Home Theater options

[Chigworthy]

We just bought a new house, and are doing extensive painting/updating. We'd like to get a home theater system for the living room/kitchen area. The crackly built-in speakers on our flatscreen are getting old. I'm looking for ideas on 2 things:

1) Product. We have wi-fi cable internet, Xbox 360 w/ Netflix, Zune .mp3 players, 42 inch plasma. Would like to get a decent system to tie it all together and get some surround sound quality, but looking to spend 1k or less, probably a theater-in-a-box type deal. I'd also like to get a radio remote, so recommendations on a good one of those with IR blasters would be nice, too.

2) Wiring. I'm competent at wiring things, and we have decent access above the ceiling through the attic. I'm planning on using our wall mount to have the TV in the living room, and all of the components in the office, which is behind the wall the TV will be on. So there are several wiring solutions that I need. One is to figure out whether I just punch a hole through the sheetrock, and run the power and hdmi cables through some grommets. I know running the TV power cord like this is technically a code violation, but it would be easy to remove and rectify if we needed to. The other option is AV boxes in the wall, which would be fine. I'm just wondering if it's worth the time. The other wiring would obviously be for the speakers. Does anyone know of a good in-wall box for mounting surround sound speakers? I just don't want to get chinese garbage that falls apart when you install it.

On a sidenote, what do people use for getting the Xbox controller to transmit through walls when playing a game?

[underdog]

I just picked up a sweet quadraphonic receiver.

[TjM]

We just bought a new house, and are doing extensive painting/updating. We'd like to get a home theater system for the living room/kitchen area. The crackly built-in speakers on our flatscreen are getting old. I'm looking for ideas on 2 things:

1) Product. We have wi-fi cable internet, Xbox 360 w/ Netflix, Zune .mp3 players, 42 inch plasma. Would like to get a decent system to tie it all together and get some surround sound quality, but looking to spend 1k or less, probably a theater-in-a-box type deal. I'd also like to get a radio remote, so recommendations on a good one of those with IR blasters would be nice, too.

2) Wiring. I'm competent at wiring things, and we have decent access above the ceiling through the attic. I'm planning on using our wall mount to have the TV in the living room, and all of the components in the office, which is behind the wall the TV will be on. So there are several wiring solutions that I need. One is to figure out whether I just punch a hole through the sheetrock, and run the power and hdmi cables through some grommets. I know running the TV power cord like this is technically a code violation, but it would be easy to remove and rectify if we needed to. The other option is AV boxes in the wall, which would be fine. I'm just wondering if it's worth the time. The other wiring would obviously be for the speakers. Does anyone know of a good in-wall box for mounting surround sound speakers? I just don't want to get chinese garbage that falls apart when you install it.

On a sidenote, what do people use for getting the Xbox controller to transmit through walls when playing a game?

If you can find one you can get one with satellite rears (Less wiring) We have this one and I really like it

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+1000W+5.1-Channel+Home+Theater+System+with+Upconvert+DVD+Pla yer/9257608.p?id=1218070095253&skuId=9257608

[biggestmexi]

email me.

im really good at figureing things out.

just email me what exactly your trying to do and then some more specs.

price ranges and what not.

thanks.

[topless_mike]

i just heard a dope ass bose system. shit was like, $600.

also, dont go "all in one" products are being updated all the time, and its cheaper to replace 1 product as you go along rather than a whole system.


this is the one. it is only a speaker system for your tv.
http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/home_theater/21channel_systems/cinemate_systems/cinemate_series2/index.jsp

then you can go pick up a seperate blu ray dvd player. some of them also stream netfrix.

[opie's twisted balls]

theater-in-a-box type deal
Please don't. Granted they look like a great idea, everything in a single package, nothing to worry about, less cabling, etc. Absolutely true on all accounts other then you really are limiting yourself for any future growth or new technology.

My suggestion would be to buy a good set of new speakers (for ~$500 you can get the Klipsch Quintet (http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/quintet-iii-overview/) which are nice bookshelfs, if you want to upgrade to ~$900 the Mirage Prestige5's (http://www.miragespeakers.com/na-en/products/nanosat-prestige-5-overview/) are beautiful sounding) and pick up a receiver and DVD player off of craigs. If you're prepared to wait a bit and look around there are some stunning deals to be had on used gear. When you talk about getting something to "tie it all together" frankly a HTIB is going to limit what you can add. They rarely have an adequate number of inputs and if a new technology is released* you can pretty much scrap the lot. *I bought a Sony HTIB about 5 years ago....wasn't their top of the line but close to it and I thought I'd have a system that would last for years. Worked great, sounded decent but a couple of years later when I bought a new TV and wanted to integrate a HTPC I was fucked since it didn't support native HDMI and the Sony interface module was ridiculously expensive.

