Friday
Dec042009
Dec 4 Podcast #402: RedEye Remote Control and HTiB Buying Guide 2009
Category: Podcast, Review Tags: Advice, Buying guide, HTiB
Podcast, Review Tags: Advice, Buying guide, HTiB 
Typically we are not big fans of Home Theater in a Box (HTIB) systems. Its not because the electronics are not good. In most cases the electronics are decent middle of the road components. The area we feel HTIB systems break are the speakers. When you consider that the manufacturer needs to bundle 7 speakers in a system that goes for $500 how good can the speakers be?
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
News:
- Survey reveals 13% have never heard about HD
- Experts Say Blu-ray Players are Here to Stay
- Blu-ray/DVD flipper discs finally coming
- LCD TV Prices See 22% Price Reductions Over Black Friday
Other:
- Great article on LCD motion blur (thanks Mike!)
Review: RedEye Universal Remote Control
Home Theater in a Box Buying Guide 2009
Typically we are not big fans of Home Theater in a Box (HTIB) systems. Its not because the electronics are not good. In most cases the electronics are decent middle of the road components. The area we feel HTIB systems break are the speakers. When you consider that the manufacturer needs to bundle 7 speakers in a system that goes for $500 how good can the speakers be? With that said, we understand that not everyone has a big budget and that a HTIB system is better than nothing. We recommend four systems that have decent to good electronics and these components will sound even better one day when you upgrade the speakers. All but one of these systems feature electronics that you can keep for years.
$500 and Less
Onkyo HT-S5200 7.1-Channel Home Entertainment Receiver/Speaker Package (with Dock for the iPod®) ($499.99) - 7-Channel 780 Watts total, 4 HDMI™ Inputs and 1 Output. Support for Audyssey Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume. The receiver will not decode Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio but you can decode it on your player and pass it along to the receiver in PCM format.
Greater than $500 and Less than $750
Sony BDVIS1000 5.1Ch Blu-ray Disc/DVD Home Theater System ($570) - We recommended this unit last year. All the same goodness this year for $430 less! Integrated Blu Ray Player, S-Air Wireless Surround (no wires required for surround speakers), Next Generation Audio Support, BD-Live Ready, 1080/24p, Digital Media Port interface, DVD Upscale to 1080p resolution
Greater than $750
Yamaha YHT-791BL Home Theater in a Box ($780) - 7-channel 630W total, 1080p-Compatible HDMI 1.3 iPod and Bluetooth Compatibility, Seven Speakers and a 100W Subwoofer. System support both Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio. Support for the optional Yamaha Bluetooth® Wireless Audio Receiver YBA-10 so you can play music wirelessly from Bluetooth enabled mobile phones, portable devices, or personal computers. Four HDMI inputs and one output for switching your HDMI capable sources.
Yamaha YSP-4000BL Digital Sound Projector ($1599.95) - True Multi-Channel Surround Sound from a single unit (quality of simulated surround will vary based on room dimensions), Analog to HDMI Video Upconversion, Scaling to 720p/1080i, iPod Compatible via optional YDS-10, 42 Speakers - 120W Total Power. Automatic setup and calibration.
Reader Comments (11)
I had the same problem with Crank 2. Netflix was nice enough to give me a free rental because of the problem, but there are two easy workarounds. The first you mentioned on your show, simply put in a memory card. The second solution is to turn of BD-Live in your player. The bug in the disc only occurs when you have BD-Live enabled in the player and you don't have any built in memory.
I recently bought the younger brother (YHT591) of the Yamaha HTIB that you recommend - YHT-791
It's basically the 5.1 version of this system with a few differences.
