Home Theatre

Ever since my last trip to the US (almost a year ago now), it's been at the back of my mind that I would like to upgrade my Home Theatre setup to support HD. While I look forward to the idea of BD movies high def, the real driver has been sports (if you haven't noticed, I'm a junkie).

So when Adam blogged about his TV being on the blink back in December, I made an offer to sell my SD plasma (mates rates) which would provide me the necessary impetus to go and get a new telly!

This led to a spate of rationalisation of unused components and purchasing/upgrades of new bits and pieces.

A quick summary of my journey over the last month:

TV: Even though LCD has made huge strides over recent years, when it comes down to brass tacks it still does not stack up to plasma in terms of contrast and motion -- and when you factor in my debilitating sports addiction I really had no choice but to go with a plasma. So I decided to get a 50" Pioneer Kuro - the Kuro is for plasmas what the Bravia is for LCD's (kings of their respective markets). After some calibration and tuning, I'm quite pleased with the results.

Amp: I had my heart set on a Denon. I've owned two, and they've been beautiful performers. And after seeing Bernard's AVR-3808ci in the flesh, I had visualised my destiny. But it was not to be! The problem is that Denon components in Australia are at a ridiculously distorted price. In the US, if you look around, it's not hard to find the 3808 for ~US$1200. In Australia it rrp's for A$3200, and the best price I could find was ~A$2500. After looking around, even the mid range Denon's were above A$2000! Noting this horrendous mark-up, I felt compelled to at least test the market.

Beyond the usual suspects in terms of specs, the key criteria for me was to avoid any amp that did not address HDMI clipping, as my intention was to route all video through the receiver (as is typical modern practice). While Harman Kardon and Onkyo do some nice receivers, the only brand that I think holds up consistently across the range as Denon is Yamaha, so I started with them. A bit of research revealed that all of the current mid range (663, 883 etc.) and the previous generation "bottom of the high end" RX-V1800 (i.e. what the AVR-3808ci is for Denon) were all victims of HDMI clipping - and worse yet, Yamaha had no intention of correcting the issue! However, the RX-V1900 (recently refreshed version of the RX-V1800) had addressed any HDMI clipping issues.

After doing a bit of wheeling and dealing over the phone, I managed to get this model for $1600. (Say what?!) Sold! Very easy to setup, although it's missing Denon's pretty GUI (instead it uses blocky fonts you'd expect to see on an Atari 2600's 4k address space). Beyond this, I only have a minor nitpick when it comes to this amp, which is - even compared to my 10 year old Denon - the Yamaha doesn't have a Recording Source Selector (i.e. you are forced to be on the source you wish to record from). Such a basic feature not even in the Yamaha high end! Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the amp.

MCE: With an upgrade in tv and amp, I switched from my DVI output to the HDMI option on my ATI card. 1080p is so luxurious after 848x480! After buying the Kuro and the RX-V1900, I had begun a trend of black components in my entertainment center. Ignoring my Foxtel IQ for a second, my Media Center in it's silver case was sticking out like dogs balls. Given that I wanted to install a blu-ray drive in my media center, I decided that while I was doing any mods that I would replace the case with a nice black Zalman HTPC case. Nowhere near as painful as I was expecting -- literally! Thankfully Zalman have paid some attention in the newer generation case with rounded, finished edges internally so that I managed to avoid any cuts which are typical when you are playing with nasty PC cases and other bits. A nice looking case, but I've noticed the iMon software is a little buggy (much better than the previous VFD though).

HD+: I was an early Foxtel IQ adopter, and I've always thought it was one of the best investments I've ever made. It's very intuitively designed, and just a wonderful appliance. However, after almost 4 years of use, it was starting to get a few bad blocks on the internal drive which meant the system would crash very hard whenever it tripped over one. It also only supports standard definition. Enter the Foxtel IQ2. Native HDMI out, supporting 720p on the sports channels and 1080i on the other HD channels. (You can set it to automatically scale based on your display).

Watching sports on this setup is a dream -- in fact, I've found myself sitting staring at sports I don't even follow (such as soccer and hockey) because it is so visually glorious! I've also been watching a heck of a lot more Discovery and National Geographic!

On a more technical note, a pleasant surprise with this box is that it can output to another device (eg. a VCR or an MCE) via svideo and RCA while the primary signal is sent over HDMI. A negative surprise (but easily worked around) is that for some reason the only way you can get a 5.1 signal is to use the optical SPDIF interface (only stereo over HDMI, which is a joke!).

Speakers: I've kept my Bose AM15 MkII. Bose is quite a controversial brand when it comes to sound (you either love 'em or hate 'em) because it's so reliant on the subwoofer to make up the low and bottom of the mid range. So a poorly tuned setup sounds absolutely dreadful. Really, these speakers are scientifically designed for home theatre -- which is fine for me, because if I've got my amp on, 85% of the time it involves watching the big screen.

