Home Theatre Unit

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#412591 3-Dec-2010 18:21

I can recomend panasonic or samsung both in my experience have worked well.
And TBH, with a home theatre in a box theres really not a lot of difference between a 800watt or 1000watt system, they all have radio tuners and will play CD's as well as DVDS (or Blurays if a bluray system).

TRy for a system with more optical inputs if you can to get surround sound from more than one other source (ie ps3, tv etc).

If you have foreign DVDs (ie US or UK based and therefore a different zone to NZ) with the panasonic units you can take them into a service agent with th ereceipt who will make it regionfree for free. Samsung units often its a simple sequence of button pushing found from online somewhere.

Steer celar of an LG home theatre system though, Ive found customer service on the 3 seperate occassions Ive needed to contact them to be absolutely awful (getting a response a week or more later, whereas panasonic responded within 6 hours), and their systems cannot be made regionfree in the stern tone emails I have received from them.

Just my 2 cents

richms

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#412595 3-Dec-2010 18:23

The only way that the non region free brands will learn is if retailers start to put the hard word on them, and that will only happen if they get lots of returns for not being region free.

See what I am hinting at?

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#412670 3-Dec-2010 22:12

Does Blu Ray have regions?

IMHO HDMI is more useful than optical inputs. My receiver has 4 hdmi inputs and 1 optical, that's about right. The only use I have for optical is from the TV, for Freeview, though it could be useful if I had a great CD player. I just use the PS3 to play mp3's.

richms

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#412675 3-Dec-2010 22:21

timmmay: Does Blu Ray have regions?

IMHO HDMI is more useful than optical inputs. My receiver has 4 hdmi inputs and 1 optical, that's about right. The only use I have for optical is from the TV, for Freeview, though it could be useful if I had a great CD player. I just use the PS3 to play mp3's.

If you are using optical into it, then the CD player doesnt matter, so long as its not one of those shocking cheap nasty DVD players that resamples everything to 96kHz, for anything else the data is passed as is to the decoder and DA's in the HT reciever.

Im still puzzled by the massive number of analog inputs that they put on recievers. I guess they need them since they are too cheap to put a second DA in for the zone 2 outputs in many of them, but really, who has 2 tapedecks, 2 VCRs and all the other analogs they have on HT recievers?

Richard rich.ms

timmmay

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#412677 3-Dec-2010 22:24

Good point about optical in, I think I have a cable somewhere, but I don't have a CD player. I probably haven't bought a CD in 5 years, and may have bought 3 in the last 10 years.

I guess analog inputs are cheap to put in, and help the spec sheet.

elldizzle

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#414229 7-Dec-2010 20:16

richms:
timmmay: Does Blu Ray have regions?

IMHO HDMI is more useful than optical inputs. My receiver has 4 hdmi inputs and 1 optical, that's about right. The only use I have for optical is from the TV, for Freeview, though it could be useful if I had a great CD player. I just use the PS3 to play mp3's.

If you are using optical into it, then the CD player doesnt matter, so long as its not one of those shocking cheap nasty DVD players that resamples everything to 96kHz, for anything else the data is passed as is to the decoder and DA's in the HT reciever.

Im still puzzled by the massive number of analog inputs that they put on recievers. I guess they need them since they are too cheap to put a second DA in for the zone 2 outputs in many of them, but really, who has 2 tapedecks, 2 VCRs and all the other analogs they have on HT recievers?

Alot of the lower end of receivers still have no DA conversion. My Onkyo TXSR-507 has none whatsoever. Didn't realize till I had already owned it for a while when I decided to mess around using the component out only to the T.V. Wondered why I couldn't select any of my HDMI inputs..

richms

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#414257 7-Dec-2010 20:44

Really the analog video out is useless to most people buying them these days.

I get annoyed that I have that useless stuff provided in a reciver when all I want is a decent number of inputs.

upscaling is another thing that I would rather do without in the reciever. As is all that iPod and uPNP media playing stuff, but it seems the only way to get 5-6 HDMI's is to buy a more overpriced one with all that crap in it and slightly more power.

Another thing that the cheap ones leave off is pre-outs. Which since they have pathetic amps in them is pretty much making them useless unless you have small efficient speakers you are happy to cross over very high.

Richard rich.ms

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timmmay

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#414263 7-Dec-2010 20:52

elldizzle:
Alot of the lower end of receivers still have no DA conversion. My Onkyo TXSR-507 has none whatsoever. Didn't realize till I had already owned it for a while when I decided to mess around using the component out only to the T.V. Wondered why I couldn't select any of my HDMI inputs..

