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Buying a home theater system

2006-07-18T16:47:06+01:00

Many specifics should be considered, prior to the purchase of a new home theater system.

To ensure the purchase and experience will be a pleasant and beneficial undertaking, rather than cumbersome and stressful.

Purchase the proper size of the system:

It is best to understand the size of the space available before your purchase. A system which is too large for your room will become a future problem. Additionally, a system which is too small for the room may result in lower sound or picture quality. If cabinets are involved, take the appropriate measurements. If your space is relatively small, consider buying the ‘home theater system in a box”. These systems contain the complete setup equipment for a generally lower cost. Additionally, the benefit of a home theater system in a box is that it offers an easier setup procedure. One can read about these systems online or in local sales papers or newspapers.

Select the appropriate components for the system:

Understand the specific equipment you will require for your system. Take stock of the equipment you have, i.e. the TV/monitor, stereo/Cd player, DVD/ Satellite receiver, etc. Check the input and output jacks. Be sure your equipment has the necessary input and output connections which will be needed for connecting all components.

Continued reading Buying a home theater system...

Philips LCD Flat TV with AmbiLight leads Wired Tools 2004 shopping list - and mine :-)

2004-12-05T00:08:41+01:00

The coolest geek shopping list ever - 129 of the best screens, cams, phones, games and gadgets of the year

Wired 12.12: Wired Tools 2004

And indeed the screen category is led by the Philips LCD Flat TV with Ambilight feature...

Philips' latest flat screens come with a lighting array on the rear panel, which projects subtle radiance around your viewing area. The 42-inch, 1,366 x 768-resolution LCD is the most versatile for film buffs and gamers. Bonus: When the TV is off, you can set the Ambilight to Continuous Glow for a superlative bachelor-pad vibe.

How did they figure out that I am about to buy that screen ? ok - I take the 37 inch for less than half the price, but hey... a good hit I guess...

Network Digital AV Receiver Kenwood VRS-N8100 - cool

2004-11-16T23:16:25+01:00

The Kenwood VRS-N8100 Network Receiver will have to be next investment in the digital media equipment.

This AV receiver not only brings 100 watts x 6 channels of Kenwood's sound quality powered by an advanced 32-bit SHARC processor.

What's really amazing is the ability to interface with your PC via a Wi-Fi® or wired Ethernet network. Navigation screens displayed on your TV make it easy to browse the contents of your hard drive and select audio, video, or still picture files to stream to your home theater system's speakers and TV.

It handles the following file formats:

MP3, WMA, WAV, and Ogg Vorbis audio
MPEG1, MPEG2, and XviD video
JPEG, BMP, GIF, and PNG digital photos

so if you have your PC running, there actually won't be a need to create DIVx DVDs or MP3 CDs anymore to consume your digital content.

This unit even has a front panel PCMCIA card slot which will accept media card adapters so you can display pictures from digital cameras on the video monitor of your home theater. With an adapater you can use all your CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD Memory Card, Smart Media, etc.

Interesting.... it has Surround Back Preouts: the receiver includes left and right preamp outputs for surround back channels. So if you wish to connect wireless active speakers for the surround back channels, that carry an own amplifier, that should work... cool

As you can see, they even have component signals going in and out - best to plugin your high def Plasma TV and DVD recorder to it...

If you are looking for a similar device featuring HDMI in/output ( not even my new HD Recorder has that, but some high end digital projectors could utilize that), but lacking the network capabilities, take a look at the Panasonic SA-XR 70 ...

Replacement Cable for my Sennheiser HD265

2004-05-21T11:03:15+01:00

I finally I got my replacement cable for my closed professional Full-Size Studio Monitor Headphones... away with the old sucky Sony 815R wireless headphones ... it's like a 100:1 difference when it comes to the bass, the volume and the crisp sounds...

And logistics pricing for this was "fun" :

cable price: EUR 23,90
transport expenses from Germany: EUR 15,00
additional postage expenses by Austrian post: EUR 9,70

So almost 50% overhead costs - but you know what: it's worth it... forget those cheap things... these headphone rocked in 1996 when I bought them and they sound even greater after I was using the sucking Sony things for some months... - not talking about audiophileness - just listening to MP3s and such... 100:1

Harmony Remote aquired by Logitech

2004-05-13T10:24:21+01:00

Harmony Remote was aquired by Logitech - thereby they should greatly benefit from their distribution network... cool. Harmony Remotes are those all-in-one-wonder remotes that are learnable and programmable...

Key Features of Harmony Remotes:

* USB Plug 'n Play
* Activity Buttons - like IE favourites
* Interactive Display
* Backlight Glow
* PVR Control - Convenient access to transport controls (FF, RW, Pause, Play, etc.) makes using PVR/Tivo functions second nature.
* Learning Ports - just point your original remote at the Learning Port to capture and use any infrared command with the Harmony Remote.
* USB port, Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP or Mac OS X with Safari 1.0*
* Memory: 2 Megabytes Non-volatile flash memory
* Hardware: Backlit LCD 84 x 48 pixels, 56 top mounted hard buttons, * Infrared sensor, USB communication, Speaker.

one product as a sample...