I have to say, I was starting to go nuts when I moved these speakers on to the Yamaha - the sub and LFE seemed to be constantly over compensating, and as I was doing my tweaking, with all the earthquake-like vibrating going on I was expecting my neighbours to charge down my door in a rage. No matter how much manual tuning I would do I just could not get the setup to play nicely when the volume was up. So I finally caved in and used the Advanced YPAO/microphone feature (equivalent to Audyssey on the modern Denon's) to tune the speakers -- voila! I now have a wonderful sounding setup. (Thankyou Yamaha!)

Epilogue: Really the only untouched component in this picture is my VCR -- I'm trying to decide whether I might archive a few of my old tapes to my media center or not...

I've held off on buying a console because everytime I buy one I hopelessly under-utilise it after the first month of ownership. Seeing GTA IV on the 360 tempted me for a short while, but not enough to finally buy one. We will see what happens...

I would love an excuse to buy some B&W front speakers for more complete capabilities when it comes to music listening (and relegate the Bose to supporting components in a 7.1 setup), but as I do most of my music listening elsewhere, it is very hard to justify... (Who knows, heheh...)

Anyway, in short, I'm a pretty happy camper.

Bring on HD Superbowl Sunday (on Monday)!

Irony

When life is interesting/enjoyable I've struggled to find the time to blog. As with many people, I originally started my blog during some travel with the intention of detailing some of my journeys, but with the numerous trips I've done in the last 18 months, really I've been hard pressed to record any detail.

January has been a busy, busy month for me. I've rebuilt my home theatre setup (a subject for another blog entry), I've been attending quite a few Sydney Festival events (also another entry), the cricket and NFL playoffs have been tremendously enjoyable, I've been on a little bit of a health kick (which has been very good for me), and the days where I've been back at work it's been... well... interesting and challenging in a good way!

Anyway, so far, a good start to the year...

Those Bloody Bluth Boys

Just sign on, dagnabbit!

Lame

I've just finished watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special (The Next Doctor).

I don't want to give away spoilers, but as per many of Russell T Davies efforts, all style and no substance. Some good ideas (and always great production values) let down by below average writing.

Not quite the worst of his "fan fiction", but certainly containing a few of the hallmarks.

As the old saying goes, you can't polish a turd.

Playoffs

Unfortunately my Redskins (after a very exciting and inspiring 6-2 start) were eliminated from playoff contention last week, and today finished the season with a mediocre 8-8 record. A 2-6 collapse down the stretch? They just could not maintain the physical tone that their impressive running game set in the first 8 games -- and their receivers were way too inconsistent. I'd expect the Skins will go very hard in the offseason on getting some younger athletic linemen on offense.

What I am pleased to see is that the Dallas Cowboys had an even more disappointing collapse to miss the playoffs, having started the season as favoured to make a Superbowl appearance by many media outlets. And I think many teams in the AFC must be breathing a sigh of relief with the Pats somehow managing to miss the playoffs with an 11-5 record!

With regards to the Pats, this will generate some controversy and suggestions for a seeded playoff system, considering undeserving teams like the 8-8 Chargers and 9-7 Cardinals getting a home ground wildcard berths for winning their mediocre divisions. I love tradition, but I think a seeded system would be fairer and make more sense.

As for next weekends Wildcard Round, I'm expecting the visiting teams to dominate:
- Atlanta at Arizona (4.30pm Saturday)
- Indianapolis at San Diego (8pm Saturday)
- Baltimore at Miami (1pm Sunday)
- Philly at Minnesota (4.30pm Sunday)

Now that the Skins are eliminated, it will be nice to just enjoy football as a fan without too many vested interests.

(Except for rooting against Philly! But I think I will have to wait until the Divisional round for them to be eliminated. At least they took care of the Cowboys today...)

Slingin' Sammy

A truly amazing athlete died this week -- Slingin' Sammy Baugh. Sammy was the Quarterback of the Redskins from 1937 to 1952, and turned the forward pass into the centerpiece of NFL that it is today.

When I heard that he passed, I cracked open some Jamesons and started reminiscing through my history books.

My favourite columnist from the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, wrote:

In 1936, the season before Baugh arrived, the average NFL team scored 11.9 points a game and completed 5.6 passes. The NFL completion percentage: 36.5. The entire sport threw only 67 scoring passes to 216 interceptions. A team passed out of third-down necessity or for trickery.

Then came Baugh.

Into this thudding world, where someone named Arnie Herber held such passing records as there were, the 6-foot-2 Texan, who could throw from all angles and drolly asked "which eye" he should hit his receivers in, was a revelation.

As a rookie, starting only five games, he broke the NFL completion record with 81. By 1940, he was accomplishing the inconceivable, completing 62.7 percent of his passes.

And what is really amazing is that he was posting these numbers a modern QB would be proud of with a ball shaped like a Rugby ball rather than the modern streamlined pigskin we know today. But the guy was also a legend on Special Teams as a Punter (technically, they didn't have Special Teams back then) and on Defense as a DB.

