Home Cinema System

Need to get a new dvd player & looking at a dvd home cinema system.

Have Sky+ HD and want to be able to have Sky movies etc in surround sound (same as when watching a dvd)

I understand that to do this I will need a system that has 'digital input' capability and digital optical connections. Not all the 'lower price' systems have these so I understand with these you can't get the full effect from the Sky HD box.

I'm looking at a Samsung which has these features and 1000 watts RMS output which should be sufficient

If the above is correct it means that I'm going to have to pay a bit more than I anticipated but that's not a problem ------ provided it's necessary.

Any advice welcome.

There are plenty of good av forums about do some searches.
also
You could go to one of the high street stores & suck there brains..wont take long

I bought my parents a LG HS34S system which has a built in DVD player, radio coupled to a couple of speakers and a sub and I was very impressed with it. Got that one specifically because she didnt want the surround speakers.

I would take a look at other models in their range. I got the HS32S for £200 and it does have an optical input.

islandman said:

I'm looking at a Samsung which has these features and 1000 watts RMS output which should be sufficient .

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Those wattage figures are meaningless in the real world. Don't let them be a factor in your decision.

Have you considered buying separates?

Those all-in-one systems may be good if you want hassle free surround sound for under £300, but in my experience the sound quality isn't up to much, and you're often limited by silly things like speaker cable moulded into the surrounds, so you have to put the speakers where you can rather than where you want.

A quick look at the website of a certain nation-wide hifi chain shows that you can pick up a Yamaha amp with HDMI switching for £160, and a 5.1 speaker pack for as little as £80.

Let's say £30 for some decent speaker cable and £30 for a DVD player, and you've got a decent set up for £300 that you can upgrade to Blu-Ray when you feel like it. Or, spend £100 on a blu-ray player and you've got a blu-ray surround sound set up for £370.

There's a myth that hifi separates and home cinema equipment must cost an absolute fortune to be any good, but that £300 set up would be good.

Thanks for the above

Diyisfun ----- I went into Currys on 2 different occasions, saw 2 different guys and got 2 completely different bits of advice!

Donkmeister ----- good point. Perhaps I should have considered what you say but I bought the Samsung at the weekend. Works well with our Samsung TV under the 'anynet' coupling.

Sound pretty good (for a bundled budget system) and yes you do appear to need an optical connection to get best quality DD from SkyHD box.

The upscaling of DVD's to HD seems pretty good.

ChrisFrost ----- I know what you mean about wattage figures but it generally allows a benchmark against the other budget systems available. Half max volume is more than enough.

The most important thing is that you enjoy it and get pleasure out of it!

So, which DVD full of explosions and special effects did you try out first?

(come on, no man in the whole history of cinema has ever bought a new surround sound system and not gone home and fed Die Hard / Lethal Weapon / The Transporter or similar into it!!! )

Donkmeister said:

The most important thing is that you enjoy it and get pleasure out of it!

So, which DVD full of explosions and special effects did you try out first?

(come on, no man in the whole history of cinema has ever bought a new surround sound system and not gone home and fed Die Hard / Lethal Weapon / The Transporter or similar into it!!! )

Click to expand...

Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines!!

Wife got cross an the cat left the room!!! --- So it must be pretty good

hello

first question is how much do you have to spend in total?
second is how 'audiophillic' are your ears? do you have to have clean, tight bass or are you not bothered by muddy, boomy bass and things like that.

Buy a bluray DVD player first otherwsie you'll spend money later on doing it again.
The Sony BDP-s350 to 550 models are 'budget' but have multiple good reviews from various sites on both picture and sound quality.

I got the S350 for £150 and I have realised after close scrutiny of movies seen many a time and BD format how much difference their actually is.

For the sound, you want to get an HDMI AV amp. you'd connect this to the HDMI tv (1080p? otherwise BD is pointless imo) you'd then plug the BD player into the av amp using HDMI and hopefully the sky box has HDMI.

