Okay, folks, time for a little of that old fashioned brutal honesty. Not everyone will have a perfect rectangular or square room to put their home theater hardware in. In fact, more than likely, most will have to deal with some unusual shaping, which means figuring out ways to deal with horrendous acoustics.
And in the case of today’s sweet home theater, they had a whole lot of weird nooks and crannies to work around. I’d say the room was at least partially hexagonal with some…odd lumps. So to work around that, they added various wood features to the room to give it a sort of defining feature, like a proscenium. Then they added the hardware.
And oh, what hardware it was–they put in a Marantz projector, an SMX screen, Triad speakers and a Denon DVD player. Plus, because the homeowner in question had a large family, they’ve got seating for eight.
The huge handicap that was the oddly shaped room becoming an incredible home theater setup definitely qualifies this for sweet home theater status.
Sometimes home theater publications like this exact one can create a monster. We show you all the incredible things you can do with the various spaces in and around your house and how you can take all of these spaces and, with a lot of time, patience, effort and money turn them into grand showpieces in which to sit around all day and watch movies.
And for Jerrod Shook, that’s exactly what happened. He got into the home theater mags and suchlike and eventually just started churning out the ideas. What happened became his home theater.
What’s in there, you ask? It’s an eighteen hundred square foot theater with an Oppo DVD player, Ascend Acoustics speakers and subwoofer, a Panasonic projector, a hundred and twenty inch screen from Carada, and more.
So be careful, folks–you start reading us long enough, eventually you’re going to get to wonder what movies look like on a ten foot wide screen and the next thing you’ll know, you’ll want to try building your own sweet home theater setup at home. Let’s just hope it’s as sweet as Jerrod’s.
The Coby KTFDVD7093 7-Inch Under-The-Cabinet LCD TV with Built-In DVD/CD Player and AM/FM Radio offers a viewing and entertainment medium which should aid you in watching some great videos or access some recipes for some good home cooking. This compact DVD player can be placed under the cabinet or somewhere that should be accessible. It boasts of a 7” widescreen TFT and a combo DVD/CD player with ATSC digital TV tuner. It recognizes most CD media and even has audio/video jacks for other devices such as video game consoles, VCRs and so on. A neat device for any part of the home depending on where you want it.
There’s a whole lot of people out there who crave the “drive in movie experience” of yore. But Kevin Van wanted it so badly that he built one. In his backyard.
He bought his first projector for inside the house, and it got him to thinking, why can’t I use this projector outdoors? But that wasn’t the end of his quest to remake the drive in, no…only the beginning. Get this–the guy went so far to restore the “drive in movie experience” that he bought and restored nine vintage drive in speakers, paying a hundred and ten bucks for the lot on eBay.
He put a concession area on his screened-in porch to keep the bugs out, and included a commercial-grade popcorn popper, a hot dog steamer, a nacho chip and cheese warmer and even a chili warmer. He even built his own screen.
But he’s also got a bit of the twenty-first century hooked in as well–a Sharp projector, a Sony Prologic receiver, Pioneer amps (the vintage speakers on eBay? Pioneers all.) plus some Bose and MTX speakers too. Speakers are a big part of outdoor theater.
The sheer devotion to the medium definitely earns the appellation of sweet home theater setup, and hopefully, the heartburn from the chili will be mistaken for the warming love of home theater.
When I saw this my jaw dropped in a kind of joyful alarm. I had never thought of something like this myself, and yet, in retrospect, it’s the most perfect idea EVER. Ken Allwine managed to stun me into incoherence by creating a drive in home theater…in his driveway.
It quite literally is the PERFECT idea. You’re already in the car. There’s enough room in the driveway for a car and then some, so why not put up a projector screen and make your own drive in theater!
Most of his equipment is housed inside the garage so it’s protected from the elements, but outside is a speaker array and the eight by twelve foot screen. It’s a pretty big setup, with room for thirty or forty people (not thirty or forty CARS, though), and shields the viewers from the lights and sound of the street outside. Viewers actually say it works like a small amphitheater.
But by way of specifics, it’s got a Crown amplifier, a Sony DVD player, an InFocus projector, Fisher speakers and some extra custom gear.
When a theater can present the kind of thing that anyone probably should have thought of before, but didn’t, well…it’s got to be a sweet home theater setup.
As people continue to shift towards the new Blu-ray viewing era, there have been a couple of players released in the market to widen your Blu-ray player purchasing needs. And LG Electronics has been known to come up with their own and one happens to be the LG BD270 Blu-ray Disc Player. This Blu-ray player comes with the usual full HD 1080p HDMI output with Cinema mode paired with optimized audio performance with 7.1 channels of Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD & dts-HD. It comes with express reaction for instant tray opening.
Just like most home theater manufacturing groups, Oppo is now focusing on Blu-ray technology. Oppo, tagged as the Internet’s favorite brand has announced that it will be expanding via the focus on Blu-ray route. They have claimed to have sold out their DVD players and are no longer going to produce them for the future. Being a small company, the obvious growing demand today and the future is for Blu-ray players and obviously, that is where the money is! So it is officially adieu to the Oppo DVD Player.
