LCD/Plasma TV set-up. Picture transfer options

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johnstbr

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#21423 26-Apr-2008 09:33

I would like to get advice on how I should set-up my TV's etc. I'm looking at replacing my CRT buy two LCD/Plasma - one for lounge and one for living room. I'm looking at purchasing MYSKY but will wait until the new version is released. I have a home theatre/CD/DVD system in the lounge and want to be able to send the picture in the lounge into the living room (I currently own a video sender which sends the picture but the picture quality isn't perfect). We are looking to de-clutter our living room and only have a 32-inch lcd/plasma in the living room but want to able to watch sky tv and dvd's which I will send from the lounge TV. I was looking at get at 42-inch lcd/plasma for the lounge but after reading more I am thinking I may need to get a bigger one as the viewing distance can be as much as 4 1/2 metres. I was looking at spending 5k but my budget is flexible. I'm keen to get the smaller lcd/plasma now but can wait for the larger tv if people think that's adviseable. So in summary my questions are:
1. Best method of watching sky/dvd without having skybox/dvd player in the room. Ideally I would like to be able to control MYSKY from any room as well.
2. What 32-inch lcd/plama TV would you recommend.
3. Should I buy 42-inch tv (or bigger) now (but unlikely to be full HD given budget) or should I wait a bit so the price of full hd tv's falls more towards my budget. I watch a lot of sport and have been dissappointed with the picture quality of most lcd/plasma when showing sport.
4. Is there any independent companies that offer this type of service i.e. home entertainment consultant.

cyril7

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#126456 26-Apr-2008 11:16

Personally I would avoid LCD if sport is a requirement, you can get a 37 and 42 inch Panny Plasmas for less than $1800 each and less if you haggle. If you are going to want to feed between rooms, I suggest you run either HDMI or component video and and audio feed from one room to the other however you will need HDMI capable sources (ie not current Sky boxs) to generate HDMI, or use an upconverting AVR, a very good option actually. HDMI splitters, switchs etc are available but not cheap, component would be good, but will be limited to SD if you use MySky HDi or FreeViewHD as a source.

Other options are the video sender or RFout of the Sky box, both are composite based and the image will suffer.

Cyril

johnstbr

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#126555 27-Apr-2008 11:53

Thanks Cyril. With regard to using a remote to control your sky/dvd from another room can anyone recommend any remotes. I have found the following is available 1. remote control extender IR300 (available from dick smiths) 2. the Remote Control Extender Ellies(wireless) 3. Jaycar Wireless Remote Control Extender. I assume these remotes can control all you entertainment system and not just one. Thanks.

cyril7

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#126567 27-Apr-2008 13:54

Hi, I have found most wireless remote extenders are very unreliable. If you can go for a wired one, do so. blue-eye.co.nz is a good range, and be aware that the MySky (so presume the MySkyHDi) use higher IR rates than normal so not all IR extenders work. The MySky supports IR via RF2 so you only need a pickup in the remote room, however this would imply a cabled RF connection for this to work.

Cyril

richms

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#126577 27-Apr-2008 14:44

There are component and stereo audio to hdmi converters for not much on ebay, which may help you out if you dont want to replace your current HT receiver with one that does upscaling - but there us no hints as to how the quality will go since you will be relying on a cheap box to lock onto the sync signals. Could be ok, or not, and with most things in consumer electronics its over promise and barely deliver.

To get it to the other tv,
I would be hesitant to go converting to hdmi just to push it thru to another tv. You haven't indicated distances but hdmi is very distance limited and has big plugs on the end that make running cables hard to do. The cat5 options solve this but I have only had a play with one and it sneakily needed shielded stuff to deliver its full promise which we did not have installed so 1080p was quite unusable.

There are also plenty of hdmi over cat5 solutions available on ebay and if you look around online, most take 2 cables, one for the av and one for the other stuff that makes hdcp work.

Then you need to look into switching, there are hdmi matrix switches but they are silly money, if your happy with the same source in both rooms then a simple splitter off a simple selector will do the job, but once again you need all sources to be hdmi.

At this stage you will have to either pay thru the nose for gear, or put together many pieces of relatively cheap gear and hope that it works together which with hdmi being the bastard child of an industry known for making stupid ideas popular (consumer electronics companies) it has a good chance of not working

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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#126578 27-Apr-2008 14:53

I would have to agree with all richard has said, I have yet to find a really ideal solution other than going for multiple STBs, not so much an issue with FreeView, but harder to swallow for Sky. The sooner Sky come up with a more appealing multibox price (ie get a standard STB thown in for free with a MySkyHDi sounds good) or a plan to use the MySkyHDi as a media server as it is capable of then the better.

Baseband video either component or HDMI with attached audio is clumsy to distribute neatly/cleanly compared to simply deploying multiple STBs on RG6 or a servier/client setup on Cat5, plus you get fully independant flexibility to boot.

Cyril