Home Theater: Whats more important?

I had to vote for sound, because it add so much more to a movie when you get the clear voice through the center channel and the great surround effects.

 

This one's easy. Picture all the way.

It's easier to see the quality differences in a high end HDTV setup and a lower end model. With home theater audio, the differences are easier to blur between expensive and inexpensive setups. I've setup/designed home theater packages for most of my friends and family over the past 2yrs....mainly after they saw my setup when it was bleeding edge stuff and HDTV's weren't as commonplace. I've worked with all different kinds of budgets, but the most important factor is easily the picture. That's where they will see their hard earned money goto work.

DD5.1 sound is important of course, but you can get a fairly inexpensive setup that will "do the job" and give you DD5.1 surround. There's no such thing as a "fairly inexpensive" HDTV. You can find some cheaper HDTV's out there, for lesser manufacturors, but the qualify difference is very apparent.

Once it comes down to, is that almost anyone can tell the difference between a $2000 HDTV and a $5000 HDTV, but not many people can tell the difference between a $2000 DD5.1 setup and a $5000 DD5.1 setup. You're eyes don't lie, but your ears and the way your brain can perceive sound, can "fill in" any details that you might be missing with a cheaper sound setup.

 

BOTH, YOU NEED BOTH!!

you need both. cant have a great pic and no good sound or vice versa. if you are dropping the wallet on a good tv or sounds system, might as well go with the other to match. i believe you cant have one or the other, but i guess if you had to pick one for someone else, it would depend on thier wallet size. sound is cheaper than picture, so go with what you got.

but you have to get both! stupid not to.

 

i voted sound only cuz thats all i got here and playing hockey, ip, football, or basketball with that ARENA setting is way to freakn cool

 

Of course you need both to get the complete experience, but I think the point of the poll and question is where to spend the majority of your budget. Since it's easier to distinguish an excellent picture, most people go for the higher quality stuff there, and go with more affordable DD5.1 audio systems.

DD5.1 is a must, no question, but there are huge and visible differences between different brands/models of HDTV's. Only real audiophiles with a truely critic ear can tell the subtle differences between a $1000 home audio DD5.1 setup and a $5000 one. My 2yr old neice can show you the difference between a $1000 and a $5000 TV.

Because of this, most people start off with budget home audio systems, because they are soo affordable and will sound much better than your TV speakers, and after they've upgraded to a HDTV is when they'll start looking at investing more money into their speakers and audio equipment. Usually, people don't buy HDTV's and use the built in speakers. Noone I know with a HDTV does that. Typically they had a DD5.1 setup already with their standard def. TV and it just get switched to the new HDTV.

 

Tristan:

Now that you have your HDTV, I highly recommend getting this DVD in order to properly calibrate your HDTV to reference standards. Most TV's ship in what's referred to as "torch" mode with the brightness and contrast levels at a damaging 100%. You'll want to adjust these with this calibration DVD so your new TV looks the best it can.

http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=IMA005867

 

I had to vote for Clear Picture. Seeing how that's all I need... for now.

 

yes sir i do

 

what does that calibration thing do?

you mentioned a "damaging" 100% contrast, thats what i have, is that bad?

 

I voted for picture because I currently am in the situation that I have great sound, but the picture quality on my tv sucks ass. My aunt and uncle gave us a 10 year old 52" Projection TV. At the time it came out, it was top of the line. But since then, there have been vast improvements in sharpness of picture and brightness of picture. My TV is lacking both of these necessary qualities. It's big, dark, and fuzzy (all bright images/subtitles/credits have a glow around them).

 

projection tvs are just the pits. if you dont stand directly in front of them, you dont see it clear. monitor or plasma is the way to go.

 

I couldn't disagree more.

Projection TV's (front or rear) give you the best possible picture of all actually. That's assuming that you have it in a room where you can completely control ambient light. Just as you wouldn't goto the movie theater and see windows and doors in the theater, you shouldn't have those at home if you want the best picture out of a projection TV.

Direct view TV's/monitors/LCD screens, etc are the best for living rooms where you can't control sunlight or ambient room light, but if you have a dedicated home theater room, then none of those make sense.

Plasma's, for all of their art-deco/celebrity hype, are actually the worst picture of any kind of HDTV that you can buy. They usually have the lowest amount of resolution, wear out the quickest, very fragile, and their picture is inferior to a properly calibrated front or rear projection HDTV.