It’s possible you’ve already heard the name of Ruben Ortiz, the guy who build SmX Cinema Solutions, a company that deals primarily in home theater gear. But what you may not know is that his company got his start as part of his very own sweet home theater setup.
He developed what’s called an “acoustically transparent screen surface”, which basically reduces the amount of sound distortion caused by the screen. Naturally, one of his screens is in his own home theater (which may well be the strongest endorsement anyone can give a product) but it’s not just the choice screen that makes Ruben Ortiz’s home theater setup a sweet one.
You can tell from the picture that he’s got one of those awesome star fields in there, which alone makes most any home theater setup a sweet one, but he’s also got Crown amps, Klipsch speakers, an Xbox
360 and a PS3, which of course serve double-duty as DVD and Blu-ray players, and a SIM2 C3X Lumis 1080 projector. Plus there’s his own SmX screen, which is a whopping one hundred and forty inches.
When you care enough to use your own custom-designed hardware, it can’t be any less than a sweet home theater setup.
Panasonic offers a potential Blu-Ray player and recorder that should interest the hardcore home entertainment people looking for fine video playback for their desired videos and movies. The Panasonic Blu-Ray DVB DMR-BW850 is a high-end digital TV HD recorder that was launched in New Zealand which can play and record via the Blu-ray format. It also comes with a SD card reader which allows you to view photo content from digital cameras straight to your TV set. If that storage access option is not enough, there is also a USB memory adapter you can use. The player has an internal 500GB HDD and even has provisions for LAN access as well as interfaces that include component video out, digital audio out and S-Video. It supports most audio, photo and video file formats, providing you an array of options as far as viewing preference.
The Panasonic Blu-Ray DVB DMR-BW850 player retails for about NZ$1,999.00.
Okay…this might be a little confusing, so bear with me. I’m not actually repeating anything here, but we first mentioned the recall of Durabrand DVD players sold by Wal-Mart back in August. Well, only recently, an expansion to that recall was announced.
The alert of the day is now to watch for COLORS of the Durabrand–where before, the recall was limited to silver colored DVD players, the recall has now been expanded to included the pink and purple DVD players as well. Here’s the complete rundown with UPC symbols:
- Silver unit: Model number 1002, bearing a 1799901002 UPC
- Pink unit: Model number 1002 PINK, bearing a 1799934100 UPC
- Purple unit: Model number 1002 PUR, bearing a 1799932100 UPC
So if you have any of these at home, you’re going to want to pack them up hasta pronto and take them back to Wal-Mart for a full refund. Don’t worry about having a receipt–just having the unit is plenty good enough since there’s a recall notice out.
And don’t brush this warning off, either. Reports have already come in about the units overheating and catching fire, so if you’ve got one of these, get it back to the store.
The Samsung Blu-Ray combo drive is now official. The Samsung SH-0B083 internal drive can now be integrated with any PC, providing users the option to now read and view blue-ray content via SATA connection. The Samsung drive can accommodate large storage of up to 25GB for single layer discs and 50GB for double layered discs. The SH-0B083 features an 8X read speed, 16X for DVD and 40X for standard DVDs. The Samsung Blu-Ray drive is expected to be available by November. No pricing information was disclosed.
JVC Kenwood unveiled their new concept “RYOMA/M-Linx”.The device is an All-in One Solution for your entertainment needs. No need to buy a separate TV tuner, BD/HDD recorder! Ryoma integrates HD Digital TV Tuner, BD and DVD player and recorder, HDD Recorder, CD player DLNA Support in a single device! However, access to radio functionality is given by a smaller device M-Linx. M-Linx would fetch some visual information like schedules or content of the radio shows while you are busy listening them. More information about the device is likely to come during CEATEC 2009.
Here’s an interesting combo offered by Sharper Image: an LCD TV that can play DVDs, read SD cards and offer and iPod dock too. The 22-inch Sharper Image TSI-LCD22DVDi LCD TV is available for $419 while the 19-inch model will be available for just $359.99.
Interested in other features? Well you can expect HDMI, PC Audio, VGA, component, S-Video and RCA inputs, USD connectivity, 800:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time and 1,366 x 768 resolution.
If you are looking for a reliable DVD player/ recorder in the market, the Toshiba DR570 DVD Recorder with Built in Tuner should be a wise choice to consider. This Toshiba DVD recorder comes with a built-in tuner and can record -R/-RW, +R/+RW formats.
For playback, it recognizes the usual photo and video files such as JPEG, MP3, VCD and Kodak Pic. It also has a DV input and a 1080p Upconversion. This Toshiba DVD recorder/player is a great complement for people who want to store their captured shots for media viewing for the whole family to see. This is also a great multi-function player to include for your home theater setup.