Here is a brief review of the YHT-591 that potential buyers might find useful -
Yamaha YHT-591 Home Theater in a Box
Pros:
-------------------------------------
4 HDMI inputs
Smallish speakers (oddly shaped, but stylish)
Very good sound for a smaller room
Cons:
-------------------------------------
Sub Woofer has no Auto Standby mode (always on)
Receiver has no switched outlet
Remote is poorly designed
When the speakers are flush mounted to a wall - no clearance for cables
No auto volume leveling mode
Strange combinations of AV inputs
No dedicated power off Remote code, only Toggle
Summary:
-------------------------------
The 'always on' subwoofer is a bad oversight - make sure you check for this feature. You will need a current sensing outlet strip for the subwoofer power to remedy this oversight -
http://www.greenandmore.com/smart-strip-energy-saving-power-strips.html
Make sure the receiver can connect all of your AV components in the way you intend. The receiver has two Component video inputs, but only with either coax or fiber for audio. There is no way to hook up component video with analog audio (like a Wii). When the speakers are flush mounted to a wall (keyhole brackets), there is no clearance for the cables to fit into the connector well even with the rubber feet installed. This requires some surgery of the plastic connector well. I use a Harmony Universal Remote and the Receiver is the one component that regularly get out of sync as far as the power state is concerned. A dedicated 'power off' and 'power on' function should be included. This is my first HDMI switch system and I was surprised to discover that the only inputs that can be routed to the HDMI output are the HDMI inputs. I was expecting that the receiver convert all video and audio input to go out via HDMI. Sadly this is not the case. The sound is very pleasing and the smaller speakers don't overwhelm (hey look at me, I'm a giant speaker) my small living room. Overall I'm happy with this purchase. Most of the problems are fairly easy to overcome, but some deeper pre-purchase research would have helped.
Another great Calibration disc is Spears and Munsil. It comes w/ the new Oppo Blu-ray so you know it's good.
http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/
Hello Guy`s!!
Listen to everyone of the podcasts and enjoy them all.Wondering though why no comment about the 2 emails i sent you about the great audio/video house Ron Rosberg is building at Clear Lake? He`d make a great interview for your netcast and with your interest in audio/video whole house distribution thought you would have commented about his new build. Anyway,have a great holiday season and keep up the fine informative netcast.
I have the Sony BDVIS1000, and generally like it but have been frustrated that the apparent absence of discrete codes for the inputs make it very difficult if not impossible to manage from my Control4 system. If there's a solution to that, I too would recommend this system for its quality and functionality.
Hi guys I love the show and I heard what you guys asked about the secret menu on the Sony bluray discs.
While on the menu press "7669" to access the secret menu with test patterns to calibrate your TV, is really cheap and If you already have a Sony pictures BD movie you already have the test patterns.
I hope that helped, thanks for the great show guys, keep it up!!!
One thing you eluded to but did not specifically warn people about is that some cheap HTIBs come with low powered speakers with different impedances to standard speakers. As a result you may not be able to upgrade the speakers easily later.
Hey guys...another great show! Thanks for all the hard work!
A couple of comments / thoughts from this show:
1. Two disk pack vs. the flipper disk - I have actually been buying BRay disks with a friend who doesn't have a BRay player. She takes the DVD and I take the BRay. It's obviously for the two of us. I guess this is similar to letting the kids take the DVD while you take the BRay. Point is, from a studio perspective, they would sell 2x the number of disks with the flipper, even if it's a little more $ to make each.
2. Audio over Bluetooth - I use an iPhone in my car with an Alpine head unit. It sounds every bit as good as a directly connected iPod. Bluetooth is just bits. I would guess that sound quality "in this case" is driven by the D/A converter since most other things are the same. In my car, both methods use the Alpine D/A. In most other cases, a direct iPod (or any other MP3 player) uses the iPod D/A and the bluetooth connection uses the head unit D/A. I am not completely sure that make sense...anyway, I can't tell the difference between a direct iPod and bluetooth from my phone. The bluetooth sounds great...not hollow.
Chris
Chris G,
It's not just bits. A2DP bluetooth compresses the audio to transmit it wirelessly. Depending on the encoding scheme this can have drastic effects on the quality. Also when transmitting over bluetooth the receiver and the sender have to agree on the codec. If the transmitter and receiver were not bought bundled together, you are most likely using the SBC codec because it is required to function by all A2DP devices. If you are playing music on your MP3 player, you are most likely decoding the MP3/AAC, then re-encoding to SBC, transmitting to the reciever, decoding back to analog and then outputting the signal. There's a lot of places there where the data can get lost.
Andrew,
I stand corrected...didn't think of that when I wrote a quick post.
The Apline head unit I have is one of only two devices I know of that will handshake digitally with an iPod and use a digital hardline link such that the D/A takes place in the head unit instead of the iPod. I have heard that this requires licensing and collaboration with Apple. I also use an iPhone. It stands to reason that they did something similar with the bluetooth link and that is why bluetooth audio sounds pretty acceptable to me.
Chris
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