home theatre system

[colinsv25]

hiya .org i was wondering if anyone knows of a cheap home theatre system and a hd dvd player to go on my hd ready tv i had for christmas, not got a big budget only about £150, ive been looking myself but not sure wot to look for thanks colin.

[Luckypants]

you will be lucky to get a HD DVD player for that money, let alone a home theatre system.

I did spot a HD DVD player in the Toshiba outlet store at Cheshire Oaks at the weekend for ?99 - cheapest I've seen.

I'm still waiting to see which format of high def DVD comes out on top, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? HD-DVD player prices seem to be coming down, but Blu-Ray players still pricey.

anyone know what software prices / availability is like for the two formats?

[SoulKiss]

Blu-ray seems to be the winner at the moment, a bunch of the big movie studios have announced that they wont be producing any more titles on HD-DVD.

This means that the cheapest Blu-Ray player may actually be a Sony PS3.

For home theatre, a mate of mine seems to rate the Sony system at around ?120

So wont come in under budget and probably will be a Sony

[Bluepete]

I doubt you can fulfill your wishes at that price! I have a PS3 and have some Bluerays, but on my 32inch LCD, it's not that much better than standard def DVD.
I have used www.soundandvisiononline.co.uk (http://www.soundandvisiononline.co.uk) loads of times and they have this product; Panasonic Home Theatre (http://www.soundandvisiononline.co.uk/moreinfo/index.asp?product_id=12783) which has an HDMI output for your flat panel and full 1080p upscaling, which will make all your existing DVDs look pretty too. 162 quid delivered!

[colinsv25]

if its everythin all together ie sound system and dvd player i dont mind going over budget a little, i do like the look of that sony system though.

[Luckypants]

if its everythin all together ie sound system and dvd player i dont mind going over budget a little, i do like the look of that sony system though.

Well you will have to sacrifice a high definition DVD player then, but as Pete says an upscaling DVD player will make your standard CD's look better than currently.

[Dan]

hiya .org i was wondering if anyone knows of a cheap home theatre system and a hd dvd player to go on my hd ready tv i had for christmas, not got a big budget only about £150, ive been looking myself but not sure wot to look for thanks colin.

Toshiba HD-DVD player for ?119 with 7 HD-DVD titles. (http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/3497129/Toshiba-HD-EP30-HD-DVD-Player/Product.html)

[colinsv25]

wots the difference between an actual hd dvd player and 1 that upscales:scratch:

[Jay1]

An upscaller basically adds resolution to standard DVD's to make them look more detailed on a high def screen. It will not play HD DVD or Blue ray. An HD DVD or Blueray player will play these discs which actually have a hiigher definition and will look better.

As had been said it does look like Sony are winning the race at the moment with Blueray, which is actually a better technology than HDDVD, so be wary if buying a HD DVD player, it may well go the same way as betamax.

[colinsv25]

i must admit ive seen more blue-ray dvds in the shops than i ave hd dvds

[Viney]

I wouldnt bother about HD or Bluray players/discs. I predict that in the next couple of years, these services will be streamed down the net, or via cable/scatalite services, stopping the need to actully buy discs. Then all you will need is a PVR which will have DRM to stop you form watching a movie more than once, or an Itunes style shop where you you buy the file. I think that Itunes US already has a movie option. So save your money.

As for BluRay players, Sony do one for £300 or there abouts making it cheaper than a PS3.

As stated, for the time being, get an 1080i or p upscalling DVD surround system. A mate has a panasonic one which quite nice.

And to quote Coombest, run the DVD player through compisite connections to the screen than DVI as its better or something.

I still have a 100hz 24" CRT tv, so what do i know?

[Dave The Rave]

i must admit ive seen more blue-ray dvds in the shops than i ave hd dvds

It does not mean much as yet. Yes, at the moment, it looks like the Blueray is the media of the future. But the true thing is that no one knows as yet. I woud hold on if I were you. Do you remeber the Beta videos? They were actually better than the VHS but where are they now?

[Bluepete]

I honestly can't see the point of buying a stand alone HD DVD player in either format yet.

Yes, I have a PS 3, but that is for the games.