[underdog]

email me.

im really good at figureing things out.

As long as it doesn't involve HDMI.

[opie's twisted balls]

As long as it doesn't involve HDMI.

:lol:

[topless_mike]

Please don't. Granted they look like a great idea, everything in a single package, nothing to worry about, less cabling, etc. Absolutely true on all accounts other then you really are limiting yourself for any future growth or new technology.

My suggestion would be to buy a good set of new speakers (for ~$500 you can get the Klipsch Quintet (http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/quintet-iii-overview/) which are nice bookshelfs, if you want to upgrade to ~$900 the Mirage Prestige5's (http://www.miragespeakers.com/na-en/products/nanosat-prestige-5-overview/) are beautiful sounding) and pick up a receiver and DVD player off of craigs. If you're prepared to wait a bit and look around there are some stunning deals to be had on used gear. When you talk about getting something to "tie it all together" frankly a HTIB is going to limit what you can add. They rarely have an adequate number of inputs and if a new technology is released* you can pretty much scrap the lot. *I bought a Sony HTIB about 5 years ago....wasn't their top of the line but close to it and I thought I'd have a system that would last for years. Worked great, sounded decent but a couple of years later when I bought a new TV and wanted to integrate a HTPC I was fucked since it didn't support native HDMI and the Sony interface module was ridiculously expensive.


is that in real dollars or that funny money you people pass around up there?

[biggestmexi]

the Sony interface module was ridiculously expensive.
It did not have digital inputs or outputs on either
As long as it doesn't involve HDMI.

I <3 U

[opie's twisted balls]

is that in real dollars or that funny money you people pass around up there?
I believe they wanted 47 seal pelts for it.


It did not have digital inputs or outputs on either
Nope

[badorties]

I have a home theatre set-up with a Sony LCD TV, Sony DVD/Surround Receiver, Sony Blu-Ray & a Samsung cable box from Time Warner.

I use HDMI cables for everything and have an optical cable from the the TV to receiver -- my problem is that the audio is out sync with the picture.

Any ideas? Are there better optical cables than others?

[biggestmexi]

I have a home theatre set-up with a Sony LCD TV, Sony DVD/Surround Receiver, Sony Blu-Ray & a Samsung cable box from Time Warner.

I use HDMI cables for everything and have an optical cable from the the TV to receiver -- my problem is that the audio is out sync with the picture.

Any ideas? Are there better optical cables than others?

try different combo of cables.

does your reciever have hdmi capabilities.

Which way is it out of sync? Pictures faster, or sound ahead of picture.

sometimes there is settings on players and reciever. Try looking over the manual.

Is it out on all bluray and the cable or just one?

[opie's twisted balls]

is it just godzilla movies or everything you watch?

[zentraed]

Is it an HDMI receiver? Do you run your HDMI cables from your Blu-ray, cable box, etc. to the receiver, and then run a single cable to the TV? Or do you run each device to your TV and then run the optical cable from the set to the receiver?

Depending on how much image processing your TV does and the latency in your receiver, there can be A/V sync issues with HDMI. Some devices allow you to adjust for that, some don't.

And you don't have to worry about "quality" with optical cabling (or digital cables in general). Either the signal reaches its destination or it doesn't.

[badorties]

is it just godzilla movies or everything you watch?


some channels, particularly the YES network, is as bad as a dubbed film


Is it an HDMI receiver? Do you run your HDMI cables from your Blu-ray, cable box, etc. to the receiver, and then run a single cable to the TV? Or do you run each device to your TV and then run the optical cable from the set to the receiver?

Depending on how much image processing your TV does and the latency in your receiver, there can be A/V sync issues with HDMI. Some devices allow you to adjust for that, some don't.

And you don't have to worry about "quality" with optical cabling (or digital cables in general). Either the signal reaches its destination or it doesn't.

here's the setup, everything feeds into the inputs via HDMI -- for the sync issues: the DVD & BLU ray isn't that bad, but the cable box is horrible

my reciever has a digital & optical audio input -- but only one will work, not both ... I use the optical input for the TV so the cable, blu-ray & wii will be in surround ... if i run optical input from the cable box to the receiver, there's hardly any sync issues (but it would be the only device in surround)

DVD/Surround Receiver > TV: HDMI
Digital Cable Box > TV: HDMI
Blu-Ray > TV: HDMI
wii > TV: component
TV > DVD/Surround Receiver: optical audio out

the blu-ray has sync tweaks, but the TV doesn't offer any sync options