Loading ...So my adventure in building a home theater around the perfect HDTV (for me) started over a year ago when I first saw the Sony 50″ XBR1 in Circuit City. Since then I’ve been on a rampage to find the perfect TV, stand and speaker setup for me and it has finally all arrived and gotten setup. I also got my Harmony 720 properly programmed for all my activities and am one happy camper.
Setup Notes:
- Set Top Box: Motorola 6200, set to output 720p (DVI to HDMI)
- XBox 360: Set to output 720p (Component)
- Sony DVD Player: 480i (Component)
Quick Review:
- Mitsubishi WD-65831: Absolutely beautiful. Tons of inputs, good menus, great remote.
- Onkyo HT-S990THX: A big bang for the buck. The high end sound can get a little flat, bass is insane
- Logitech Harmony 720: Must have, that’s it… you have to have it. I’m staring at 7 remotes that were replaced by a single remote, watching the TV with all the separate remotes (which is what I was doing while I was setting it up) was just not a feasible solution, was constantly digging around for remotes, clicking them trying to remember what to click.
- Plateau SR-V 75-C: Beautiful, high quality, love it.
- Standard Def Video: I think it looks surprisingly good. I have a friend that wants to dig out his eyes, I guess your mileage may vary.
- High Def Video: Looks anywhere from good to great. Unfortunately I don’t have any 1080p input yet, but I guess a 50GB BluRay title on a 1080p-outputting device would look unbelievable. I’ve seen the Mitsubishi demo disk on this set and it looks brilliant.
- XBox 360: Awesome… so freaking awesome. No lag, huge, high def, I love it.
Ok, pictures are worth 1000 words, and I don’t want to type 1000 words, so here we go, start to finish:
Step one: “Oh crap, just ordered a home theater and the floor isn’t done”
Getting a little further:
Step two: “Wrap it up, quick, 1 more day before delivery!”
Step three: “Stand and speakers delivered, putting it together by self, weights 200lbs, son of a hernia” (Plateau SR-V 75-C, Onkyo HT-S990THX):
XBox 360 Pictures. Sorry about the glare from the flash, I tried taking some off-center shots but it still shows up, which is odd because in real life I’m not seeing a glare or when I do it’s extremely subtle. So I wouldn’t say this is representative of how glary the screen is at all.
Also note that any screenshot that is not the full screen size is Standard Def, everything else is high def.
XBox 360 (HD – Dashboard):
XBox 360 (HD – Dead Rising Demo):
TV (HD – ?Cooking Show?):
TV (SD – Dr. Phil):
TV (SD – Nickelodean ):
TV (SD – Elmo):
XBox 360 (HD – Dead Or Alive 4):
XBox 360 (HD – Fight Night Round 3):
DVD Player (SD – Copyright Notice):
DVD Player (SD – Night Watch):
TV (SD – Deal or No Deal):
TV (HD – Grey’s Anatomy):
Conclusion
And that’s that. Those are my adventures, the results and some examples. I didn’t hook it up to my laptop yet, but I’ll post some shots when I do. I’m a bit pucked out from moving/unpacking boxes/setting up at the moment so it might be a while.
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October 19th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Why are you running your XBOX360 and Cable box at 720p when your TV supports 1080p?
October 19th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Neither the cable box or XBox will output 1080p. The highest they will go is 1080i, which means I’m tell those individual components to actually *interlace* their picture, feed that to the TV, then have the TV immediately de-interlace the picture into a 1080p signal which is it’s native resolution.
The more rungs/types of conversions your signals go through the more potential for error/artifacting there is. If you can keep your signal in progressive->progressive during a transition, in most cases that will be better.
January 18th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Turn off the flash on your camera
January 18th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Yea sorry about that… the old camera I had wouldn’t focus without flash, and I don’t have a stand.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I can’t get the 720 to switch the inputs properly on my Mits WD TV You obviously figured it out. Any help would be appreciated
March 27th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Greg,
I actually figured this out by accident. The TV *does* support direct-input switching.
What I suggest you do (what I did) is turn on all your devices connected to your TV. Then go to your Devices menu on the remote, and scroll over until you start to see a list of the Inputs… like “Input1, Input2, InputSTB, InputDTV, InputVideo1, etc.”, I can’t figure out the rhyme or reason behind these names, but I found that InputSTB switches to my set top box (HDMI1) magically… Input 4 turned out to be HDMI2 for me… then InputComp1-2 are the 2 component inputs I use.
Just get a pad of paper and play some guessing games. The other way to program the inputs is to program the remote to shuffle through the Input menu, but that sucks just as much.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I’m getting a Plateau SR-V 75 too. Would you say this TV stand is easy to be assembled?
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Boon,
Yea it’s very straight forward (just a bunch of straight pieces of wood) BUT it’s heavy… unless you’re a monster, I would recommend getting someone to help you put that top on.
It’s a great piece of furniture and has held up great since I got it (and made this post).
Let me know if you have any questions.
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
Thank you for the response! I’m happy to hear that you still like the unit after a few years. That means I’m making a good decision…
Got a quick question, do you think it is okay not to install those little legs? I’m putting it on a carpeted floor.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Boon,
Oh yea that wouldn’t be a problem, the feet just look a little stylish and keep it up off the floor about 1 or 2 inches, if you just lay it flat on the ground that would look just fine as well. No structural difference (e.g. the legs don’t hold the center supports in or anything like that).
September 24th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Hi Riyad, I’m planning to get the SR-V 75 too, do you think the wood is solid enough? What kind of wood it is, is it as cheap as the ones from ikea or it is something better?
September 27th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Ham,
It’s really solid and very heavy, maybe around 100lbs assembled? I’m pretty sure it’s just nicely stained wood, it’s probably not anything fancy like hand-cut oak, maybe particle board like Ikea, but very heavy/sturdy.
It’s definitely a trendy piece of furniture, it doesn’t have that “hand made” look that a few-thousand-dollar entertainment center might have, but for $500 or whatever I paid for it, I’d absolutely get it again — no regrets at all.
Let me know if you have any more Qs about it.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Thanks Riyad! Where did you find it for $500? The cheapest I can find on the internet is $799 for the 75″ one.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Not sure if this might help but I got mine from Dynamic Home Decor http://www.dynamichomedecor.com They still have 5% discount and free S/H so that’s $807.49 out the door.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Doh, sorry for the misleading comment, I just searched through my receipts and I got it from Racks and Stands for $799 as well (75″ cherry one). I liked shopping with them if that helps