The fact that it does Blueray is a bonus, and I certainly dont think that the Blueray editions of movies are worth the 8 to 10 quid extra.

It's horses for courses, if you want a good, compact set-up, an all in one is perfect. I used to have loads of boxes under the TV, but now it's just a PVR, Toshiba DVD all in one and the PS3 which I use for "posh" DVD's as it also upscales them. It may only look a bit better, but I'm getting on a bit and my eyes can't see the difference!

I think on the huge sets, 47 or so inches and above, HD really comes into it's own, but just yet, it's a luxury and with your buget, an all in one that upscales would be ace.

[colinsv25]

wots the difference between blue-ray and hd or are they just the same just different names

[Luckypants]

wots the difference between blue-ray and hd or are they just the same just different names

Dunno the technicalities of how / why - but HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are different formats. a HD-DVD will not play on a Blu-Ray player and vice versa (although I have seen a dual format player for 800GBP). In VCR terms it's like the difference between a BetaMax and VHS.

[colinsv25]

im only 26 i dont remember the beta max only vhs:-D

[Bluepete]

im only 26 i dont remember the beta max only vhs:-D

Tsk! Youth of today eh Mike?

Eee, I remember when all we 'ad t'watch were t'radio... etc etc etc

[AlanSv]

techincally theres very little different, one has more capacity, the other is slightly cheaper to make the disks. I think HD DVD has a better menu'ing system.

I've a panasonic upscaling DVD, which is supposed to do 1080p upscaling, but I found weird lines appearing at that, and dropped it to 720p/1080i and it looks similar quality without the lines. Thats on my 50inch plasma, so I can really see the difference when I upscale normal DVD's from 480 (normal tv) to 720p/1080i.

I also bought a Yamaha home cinema system (cost me $400) I wanted a Panasonic, or Sony, But I thought that having more inputs (including 2HDMI, and 1 HDMI output) might come in more useful in the future.

one thing you might not have considered is that apparently you can get the blueray or HD dvd drives for your PC considerablely cheaper than a stand alone player. Might be an option if you already have a Home Media PC.

I'm at work atm, so I don't have all the links to what I bought.

[DanAbnormal]

I doubt you can fulfill your wishes at that price! I have a PS3 and have some Bluerays, but on my 32inch LCD, it's not that much better than standard def DVD.


I have to step in here. Can I ask if your TV supports 1080P? If not then that is where it goes wrong. 1080P on my TV looks simply stunning and about 10 times better than any DVD. Even upscaling a DVD to 1080P is kind of a farce as you cannot upscale resolution that does not exisit to begin with. DVD's native res is 480P, BluRay and HDDVD native is 1920x1080 (1080P). Anyway, I digress. :rolleyes:

[DanAbnormal]

one thing you might not have considered is that apparently you can get the blueray or HD dvd drives for your PC considerablely cheaper than a stand alone player. Might be an option if you already have a Home Media PC.


Sorry, just wanted to add. If you plan on using your PC to play high def content then your graphics card must be HDCP compliant (as well as your display but if it's an LCD TV that is 'HD Rerady then it will be). A lot of people got caught out with this one. Damn HDCP!!

[Bluepete]

I have to step in here. Can I ask if your TV supports 1080P? If not then that is where it goes wrong. 1080P on my TV looks simply stunning and about 10 times better than any DVD. Even upscaling a DVD to 1080P is kind of a farce as you cannot upscale resolution that does not exisit to begin with. DVD's native res is 480P, BluRay and HDDVD native is 1920x1080 (1080P). Anyway, I digress. :rolleyes:

That maybe it, it does upsacle to 1080i.

[DanAbnormal]

That maybe it, it does upsacle to 1080i.

Sorry to sounds like a jobsworth Mr Pete. My LCD TV supports 1080i and when I play HD stuff it looks okay. Not great but okay. When I got my 1080P TV my gawd what a difference. I think a lot of peeps don't really understand what the difference between 1080i and 1080P is. For example, my TV has a maximum resolution of 1366x756 meaning it can display a true 720p signal. It can also upscale to 1080i (HDV 1440x1080) but you lose a lot of quality due to the interlaced rather than progressive scan. 1080P is a 1920x1080 signal which will clearly be a very sharp signal and detail like you would have not seen before.