I have an Onkyo 508, audio comes in digitally over hdmi and goes out analog to the speakers. Not sure how you can say it has no D/A converter.

richms

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#414339 7-Dec-2010 22:38

timmmay:
elldizzle:
Alot of the lower end of receivers still have no DA conversion. My Onkyo TXSR-507 has none whatsoever. Didn't realize till I had already owned it for a while when I decided to mess around using the component out only to the T.V. Wondered why I couldn't select any of my HDMI inputs..

I have an Onkyo 508, audio comes in digitally over hdmi and goes out analog to the speakers. Not sure how you can say it has no D/A converter.

For the video, most have A to D on that, but going the other way is rare as now since you are hard pressed to find any display that doesnt take HDMI that is worth connecting to a home theater new now.

Richard rich.ms

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#414350 7-Dec-2010 22:59

richms: Really the analog video out is useless to most people buying them these days.

I get annoyed that I have that useless stuff provided in a reciver when all I want is a decent number of inputs.

upscaling is another thing that I would rather do without in the reciever. As is all that iPod and uPNP media playing stuff, but it seems the only way to get 5-6 HDMI's is to buy a more overpriced one with all that crap in it and slightly more power.

Another thing that the cheap ones leave off is pre-outs. Which since they have pathetic amps in them is pretty much making them useless unless you have small efficient speakers you are happy to cross over very high.

I disagree - judging by the people I know with newish amps, most who've bought $1000 - $1500 receivers, did so with the aim of 'upgrading to a BluRay / PS3 / MySky in the future'. So for them, kit with legacy connections was preferable.
I've noticed that the likes of the new Denon's have dropped the number of composite / component connections (SVideo is gone etc) in favour for HDMI 1.4a etc. And while that doesn't effect me directly, it may make you happier in the next few years if the trend to decrease analogue, whilst increasing digital inputs increases.
Personally, I can only see an increase in iPod connectivity though, so you may well continue to be perturbed by this.

elldizzle

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#414360 7-Dec-2010 23:17

timmmay:
elldizzle:
Alot of the lower end of receivers still have no DA conversion. My Onkyo TXSR-507 has none whatsoever. Didn't realize till I had already owned it for a while when I decided to mess around using the component out only to the T.V. Wondered why I couldn't select any of my HDMI inputs..

I have an Onkyo 508, audio comes in digitally over hdmi and goes out analog to the speakers. Not sure how you can say it has no D/A converter.

Sorry was referring to video not audio...

But I definitely would like to see more pre-outs. I have sub-woofer and rear surround. So I could run 7.1. But have no option at all for the fronts..... I can see analogue inputs staying around for a while longer yet...

richms

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#414362 7-Dec-2010 23:19

The legacy outputs are the ones that should be dropped. The last one I had a look at had a couple of VCR inputs with outputs alongside them, which would only do anything if there was something in a corresponding composite input for what source you were looking at.

Most of the systems I have helped setup have had the speakers and HDMI connected to it, and possibly an optical back from the TV - none of the RCA's in use at all. I am guessing they just put them on to make them look more impressive in the rear shots in brochures since I certainly have no use for a VCR output or analog tape inputs on anything home theater related.

Richard rich.ms

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#414375 8-Dec-2010 00:01

While products like Freeview STB-S and Nintendo Wii's still launch without HDMI connectivity... I think legacy connections will remain for a while.
And then there's those who want to run turn-tables...

Sure, many of these connections are facing extinction, but you need to remember, that HDMI is not, and will never be the last in digital connections. And in many respects, analogue ouputs on DVD recorders may outlast HDMI due to the beauty of the analogue loophole...

elldizzle

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#414424 8-Dec-2010 08:39

I guess people like us who are close to the cutting edge of a lot of home theatre tech sometimes forget about average joe. I know whenever I ever go to fix anything with my parents set up at there place everything is composite.. Sky, DVD, VCR. the lot. They wouldn't even know what HDMI is...lol

andrew027

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#416619 13-Dec-2010 16:49

kiwis: Do any of them play the Radio?

Almost all proper AV receivers include a tuner these days, but Noel Leeming doesn't sell many of these, so you're pretty much limited to the "home theatre in a box" scenario. Worse luck. As someone else said, you can get some great deals on decent receivers and speaker packages from places like JB HiFi.

timmmay: Does Blu Ray have regions?

Yes, though not as many as DVD.
Region A: North America, central and South America, southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.
Region B: Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Region C: central Asia and some south Asian countries, China and Russia.

There are a lot more region free blu-ray discs around than there used to be for DVDs, and many blu-ray players sold in New Zealand offer region free for DVD playback.

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