A little long??????????? The podcasts need to be longer. AVRANT rocks !!!!!!!

Hey Tom,

Thanks for having Andy on the show. It was really refreshing to have someone with a low-budget, high value system like Andy who has built his system partly using second-hand parts. I built my own front projection theater the same way using second-hand/cheap (Goodwill,buying from friends,Walmart,demo units) components, and put together the system for under $700. While its older, it does have some nicer components (B&W speakers, Denon DVD-1920 DVD/SACD player, Kenwood (ya, I know…) THX-Select receiver) that distinguish it from a typical HTIB setup.

When I’ve listened to some of the other AV podcasts out there, they pretty much assume that everyone can spend the 1.5k for a nice plasma TV, but that just isn’t possible for many people, especially when people are losing jobs. I love the fact that AV Rant is willing to talk with folks with less funds on how you can build a truly impressive AV system for less.

Looking forward to the Video Calibration podcast.

-sheep

@sheep I agree it can sometimes be intimidating and off-putting to continually hear folks dropping $15,000 on gear like it was nothing.

Fortunately by doing a little research, listening to shows like this etc., one can learn and build a truly impressive “theater” using all sorts of cost-saving methods.

(Now don’t get me wrong I definitely prefer getting THE BEST gear. But sometimes reality has a nasty way of limiting our budgets!)

I have a friend who works in IT for Red Box, they never anticipated this would go national. You can’t really compare the direct mail model of Netlix to Redbox. They are not competitors.

Red Box is becoming the small video store replacement.

More importantly the infrastructure and costs of maintaining the Kiosks is extremely high. As they get more popular the amount of field technicians required to support the kiosks as well and the distribution chain to pick up and deliver new titles is costly as well.

Redbox is for the mainstream average Joe.

If you are a movie lover you certainly will never run out of movies to see on Neflix. You are obviously ignoring the indie, foreign and classic movies.

Mainstream Hollywood is not all that is out there guys get your families to watch something more than just the cookie cutter crap, I promise you it will open a whole new world.

Input lag for games is measurable similar to what Andy was suggesting. CRTs have little lag, so the test is to put a CRT beside your HDTV panel and use a large timer on both screens. I’d assume you’ll output via two different output types (component/HDMI, etc). You take a picture that captures both screens in one image and the difference between the values on the two displays is your lag.

Here is a wikipedia article. There have been several threads over at avsforums as well as a site or two dedicated toward the issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_lag (other links at the bottom of that page)

Timer for the test:

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id=1229335064

There are two causes as I understand it. One is the processing time for scaling, etc. The other is the time that the display actually takes to refresh the screen.

Generally for refresh speeds, as I understand it it goes: CRT<Plasma<LCD<DLP with CRTs being the fastest and DLPs being slowest.

I’m far from an expert on this, but I’ve got a Panasonic plasma with everything going through an Onkyo 805 and haven’t noticed anything. But I’m getting older and my reflexes ain’t what they were in my Q3 days 😀

Good job Andy.

-other Andy

$50 for 3 Blu-Rays? Tom, you need a Fry’s in FLA or at least learn to use E-bay.

Andy, do you really think DLP’s are slower than LCD’s?

I have no experience with DLPs myself, but from reading I have done on the net and in game forums, it seems to be a consistent belief. And the internet is never wrong, right? 😀

Hey! It’s the CanadAmerican Flag! Such beautiful colo(u)rs 😀

Awesome job, Andy G! You said you were nervous, but you were well spoken and a great co-host! I think you will agree with me that much credit goes to Tom because he is a laid back conversationalist, which makes it easy to feel at ease 🙂

I have so much I want to say, but I will try to focus and be brief :p

1) Thanks to Tom for mentioning my Pro Audio Monitor vs. “Home” speaker question. I’ve written an e-mail to Tom in the hopes of gaining further clarification (ie. perhaps a more technical explanation), but I am hopeful that some answers will also come from the KRK review 🙂

It does make intuitive sense (at least to me) that if, hey…these are the types of speakers they use to MAKE the recordings, doesn’t it make some sense to use those same types of speakers to PLAY BACK the recordings? But, of course, the speakers are only half of the equation; the room is the other half and most rooms in our homes are not setup or treated the same as a professional recording studio. Still, I am confused as to the technical ways in which a “studio monitor” is any different from a “bookshelf home speaker”. I’m extra confused that a Pro studio monitor like the KRK Rokit 6 would measure so differently from 0.5m and just 1m! 1m (about 3 feet) is still very much “near-field” to me, so I would really really like to know what is going on there!

2) On the Downloads vs. Discs issue: I want to clarify that I am NOT a “discs forever!” advocate. It’s just that I don’t want to give up many of the things that discs CURRENTLY offer as advantages over internet distribution.

