Upgrading your home theater for Star Wars?

I'm all set!

[image=http://www.imaginessence.com/ALLSET.jpg]

Hitachi 52" HDTV

I have been waiting for this moment for a lomg time! I don't have the most killer sound system, but the big screen will keep my eyes glazed. HAHAH!! 15 hours left!!!!

 

Wouldn't you know that my good progressive DVD player just crapped out on me last weekend. So I've had to rush out and buy a new DVD player. I ended up going with a Kenwood DVD 6050, and I'm waiting for it to arrive!

The rest of my setup is great:

55" Philips HD set
Harmon Kardon 520 receiver
Paradigm Monitor 9 series fronts
Paradigm satellites
Shiva sub
Paradigm center

My setup has been waiting for these DVDs....

 

Very nice niennumb1.

B'Omarr, if it's not too late, get the samsung DVD player I talked about a page ago. It turns DVD resolution into HD resolution via a DVI cable. It's awesome!!! The only company to have this out right now. Most should have it in January I think if you decide to wait.

Other than that I love your setup.

 

Question:

I have a new 46" Toshiba HD projection TV. When I set my progressive scan DVD player to 16:9 and my TV to stretch the picture fullscreen, a little bit of the picture on the left and right edges is lost. Vertically it is all there. I've tried this on my father-in-law's 53" Hitachi and it does the exact same thing (different TV, different DVD player, same effect). Can I do anything about this so that I can see the entire width of the picture on my TV?

 

I am happy with my 32 inch tv, but I am definatly going out Tuesday evening or at lunch and picking up a new home theather system. I spent about $500 4 years ago and it never did work right.

Any suggestions for something in that $350-$500 range.

 

I'm buying an LCD projector next week, probably a Sanyo PLV-Z2. I'm actually going to wait on getting the DVDs until then so that SW will be the first film to play on my big screen..

Our old 20" set went on the fritz a week before AOTC came out on DVD and we got a new pany 27" at the time, so this will be the second time I'm using SW as an excuse to upgrade.

 

Any suggestions for something in that $350-$500 range.

Onkyo 6.1 Home Theater

 

Since the DVDs are now released I thought I'd give this a little bump by saying, "if you haven't upgraded now JUST GO DO IT!"

I've been watching the trilogy on my Toshiba 50H82 with my DD/DTS 6.1 system, and it's just superb. The picture quality is simply amazing for a film (ANH) that is 27 years old! It honestly looks like it could have been shot this year. The new mixes are equally superb, and they are just as integral to the experience as the picture.

Just out of curiosity, I stuck ANH in on my spare DVD player on a 27 inch analog TV with S-Video, and yeah, they look good, but not even close to as good as they appear on a widescreen HDTV w/ a progressive scan DVD player.

So now, I present the top five reasons you should go buy a new HDTV and surround sound setup now.
5. It will help stimulate the economy!
4. R2-D2 makes a nice subwoofer thump when he falls after being shot by the jawas.
3. HDTV programming is available in almost every market now on your local network channels; did you know Fox, CBS, ABC, and ESPN-HD are broadcasting many NFL games in HDTV and Dolby Digital?
2. Interlacing lines on analog TVs hurt your eyes.
1. The Star Wars Trilogy is FINALLY on DVD! Do you even need another reason?

 

I actually bought my home theatre system for Star Wars. I got it at the end of august to prepare for the dvd's. It was very cheap and probobly wont last long, but I dont care. In a few years I wont be here.

 

I had purchased an RCA 52" HDTV over the XMas holiday, just because I had moved into a new house, and given the fact that I had a rather large mortgage looming on the horizon, I anticipated many a night in watching something from my massive DVD collection. Luckily, finances were never a hassle, so I've had much enjoyment from my TV. Added HD to my cable package, and haven't been happier.

In August, I knew the OT DVDs would come out, and I had an older, 200 Watt home theatre system going currently. That wouldn't cut it, so I ended up buying a 1000 watt system for the same price I got the older system 2 years ago. Throw in some component cable, and the picture couldn't get clearer.

Star Wars never looked better in my home. I am very pleased.

 

Keep in mind that no matter what sort of impressive HDTV's you may have purchased, the expense is wasted if you haven't calibrated your TV properly! If you're just using it with whatever settings it had right out of the box, you're not getting the true picture! (and you're just shortening the life of your TV)

Remember, TV's are calibrated in a factory to be used for display on a bright, fluorescent-lit showroom floor, not in the much smaller space of a home living room, in dim, movie-viewing conditions. Thus the colors and brightness are all jacked up to ridiculous, distorted levels.

Good information here:
http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showthread.php?t=1440

Other useful stuff in that thread as well:
http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/forumdisplay.php?f=384

 

^^Ditto that. Make sure to calibrate your TVs everyone. At the VERY LEAST, use the THX optimizer on your trilogy discs, or better yet get a calibration DVD like Avia Digital Video Essentials...or BETTER EVEN STILL have your set professionally calibrated by an ISF technician!

Recently I switched back to the "Normal" settings from my saved custom settings just to see how bad the factory settings truly were, and I was shocked by the horrible picture I was seeing compared to my calibrated settings. Bleh!

EDIT: On the subject of the Samsung "HD" DVD player, it actually does output a very nice picture, but it's definitely only worth it IF you have a set with a DVI input (many models from the past two years or so do, but not all).

 

EDIT: On the subject of the Samsung "HD" DVD player, it actually does output a very nice picture, but it's definitely only worth it IF you have a set with a DVI input (many models from the past two years or so do, but not all).

Very true.