 

Read this for more info:

http://www.ovationsw.com/avia.html

If you have a HDTV, you are doing yourself a disservice if you haven't yet properly calibrated your set. Most often, they come from the factory to look good on a showroom floor (ie. full brightness and contrast, red-push, too much sharpness) because the idiot window shopper "thinks" that brighter=better. In fact, that's the quickest way to burn-in and wearing out your television. If the contrast or brighness is that high, you aren't seeing any true black, and most likely the whites are "blown up" meaning that there's a halo effect around objects. Alot of TV's have an artificially high amount of red. If you calibrate it, you'll see this. This is also done to make the set "appear" better on a showroom floor, but the colors aren't accurate and most people look like they have a bad sunburn.

 

Most rear projection TV's need annual cleaning and basic calibration/adjustments. 10yrs is pretty old for a projection set, and it's at the end of it's lifespan anyway (especially if it spent most of it's life with the brightness/contrast levels over proper levels).

I calibrate mine every year myself, and I just had it cleaned professionally (lots of dust and pet dander can work it's way inside and coat the CRT guns and mirrors). The difference is amazing, it's like a new set again.

If your set is fuzzy, it probably needs a convergence adjustment (which you might be able to do yourself in the menus...that means that the 3 guns aren't properly aligned) and for sure if text is glowing ("halo effect") then the brightness is too high.

 

well i go the circuit city and looks like the plasma has a way better picture then the projection. i dont think projections are good at all. you sound like you know what you are talking about, but i have seen it for myself, and disagree with you. if you ever bump the tv or try to move it, they "guns" disalign. if you have a big room with couches surrounding the tv, the people to the left or right cant see as good as the couch right in the middle. then you also have to line up how high or low the tv is as well to get the best picture. and also if you play games in a projection you get burn in. plasma i dont believe have those problems. plasma are far superior, dont know where you got the other idea of them not being.

please prove you disagreement of plasmas being inferior to projection. that makes no sense.

 

That's the problem right there. :cry: You're basing your knowledge on what you see at Circuit City. All of those retail chains are feeding their televisions from the same source. It's split so many ways that you're not even seeing close to what those pictures will look like in your own home. Plus, the brands that they carry are far inferior to what you might find at a boutique type of store. Best Buy, Sears, CC, etc do not carry Mitsubishi Platinum HDTV's, or Pioneer Elite HDTV's. Those 2 models of HDTV will blow away nearly every plasma on the market.

The reason why rear projection HDTV's don't look as good at the store is that you are standing up. They are all designed, figuring that you are sitting on a couch so that your eye level is in the middle of the screen.

Yes, I do know what I'm talking about as home theater has been a hobby for mine for quite some time. My cousin had a hard on for a plasma TV and I helped him select one and set one up. We put it next to mine, and the difference was amazing. Most plasmas will only do 480p, which is not HDTV resolution. The ones that do, usually max out at only 720p. Rear projection HDTV's all do 1080i. Just trust me. If you want the best picture, it's going to be with a front or rear DLP projector. Nothing else can match that right now.

Plasma's are more expensive because of the technology they use, but that doesn't make them better. Just like flat panel LCD PC monitors are more expensive than CRT monitors, but the picture on a CRT is better (which is why you'll never see a serious graphic artist, professional photographer, etc doing work on a LCD screen). My Caddy cost almost twice what my BMW did, but the bimmer is still the better car and better made. More money doesn't always mean better quality.

PS. Burn in is a problem with plasma and LCD's even more so than rear projection HDTV's. If you have one setup right, and play smart, you should never get burn in with any of them. All of them have a finite lifespan though, but the difference with CRT's is that you can replace them very inexpensively. When a Plasma wears out, throw it in the trash. The biggest problem for Plasma and LCD HDTV's is bad pixels though. If that happens, you're screwed.

 

my reference is not only from circuit city. that was just a basic example, for anyone here to go from. i teach a doctor who has both, huge tech-nerd freak. and you can easily see that his plasma is way better than his projection. they are both mitsubishi tvs, which are regarded as one of the better non-main stream tv's, and its just amazing what kind of picture the plasma has.

i guess you can believe what you want to believe, i know what i believe, and its from seeing, not reading what you said.

find me an article from a credited reviewer of tvs that says that projection tv are better than plasmas, or anything like that, then i will believe you. if this is your hobby, it shouldnt be hard for you. until then, i think you are blowing smoke...sorry, i really do.

 

good thread! because of this I started looking at LCDs because on plasmadepot.com I found I could get comparable size for about 1500 less than plasma and still have a thin tv. But after reading what you guys have said, I think I am still going to stick w/ a projection that I saw a best buy. Granted I haven't done any research on it yet, it is just about the size and aspect ratio we are looking for (and most importantly, lack of depth), this one seems good to me so far without doing any research. That may change though after I start reading up on it.



Sony 51" Widescreen Rear-Projection HDTV Monitor with 2-Tuner PIP and DVI Interface
Model: KP-51WS500