HD + Fiber Optic Cable @ Home Theater

I connected the WD TV unit to our home theater projector using the component video cables because the projector does not support HDMI. I wanted to test how HD videos appear using standard component video cables. I previously assumed that it will only work on HDMI because of all the details, but I guess not.

We watched Green Hornet in 720p HD and it was very clear. It can really spoil you from watching "standard definition" DVD rips. The audio was also fantastic using the fiber optic cable that my friend, Andrian, lent me. I connected it to the Harman Kardon receiver and the sound was very crisp.

My only complaint is that the video seem to go reddish now and then. I would need to pull the component video cable and re-connect it for the color to go back to normal. The connector seems pretty tight, but it appears like one of the Y-Pb-Pr signal loses every so often.

Playing Nintendo Wii at the Home Theater

Tito Ben gave us a Nintendo Wii earlier this year as his house-warming gift for our house blessing. I connected it to our Samsung Series 5 LCD TV using regular RCA connection. The display looks pretty good. Its probably because games have very bright colors and do not need much depth in skin tone unlike regular movies.

The main differentiator of the Wii vs. other consoles like the PlayStation or XBox is its unique motion-based game controllers. You navigate the onscreen pointer/mouse or game character by moving your arms on air as if you were inside the game. A thin, horizontal motion sensor has to be placed in front of you (below the TV) to detect the motion of the controller.

The sensor has a limited distance, of course. My estimate is its only good for about 3 meters. Beyond that and it cannot detect your motions anymore. That kinda sucks since if I sit all the way back by head board of our bed, I would be about 6 meters away from the TV. So I have to move to the foot board of the bed before I can navigate the menus. Strangely though, the other functions work quite well even from that distance. For example, playing Mario's Cart by using the controller to simulate a steering wheel works fine even at 6 meters. I don't know why this is so while other motions are limited by distance.

Anyway, I've been wondering what it would be like to play the Wii at our home theater using my Mitsubishi data projector and Harman Kardon A/V receiver with JBL speakers. It must be an awesome experience to be immersed in a home theater environment while playing. When I tried to connect the Wii to the A/V receiver, I realized I had a problem. The video output of the Wii is the standard yellow RCA plug, wheras the data projector is connected to the receiver via component video.

It seems that the Harman Kardon can only send component video output if its input is also via component video. It cannot "switch" a composite RCA video signal and convert it to component video format as output. All the while, I thought that any input video signal will be automatically converted by the receiver and sent out as component video so I only provisioned for 3 wires between the receiver and the projector -- just enough for the component video signals of Y/Pb/Pr. The cables run through a conduit in the home theater wall and up above the ceiling, and further down into the ceiling mounting kit leading to the projector. So its not trivial to add another cable for RCA-style composite video.

The Mitsubishi projector has support for 3 video sources actually -- computer, S-Video and composite video. Using a cable adapter, the component video connects to the computer video input port. In hindsight, I should have provisioned another cable connecting the composite video input into the composite video output of the Harman Kardon. That way, I can connect any input source to the receiver and just have it switch the output to the projector. So even my VHS player or camcorder can connect to the receiver and have its output sent to the big projector screen.

For now, the only workarounds are either: 1. to connect the composite video output to the Philips DVD3455H player's CAM1 input port and specify it as the source (since the Philips player is, in turn, connected to the receiver via component video already); 2. connect the composite video output to one of the composite video inputs of the receiver, and then physically transfer one of the 3 component video cables (eg. the "Y") to the composite video output/input at both ends (the receiver and the projector). The latter is actually better since it does not require the Philips to be turned on. But it involves physically moving around some cables. Maybe when the electrician comes back for some odd job, I'll ask him to layout a fourth cable between the projector and receiver to be permanently used for composite video.

While I was able to send the Wii output to the projector, I still have to contend with the distance problem of the motion sensor. If I put it on top of my center speaker, which is mounted on the wall below the projector screen, and I sit by the sofa (which is over 3 meters away from the sensor), I cannot do certain motions. I have to sit down on the edge of the home theater elevated platform before it can my game controller.

Shopping for Nintendo DS Lite at V-Mall

Took Caitlin shopping at Greenhills to buy her Nintendo DS Lite. I promised her the unit if she ends the school year at ICA with at least second honors, and she did. Well, a deal's a deal.