More on wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i

Thread hijack/end

[wyrdness]

Well you will have to sacrifice a high definition DVD player then, but as Pete says an upscaling DVD player will make your standard CD's look better than currently.

Not necessarily.

In order to play standard definition video (of any kind) on a high definition TV, you need an upscaler. Now ALL high definition TVs have upscalers built in, so that they can display standard definition video. Upscaling DVD players also have an upscaling chip in them. If the upscaling chip in the DVD player is better than the one in the TV, then you might see an improvement. If the chip in the TV is better than the one in the DVD player then you wont.

The bottom line is that you don't really need an upscaling DVD player as the TV already has an upscaler.

[colinsv25]

my tv supports 1080i and 1080p

[DanAbnormal]

my tv supports 1080i and 1080p

Good TV then. Most of the current TV's less than ?700 won't support 1080P. And there is a HUGE difference between 1080i and P.

Just a note regarding the downloading of HD content; I think we are at least 10-15 years away from that. I mean a standard DVD is 4.7GB, as most are now dual layer that's 9.4GB just for one movie in standard DVD form. Now even the fastest internet connections couldn't do that all that quickly. I mean who actually gets a speed of much more than 1-2MB/s? Not many I'll bet and at what cost? Now if you think that a High Def movie could be anything from 20-40GB you see the problem. Our current copper-DSL technology just could not deliver any kind of speed to make HD online content really viable. Then you have the capacity at the exchange to think about and of course contention ratios. And if we're talking about ripping up the ancient copper lines and replacing them ALL with fibre we're talking serious money (billions) and also time. Think of how many roads would need to be ripped up, and I'm sure we'd ll have something to say about that! Perhaps a new wireless system is what is needed, currently you can get 3G broadband but it's limited to around a 2mb max speed and realistic download speeds of about 500kb/s (at best). Some companies do have Dedicated internet lines (Leased Lines) of upto 100MB but these cost about ?5k a month and an install cost of upto ?30k. Ouch. Long story short, I think optical media will be here for sometime. Perhaps a more realistic media format would be some new form of high capacity flash card? Who knows. Anyway, sorry to waffle. :smt024

Of course if we could find a new compression algorithm then maybe anything is possible, but I think we'd need quantum mechanics to make a big enough difference!

[colinsv25]

but wots best though blu-ray or hd, i dont think i fancy this up scallin melarky dont sound good enough for the money IMHO

[wyrdness]

but wots best though blu-ray or hd, i dont think i fancy this up scallin melarky dont sound good enough for the money IMHO

In terms of picture quality, there's not really a lot in it. The problem is that there's a format war going on, so you're stuffed if you buy the loser. A lot of people are waiting it out, rather than invest in something that's going to be redundant. At the moment, it's looking increasingly like blu-ray is winning, which is why hd-dvd players are being sold so cheaply.

[DanAbnormal]

but wots best though blu-ray or hd, i dont think i fancy this up scallin melarky dont sound good enough for the money IMHO

I would put my money on Blu Ray and I already have. For several reasons.

1. Pretty much all the Studios have pulled out of supporting exclusively (or at all) HD DVD.

2. Blu Ray currently has about a 70% market share.

3. See 1 and 2. :D

One of the main selling points for HD DVD was that it was cheaper to manufacturer and so, cheaper to buy. Check out any online store and you'll find the difference in price between the 2 formats negligable(sp). Although you wil notice when buying a HD DVD player now you can get 5- 7 movies free. Tere's a good reason for that, they aren't selling them!

Blu Ray has a larger capacity on disc, has a thicker layer of preotection over it to resist scratches etc. and Sony have ther backing from almost every major studio that is out there. In all honesty I think HD-DVD will be gone within 2 years. PS3 has done a great job of shoe-horning it into many homes. Had the Xbox360 come with HD-DVD built in, Toshiba (the creators of HD DVD) could be in a much better position but at the expense of Xbox sales of course.