Good thing with hdmi is all the sources switch automatically so you don't need to turn each item on individually (pain). It also means 1x HDMI cable per device connection so no need for video and tonnes of audio cables.
you can now get av amps from as little as £140. Bear in mind that anything under £200 skimps on certain features that to some are unlivable. check the features for yourself. I like Onkyo, Denon and Sony AV amps.

You could start of with a good budget set of stereo hifi speakers like the Tannoy mercury 1's and add a tannoy mid speaker.

at a later date you could add a sub and surround speakers if you like.

In the end, any setup pretty much you go with will sound better than the poxy built in tv speakers!
amp/speaker power is measured in watts but make sure you reference the RMS figure only. The PMPO or other overblown figures are useless and is normally what you get in short bursts (but probably sounbds sheez).

interconnects and cables are important so make sure you budget for a decent set to match the kit.

what hifi, and various online magazines/reviews will give you great knowledge to make an informed choice.
good luck.

sorry think I left it too long before posting and realised you already have kit.. oops.

curry's, comet and the like have staff that are cheap labour. Therefore, they don't really know much because they are not bothered unless you are lucky and find someone who loves AV kit and has learnt more.

I test these places now n again by asking questions and some of the responses I get are just plain silly.

PS, if your not bothered by having to have surround sound, you could always hook up your hifi type amp and use that. It still makes a big difference.

regards

islandman said:

Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines!!

Wife got cross an the cat left the room!!! --- So it must be pretty good

Click to expand...

Nice one!

I haven't managed to convince my OH that bleeding ears are a sign the you're enjoying the film, but she has complained that my 40" screen is too small so all is not lost

Hass said:

I test these places now n again by asking questions and some of the responses I get are just plain silly.

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Some years ago I had someone in Comet try to convince me that without their super-duper SCART leads I wouldn't get Dolby Digital...

I asked him to show me DVD players that sent Dolby Digital over the SCART socket, then after 10 seconds of him looking confused I said "Look, SCART cables just don't carry Dolby Digital bitstreams. Could you just ring up the TV please?"

He still tried to sell me a warranty though.

Don't buy an 'All-in-one' system. These may sound appealing having 800-1000w of power but these are very mis-leading. The sound quality of these will not be a patch on a separate system (consisting of an AV receiver and separate speaker package). Even a budget separate system will sound ALOT better than a all-in-one.

'All in ones' have very limited connecticity, so if you have several devices, Sky, Xbox, PS3, Wii, Bluray.....you are goosed.

If you do have a PS3 or Bluray you need a separate amp capable of HD audio, otherwise you will not enjoy the TrueHD audio.

All-in-one systems quoted at 1000w may seem appealing, but these are using 3-4 ohm speakers (basically sh1t ones). These speakers can only be used on the all-in-one system so you can't even use them on anything else.

Save some more money and buy a separate amp / speaker package.

garrymum said:

All-in-one systems quoted at 1000w may seem appealing, but these are using 3-4 ohm speakers (basically s**t ones). These speakers can only be used on the all-in-one system so you can't even use them on anything else.

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Hello,
again, check the RMS wattage figure for a true representaiton of sustained power.

garrymum, not sure if you mean the speakers are sh** because they are lower Ohm rating. Lower Ohm (resistance) ratings does not mean bad speakers. Home hifi generally works with 8Ohm speakers and incar hifi works on 4Ohms. lower resistance means a much larger power draw so is why you to beef up your electrics or use additional batteries in car to provide more power.

In car's if you set up your amps in certain ways you can increase the wattage output power and have speakers, usually subwoofers running at silly 1 or 2Ohms with capacitors to hold reserve juice.

There are various theories and ideas about why the 2 use different Ohm ratings...
regards

We bought a Sony blu-ray and 5:1 system in-one, the lad asked us if we wanted a HDMI cable. I asked him if it came with one. He said "yeah but it wont be a gold plated one for maximum picture quality".

Hmm because gold-plating a digital interconnect is going to make all the difference, isnt it. Its digital! The signal will either get there, or it wont!

I have also previously seen the price of Curry's interconnects, and told him I'd give that a miss.

And after that it didnt have one in the box. Bought one online.