I hate shopping at Greenhills. There's just too many people and I hate the whole tiangge concept. Too crowded. Too many people bumping into you. We went to the Virra Mall area (now renamed to V-Mall) to look for a unit. We asked around until we settled with a store selling the Nintendo DS Lite package at Php7,600 inclusive of the R4 kit and 80 games pre-loaded.

The R4 is a compatibility kit that allows one to copy games onto a regular Micro SD card. The DS Lite will see it like it was a regular DS Lite cartridge. Below is a video of how it is used.

While at V-Mall, I also saw a couple of video products that I've only recently read about in gadgets magazine. The Western Digital's WD TV, which allows you to copy your movies onto a regular USB using almost any imaginable format, and the WD TV will let you play it onto your HD TV supposedly at 1080p via HDMI cables. The product sells at V-Mall for Php6k++. That's not so bad considering its sold in the US for USD99. The only downside is it has no network support. So you have to transfer whatever you want to view onto a flash drive first. Of course, USB flash drives are dirt cheap already at CD-R King. I think 8Gb Kingstons cost less than Php1k nowadays.

I also saw one shop selling Popcorn Hour already for Php13k++. It retails for about USD215 in the US, so the pricing is not bad. Popcorn Hour is a network video appliance that lets you stream your videos from a PC onto your TV or projector. It also supports most of the popular formats. The A-110 version can have an internal hard drive and has a native BitTorrent client to let you download movies directly to the unit without the need for a PC.

Both products would be a nice addition to our home because I don't have an Full HD player yet and our Samsung Series 5 LCD can do Full HD. However, I feel that I should just wait for the next generation of video players which will most likely have networking built in already. And our home theater has an RJ45 outlet that connects it to the home network.

The WD TV and Popcorn Hour seem to be just stop-gap products while the mainstream consumer electronics play catch up. The same thing pretty much happened to TiVo. It was very innovative at the time, but now, consumer electronics giants like Philips, Sony, etc. have features similar to the TiVo built it to their DVD players. Even Samsung boasts of LCD TV's with built-in TiVo-like functions already.

Here's related article on Nintendo DS and R4 from the venerable PC World.

The LGV Home Theater Mystery Solved

For some time now, we've been wondering why the door of our home theater "mysteriously" gets locked.  According to Yaya, she never locks it.  And Cols always think that I'm the one locking it.  I've been tempted to review the DVR recording just to see why its locking itself.  Of course, Cols has her usual "haunted" theories, which I don't really buy.

Anyway, today, I was transferring some camcorder recordings to the Philips DVDR, for further burning to DVD-ROM.  Then Ethan and Yaya came in.  That's when I noticed that when they open the door, they push it all the way to the wall.  Since there is no door stopper, the door handle bumps the wall, which in turn, causes the lock to be pressed.  Voila!  That's what is causing it to lock!  So that finally disspells Cols spooky theory.

From LGV House Blessing

Home Theater Sofa

Our 3-seater home theater sofa was delivered by Blims today! We went for a China-made cheaper version of La-Z Boy. It was about P10k cheaper (based on La-Z Boy SRP) and came with a free Toshiba Regza 19" LCD TV. Not that we really needed another TV, but I want to have 2 x PC's at our den and I don't want to buy another LCD monitor for the 2nd PC. A 15" LCD monitor nowadays costs about P6k.

From LGV House Blessing

The recliner mechanism of this sofa is not as good as La-Z Boy's. But one thing I liked about it over La-Z boy's 3-seater is the center seat reclines as well. With La-Z Boy, only the left and right side reclines while the center one converts into a table where you can put food. But I thought it was more important to have seating space so I opted for this one.

The home theater's configuration is supposed to have 2 x rows of theater sofas. But since we're on a tight budget, we opted for one set first and placed it on the raised floor section. Maybe we'll just put bean bags for a while on the front row for the kids.

The home theater is 6-meters deep. The sofa is just slightly behind the overhead projector. So that puts it at about 4-meters from the projection screen. I think its just right. If we put another set on the lower floor level, I think it will actually be too close to the screen.

Building My Home Theater Part 3: JBL SCS260.5 Speaker System

Last month, I wrote about the Harman-Kardon audio-video receiver (AVR) that I bought for my future home theater. I picked Package Two which came with the JBL SCS260.5 Speaker System. Although it cost a little bit more than the Package One because of these speaker set, I figure I might as well spend that extra PHP10,000 since I've spent a fortune (or will be spending a fortune) on the rest of the home theather anyway.

