a part of it will be crap. Second, surround sound is very overrated IMO. If you don't have the perfect room and good speaker placement, you will enjoy the sound much more with a high quality 2.1 setup.

For the person with a $500 budget, I would try to get and X-sub and the x-series bookshelf speakers and then a Panasonic XR-55 reciever.

astroglide and others,

What do you guys think of the Phillips 47" LCD? It's 1080p, 8000:1 contrast ratio, and Costco is running it for $1600. It looked like the best picture when I was in the store, and is certainly cheaper than I thought I could get a 47" for.

I'm thinking of buying one tonight or tomorrow.

I do think the center channel really helps for movies and TV so perhaps 3.1 is a good option for those on a budget or with awkward shaped rooms. It sure sounded good like this at my place before I had time to mount the side speakers.

~ Rick

i'm hopefully going to replace my small $300 WalMart TV with a home theatre system. I've been looking and am confused on something though. There seems to be TVs that look to be the same to me but are different prices. for instance, what is the difference between these two TVs?:

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddet...6230&catid=

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddet...6223&catid=

First one is last years moddel, the second one the LNT6556 or whatever is a newer and better tv. It has a higher contrast ratio, etc.

off to buy my stuff tomorrow, not 100% sure what I am getting. Say you had an unlimited budget and didn't care about overpaying (so basically you want the best thing available), what would you buy (TV, DVD player, remote, sound system)?

Also, I'm going to be buying an Xbox360 as well. How is it to use as a DVD player? Also, there is an HDDVD player addon for it that seems like a pretty good buy. Is it? thanks.

dont ask this question about sound systems. the amount you can spend for a sound system is almost limitless from what i've seen

If I have a dvd player with HD upconversion, does that mean I can watch dvds in HD quality on my DVD player? Is this different than an HDDVD/player? Do I need special cables for this?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=na...hd+upconversion

First result: "HD upconversion DVD players don't add resolution, they transfer the movie data digitally and pre-proccess the data like an HDTV would. Transfering the signal digitally increases picture quality because there are no digital-to-analog conversions (or vise versa). Pre-processing the movie data so that the presentations resolution is more algined with an HDTV sets native resolution also increases image quality and is somthing that the tv does anyway. "


Yes

No

oh, in that case i will include the information that I am a bit lazy and don't want to hunt around for different components. so what is the best one i can buy that comes all together? Also for those above things, if you don't want to name specific products, I wouldn't mind just the brand name. thanks.

You need to tell us what your budget is. You went from "unlimited" to wanting an all-in-one system. Those are about the opposite end of the spectrum. All in one systems are at the low end and, as stated above, unlimited really does mean unlimited.

E.g., here is a system that someone estimated at over $500k:
http://gallery.avsforum.com/showgall.../49235/cat/500

The front speakers alone cost $135k per pair:
http://www.wilsonaudio.com/product/alexandria/

Here's an exemplary speaker system that is fairly high-end ($6700 for the set): http://www.av123.com/products_product.php?section=speakers&product= 28.1

As for the Xbox 360, it's fine for a DVD player. Nothing particularly noteworthy one way or the other. HD DVD, OTOH, was known as being the cheapest way of getting HD DVD. There are now cheaper players, but none have the additional capability of playing games.

Your first quote was confusing because it was self-contradictory. So I'll try to explain it again.

A new HDTV today is either 720p or 1080p (some CRTs are 1080i, but I don't think anyone here is thinking of getting a CRT, so we'll ignore that). But a DVD only contains info at 480i. So to show the DVD on the TV, you need to convert the info from 480i to 720p/1080p. All TVs are capable of doing this conversion. However, some people believe that the scaler in certain DVD players do a better job at converting 480i to 720/1080p than the TV does.

As I said, some people see the difference, some don't. Personally, I've never done the comparison.

As for a special cable for upconverting players, you either need component cables or HDMI cables, which aren't really "special."