Namely:

– quality (no streaming or download services offer the picture nor the audio quality of Blu-ray at the moment)

– the ability to buy used discs and sell unwanted discs. (Currently, there is no way to buy a “used” download directly from an end user.)

– the ability to watch content on discs even if my internet connection is disrupted. (This is not really a problem for downloads, but it is certainly a problem for streaming!)

These issues might be solved eventually, but for the moment, I just think discs offer distinct advantages. This is also true with videogames. How would you buy a “used” copy of a game if it is download only? How would you “trade-in” your downloaded version once you are done with it? Seems like a good deal for the publishers, but a bad deal for consumers.

3) For movies, it’s easy (albeit illegal) to put DVDs onto a central home server. Mandatory Managed Copy seems to hold the promise of giving a legal way to put your Blu-rays on something like a Windows Media Server and then watch those movies via Extenders in any room in your house! That’s the dream for me, but I’d be perfectly happy to download a movie that would let me do the same thing AND offer the same video and audio quality as Blu-ray!

MMC also seems like it could handle the idea of me, say, buying a disc, putting it on my server and then selling the disc to someone else because authentication is needed before the server copy can be made.

4) To wrap up – Andy G: no TRUE A/V enthusiast would ever laugh at your choice of a 32″ 720p Samsung LCD. The only people who might laugh are the ones who THINK they know something about A/V, but they actually do not 😉

You’ve purchased some EXCELLENT bang-for-your-buck components. And best of all, they are the sort of components that can last you for years and will also have good resale value.

Hey! When you are closer to being ready to build your “media room” I think it would be a real treat to go through the process with you here at AVRant! I’d love for the podcast to have an “Official AVRant Listener Theatre” 😀

Tom, Clint – you guys need to start making a plaque!

Rob: On the downloading of games vs discs, PC gamers have mostly grown to love Steam as a game store because it is unobtrusive, easy, and just works. They have such great sales on a frequent basis, the whole used thing is really nearly irrelevant. I’ve bought several previously $50+ games for $10 on their weekend sales.

Also, many people create new accounts for every game and there is a market to sell these accounts just like you sell full disc games. And a competitor to Steam called Impulse has a new DRM called “Goo” that allows for resaling in it’s architecture:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/03/stardock-unveil/

So if stuff can actually get cheaper due to not having to ship and manage physical product, I think we’ll be OK without the used ecosystem that exists today. I think it either won’t matter as much, or other ecosystems will rise up to take what we have now’s place.

I think it’s interesting to see where all this stuff goes. I rarely buy movie discs these days when I used to buy a lot. I’m all for streaming or digital copies of things…if quality doesn’t suffer (audio, bit rate, etc). Some stuff is fine at lower quality like Netflix streaming, but other things I don’t want compromised (blockbuster action films that need the fidelity of the theater for full effect).

I think the Netflix instant “1080P” streaming on Xbox was discusssed this week or last week. I found this demo showing how things scale based on bandwidth for Silverlight, which I know Netflix uses on PC streaming now and is likely to be using for the Xbox as well…

http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

You can drag the slider on the top right to various bandwidths and it will adjust the video quality dynamically. I would bet you start the “instant streaming” at low bitrates then it scales up as the buffer allows.

Hey Tom, 3 for $50 is too much to pay for Bluray. I regularly see sales on discs that run from $10-$15. You just have to monitor the good deal sites, like slickdeals!

I built my parents system using the wisdom of avrant/audioholics/avsforum and by smart shopping on slickdeals.

Too bad I built my system before I found that site.

I saw a year of xbox live gold over there for $28, and thought of you Tom.

As for me, I’ll stick to free online play on my Wii.

I like saving money and I also like hearing about drool worthy gear. AVrant has always been nicely balanced.

Keep up the good work Tom.

Just found a 50% off coupon for blurays at Borders. Here’s a sample of what they have for less than $11

Lethal Weapon – $8.50
Eyes Wide Shut – $8.50
Under Siege – $8.50
Wickerman – $8.50
Saw -$10.50
Saw II – $10.50
Stargate -$10.50
Rambo II – $10.50
American Psycho – $10.50
Total Recall – $10.50
Stir of Echos – $10.50
Rambo:First Blood – $10:50
The Punisher – $10.50
Young Guns – $10.50
Waiting – $10.50
Basic Instinct – $10.50
The Ninth Gate – $10.50
Reservoir Dogs – $10.50
Short Circuit – $10.50

FYI I only buy DVDs when they are around $4, I’m going to wait for bluray to hit the $6-$8 range before I buy, which they should hit by black friday.