Its a typical 5 set speaker + subwoofer setup -- 2 x front L-R, 2 x rear L-R, and one center front speaker. The sales people at SM Applicance Center have been helpful in explaining what makes these speaker set different from the more common consumer brands like Sony, Pioneer or Yamaha (or maybe I've just be sales-talked and I'm now trying to post-justify my actions). But to their credit, JBL speakers are very popular for audiophiles as compared to the likes of Sony. Most movie theaters (even the SM Imax theater), use JBL speakers. JBL belong to the Harman group of company, which also owns the Harman-Kardon AVR's.

My whole shopping experience had a bit of a kink though. The Package Two had an SRP of around PHP49k. But since I was willing to pay cash, I haggled for a discount with the JBL/SM Appliance Center people. After some deliberation, they offered me an extra 7% discount. I came back a couple of days later and left a check. Then after it cleared, I had the unit picked up.

When I opened the box at home, I noticed that the "freebie" iPod Bridge to the AVR was missing. I thought it was an honest mistake and went to SM Appliance Center to ask for it. Then the salesman gave me this stupid look and asked if nobody told me that the reason why I got the discount was because they took out the freebie! Hello?!?!! He was the only JBL salesman I was talking to there, so who else could have possibly told me. And ALL appliance stores routinely give cash discounts with no bearing whatsoever to withholding any freebies.

What a rip-off from those dishonest people! If only there were other JBL outlets, I would willingly return this unit for a full refund. But only a few SM Appliance Centers seem to carry JBL. None of the other appliance chain stores (Western, Anson, etc.) carry JBL.

So I guess I have to live with the discounted unit minus The Bridge. For now, its no big deal since I don't even own an iPod. But I just felt cheated from the deal. So to anyone out there reading this blog -- be very careful when dealing with SM Appliance Center (or JBL sales people for that matter). I would still strongly recommend Western Appliance stores.

Building My Home Theater Part 2: Audio-Video Receiver

I finally bought the audio/video receiver (AVR) intended for my future home theater. I settled on the Cinema Two bundle being offered by JBL at Power Plant's SM Appliance Center. Its a 5.1 JBL speaker system with a Harman Kardon AVR 145. (JBL and Harman Kardon belong to the same mother company -- Harman International.)

The original bundle price was around P49k, but SM Appliance Center gave me an extra discount for paying cash/check instead of credit card installment. So the final amount came out to about P45.5k. I paid by check so I have to wait for it to clear before I can pick up the goods.

It was a toss-up between the Cinema One or Cinema Two package, with the former being about P10k cheaper. They are actually both bundled with the Harman Kardon AVR 145. They only differ with the bundled JBL speakers. Since a big part of the home theater experience is dependent on having really good sounds, I decided not to scrimp and went for the higher package.

Before deciding on the AVR 145, I did the usual Google research. The AVR 145 received good reviews from several Amazon customers. The audio quality is supposed to be top-notch. The only negative comment was from a guy who was complaining that the controls were too complicated and that one needed an advanced degree in electrical engineering. Well, I've never been intimidated by consumer electronics controls, so its no big deal.

The only downside of the AVR145 is it does not have HDMI ports. Again, I'm not sure how important that is since my projector (more on that in future postings) does not have HDMI input as well anyway. So I will most likely just be sticking to component video for the video signal and digital coaxial cable from the player to the receiver. Most video player equipment today only support HDMI 1.0 anyway -- which only sends video signals over HDMI, but the audio is still sent separately through other cables. Only HDMI 1.1 or higher supports DVD audio on the same cable.

I have to admit that before this, I've never heard of Harman Kardon. I'm not really an audiophile so my knowledge of audio equipment pretty much ends with the usual consumer brands of Sony, Yamaha and Pioneer. Harman Kardon would be in the same league as Onkyo or Denon, which I would normally consider as being way too expensive. But I felt this bundle was not that out of reach from my budget so I went for it.

I guess I won't really get to enjoy this anyway until the end of the year when my home theater would be fully set up. Its still in the construction stage. Will update this blog next time with the details of my movie projector.

To read Part 1 of this adventure, click here.

Building My Home Theater Part 1: DivX Ultra Players

I've been doing a bit of research lately on DVD players with DivX Ultra support for my upcoming home theater at the house we're building. I was previously looking at the Philips DVP5982 and was thinking of asking a friend to buy it for me from the US and send it over via balikbayan box since I haven't seen it sold locally. But when I went to Western Appliance this Sunday, I was surprised to see several other low-cost Philips model already available locally and on display.