So there’s a new product announcement from Toshiba, the Toshiba XDE600KE, which proves conclusively that they’re still smarting over losing the HD / Blu-Ray format war.
For those of you not familiar with the XDE format, and frankly, if you are, you’re not alone, the XDE format is the format that upconverts standard DVDs so that these play in full 1080p. And Toshiba’s newest upconverter will not only make your old DVDs actually look better than your normal line of upconverters, but will also offer a slew of outputs, Regza Link technology in case you’ve got some Regza pieces, and a USB port allowing for lots of awesome like picture viewing and MP3 playing.
The word is that Toshiba will be bringing these out to at least Europe this fall for an as yet undisclosed amount of money, and frankly, even I’m tempted. Sure, it’s an upscale DVD player, but considering most of my home theatre stock is IN DVD, making them look 1080p amazing is a tantalizing offer.
Toshiba has not forgotten that DVD market and now offers a new DVD player with the Toshiba XD-E600 DVD player. A successor to the previous Toshiba XD-E500, the XDE-600 is ideal for the people who are still hooked up with DVD technology and yet demand quality playback from them.
Among the features of the Toshiba XD-E600 include the eXtended Detail Enhancement technology which brings DVD viewing closer to the HD level of display. Intelligent color and contrast enhancement broaden the image colors and sharpening to make sure that DVD video playback provides the expected color output in delivering video entertainment to another level. As most DVD players, it has provisions to view media content via USB drives and supports most video formats like DivX movies and JPEG photos.
Specifications:
XDE Technology
DVD Upscaling: 720p, 1080i, 1080p
REGZA Link (HDMI CEC)
USB port
DivX Playback
MP3/ JPEG& WMA Playback
Hi Res Pal Progressive
DTS Digital Output
DVD, DVD-R/-RW
DVD+R/+RW playback
CD/ CD-R/-RW, VIDEO-CD, SVCD, CD-DA playback
DVD-R DL, DVD-RW DL, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW DL playback
HDMI connection & cable
Component Video Output
SCART x1
Digital Coaxial Output
Digital Optical Output
2 Channel Audio
The Toshiba XDE600 will be available in the UK from October, with a TPP of £79.99.
Portable DVD players are normally meant to serve the basic function of playing back the usual DVDs and VCDs for people on the go. But now thanks to Chinavision, a new technology has made DVD ripping available in these portable DVD players, bridging the gap between a reliable DVD player and the usual laptops that come armed with with CD/DVD burners.
Chinavision made all this possible with their Copy Capable Portable DVD players. This player can now rip files and transfer them to a standard SD card or USB flash drive and perform the basic expectations we know portable DVDs can deliver.
Recently, Sony introduced two new portable DVD players in Japan, the DVP-FX730 and DVP-FX740DT. These DVD players will let you carry your favorite movies anywhere you go and watch them on the move.
Both the Sony DVP-FX730 and DVP-FX740DT sports a 7-inch 480×234 LCD display. These DVD players can play DVD Video, DVD+R/RW/R DL, DVD-R/RW/R DL, 8cm DVD+/-R/RW as well as VCD, CD CD-R/RW. In addition, both the players support playback of MP3 and JPEG files from DVD, CD or USB drives. The DVP-FX740DT comes integrated with 1Seg digital TV tuner that will let you watch TV on the go as well.
The new Sony DVP-FX730 will be released on 16th of October and will be available in four colors, blue, white, pink and red priced at 22,000 Yen, while the Sony DVP-FX740DT will be available on 5th September in black for about 40,000 Yen.
The Blu-ray era may be here and the Blu-ray players are the talk of the town. But that doesn’t mean that the DVD players are going to be extinct soon. Well at least not yet. And just in case you are looking for a keen DVD player to have, the Sony DVP-SR200P/B DVD Player should be a DVD player worth considering.
It has a progressive output of 480p and comes with the usual Precise Drive 3 System. The Sony DVD player also comes with the standard fast/slow playback with sound and a multi brand TV remote control.
It looks like the year of combos thus far. After seeing some TVs with built-in Blu-ray camcorders, Sony Japan now unveils five new Blu-ray recorders with built-in HDDs for the Japan market. Among the models released include the following:
BDZ-EX200 (2TB HDD/$2,800)
BDZ-RX100 (1TB HDD/$1,800)
BDZ-RX50 (500GB HDD/$1,500)
BDZ-RX30 (320GB HDD/$1,200)
BDZ-RS10 (320GB HDD/$1,000)
Among the highlights of certain models include the SkyPerfecTV support for the three recorders that have over 320GB capacity. The model equipped with a 2TB HDD can store 253 of HD TV media and also feature support for the Sony Walkman and the PSP.
All models will be available starting September except for the EX200 which will be released on November. No word on international availability for now.
Okay, folks, time for a little of that old fashioned brutal honesty. Not everyone will have a perfect rectangular or square room to put their home theater hardware in. In fact, more than likely, most will have to deal with some unusual shaping, which means figuring out ways to deal with horrendous acoustics.
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