The Philips DVP5166k was on sale for a measly Php2,990. The sales guy said he can probably give me an extra discount and round it down to Php2,900. Just add Php910 for a 3-year warranty. Its a very standard DivX Ultra player with no fancy HDMI support. I'm partial to getting a DVD player with HDMI output support already.

The sales guy told me that the DVP5166k is being phased out already, thats why its on sale. The upcoming models that will replace it look interesting: the DVP5286K (PHP4,990 SRP) and the DVP3980K (PHP3,990 SRP). Both are capable of 1080i/p upscaling already; come with HDMI interfaces; plays all sorts of media (CD, DVD+/-R, etc.); supports the usual audio formats (WMA and MP3 -- but not AAC); have karaoke scoring features; and playback of still JPEG images.

1080p support is good because I plan to eventually buy a Samsung Full 1080p HD TV. But for the purpose of the home theater, it probably would not matter since the Mitsubishi projector (more on that in future blog entries) that it will connect to, can only go up to 720p and 1080i (not 1080p). For those interested in 1080i vs. 1080p debates, here are some consumer reviews talking about it. For most general DVD movies which are shot at 24 frames per sec, you probably would not be able to tell the difference. But perhaps in the future if high-definition becomes the norm and all movies are shot at 30fps or higher, then MAYBE you will see a difference between interlaced (i) and progressive (p) scanning.

The site lists that the DVP5286K supports DivX 4, 5 & 6, aside from Ultra. The DVP3980K only lists DivX Ultra. Hmmm... doesn't it follow that if you support DivX Ultra, you also support the older DivX versions (4 to 6)?

The DVP5286K supports playing of DivX directly from the flash drive via its high-speed USB 2.0 interface. Not sure how important a feature that is. I was previously commenting though why my Philips DVD3455H could not play DivX media files from USB even though it could from CD or DVD. The Pioneer sales guy at Western was also highlighting that feature for his Pioneer DV600AVS which costs Php6,790 (quite expensive compared to Philips although he kept saying that their service support is better because Pioneer has local service centers whereas Philips just rely on 3rd party authorized service centers).

The DVP5286K also boasts that it can "rip" your music CD's to mp3 and send the ripped version directly to your flash drive. It can even do so on-the-fly while you are listening to the audio CD. Again, not sure how big a deal that is unless you don't have a modern day PC.

Other than that, there doesn't seem to be that much big difference between the two. I guess I will have to wait a couple more months for these models to become widely available.

Streaming Video to your Home Theater via your Home LAN

I was just talking about the possibility of viewing DivX movies over the network last week with the announcement of DivX Connected. Well, it seems that there are other consumer electronic products already in the market which specifically targets this genre.

For those using Windows Media Center on their PC's, the Linksys DMA2x00 allows media files residing on your PC to be "extended" to your TV or home theater. It acts as a gateway between the PC world via an ethernet connection, and the TV/home theater world via standard audio and video connectors like HDMI, S-Video, RCA video plugs and component video. It also comes with Wifi connectivity, but users are cautioned with the quality of the stream if you are on standard 802.11G. The relatively low (54mbps) speed will cause high-definition video to jitter. A wired connection is still best. But if Wifi is really a must, then at least go with 802.11N.

If you are not running Windows Media Center on your PC (I think Win XP does not have this feature), the NetGear EVA8000 may be a better choise. Its a more generic gateway implementation. It reads your media file via the standard network shared folders of your home network; stream it over the network; then output it to your TV or projector.

The EVA8000 is still pretty much a bleeding-edge/first generation product. So don't expect a bug-free experience. This review from C-Net shows that it required several reboots in their test cases. The product specs are also still a bit conflicting. In some articles, it says the EVA8000 supports DivX. In others, its not mentioned.

I mentioned in my blog entry last month that my Philips DVDR3455H Player can play AVI. I found out this weekend that it seems to be picky on the kind of AVI file it will play. I was able to download the BBC Planet Earth series via BitTorrent. The AVI files are in 720p HD format and each were about 2.2GB in size. When I tried converting it to DivX, my DivX Converter gets an error midway. So I burnt it onto a DVD disk as AVI and tried to play it on my Philips DVDR player. It just keeps causing the player to reboot! So I guess to view these types of files, I would rely on products like those above to watch it on TV or projector.

Still, I look forward to having players in the future like my Philips DVDR to have network ports and do their own streaming directly from the network so that I don't have to buy a 3rd party gateway to do that work.