More Boswell:

The range of Baugh's skill is almost incomprehensible now. His career punting average was more than 45 yards, but from 1940 through 1942 it was almost 50 yards (49.5). Yes, they liked to quick kick then. But 50 yards is still 50 yards.

In 1940, he intercepted 11 passes in just 10 games. How good is that? No NFL player has intercepted 11 passes since 1981 and the last man to have more than an interception per game was Night Train Lane in 1952.

Sammy won championships for the Skins in 1937 and 1942, but one of the biggest surprises came about 10 years ago when a journalist interviewing Sammy at his ranch (in Rotan, Texas) discussed the infamous 1940 championship where the Skins went down to the Bears 73-0. Sammy went on to tell the story that the Skins purposely took a dive to send a message to owner George Preston Marshall regarding his meddling. Needless to say, this was a controversial revelation!

I loved what John Madden said on Sunday Night Football this week -- that Sammy actually loved the modern game, and admired how skillful the modern players had become. How refreshing compared to the stereotypical old school Hall-of-Famer who never gives the modern sport it's due.

There will never, ever be another Sammy Baugh.

Leavez

This is the end of my first official day of leave -- I'm off until January 5th. I had my office Christmas Party on Friday, and after the cigars, booze and general lack of sleep, I needed most of the weekend to recover from it. While dozing in and out of sleep on the couch, I caught up on episodes of 30 Rock, season 2 of Californication, and re-runs of Arrested Development.

(Three of my favourite American comedies right there... As an aside, Californication keeps impressing me with it's writing, but I wonder if the quality can be sustained for a third season with the upcoming changes in plot.)

Christmas just creeps up on you. I can't believe it's on Thursday. I have a number of bits and pieces around the house I need to get done before V gets back from her trip to NZ. Today was a write-off due to my debilitating sports addiction (NFL), but I did get some washing and shopping done. The good news is, after the last three days, I think I've got "lying on the couch watching TV" out of my system for a little while.

As they say where Bernard lives, "Happy Holidays!"

Fun Net Zero Gain

Had a fun game of Poker with some good blokes last night. Unlike the last couple of games which I played at the end of a work week, I was in pretty good spirits and really enjoyed myself until we closed out at 1am.

I love the Dealers Choice custom in the League of Ordinary Gentlemen; really conducive to traditional bs/trash talk that are the important staples of an entertaining game. But I was getting murdered, thanks largely to losing against a straight flush with a full house in a game of Anaconda.

Until a really late run on my final re-buy, I was slated to make a pretty big loss despite my earlier tourney winnings. But 4 Queens in a game of Spit in the Ocean saved me!

Taxi: -$30
Beers: -$20
Tourney fee: -$20
Pizza: -$10
Tourney winnings: +$80
Dealers Choice + 2 Rebuys: -$60
Cash out at End of Dealers Choice: +$57
League of Ordinary Gentlemen Trophy Minding Goodwill: +$3

I'm already starting to feel a little holiday-ish!

Prague Warm-ups

Over the 8 nights between 27th Oct and 4th Nov I had a peak of about 5 hours sleep a night, and an average somewhere between 3.5 to 4 hours a night.

The waking hours over that period were generally consumed by a company off-site, travel, sporting events, and alcohol-fueled debauchery. More the latter... The only price I've had to pay is a mild cold that I got once I was back in Australia (Tuesday) which has almost subsided.

I am now ready to fly out to Prague on Friday.

I've just glimpsed at the weather there -- it will vary between 3 and 12 degrees celcius while I am there!

As an aside, Hong Kong was a blast!

Netbooks

I bought my first netbook about a month ago - an MSI Wind U100, featuring a 10-inch screen (1024x600) and utilising a 1.6 GHz "Atom" processor. It is extremely light -- the laptop with the battery in it weighs about a kilo.

For A$680 it also came with a 120 GB HD (at the time of ordering it was spec'd with an 80 GB, so bonus...), 1 GB RAM, 802.11g, and a 6-cell battery (good for 4-5 hours). It has 3 external USB ports and an ethernet port. The key thing it doesn't come with: a CD or DVD drive. But that's fine.

I also bought a few 3rd party add-ons -- another 1 GB RAM, replaced the Wireless G mini PCI-E card with a Wireless N, and replaced the internal disk with a 2.5-inch 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm). This brought the total spend up to around (just below) A$1000. In terms of modifying/installing the 3rd party hardware? Piece of cake.

A couple of weekends ago I configured it as a hackintosh (10.5.4). I am very impressed with the results -- the laptop is quite snappy even with I/O and CPU intensive tasks such as running a Windows XP instance in VMware or playing video.

The only HW not working is the headphone jacks and the internal microphone (easily remedied with a USB headset, which I use when I voice-skype anyways).

While I'll keep my MacBook Pro for everyday work, the netbook should be the perfect travel companion for my upcoming trips to Hong Kong and the Czech Republic. Not only is it compact and light, but it's so inexpensive that if it came to the crunch I wouldn't be too worried about replacing it if it got flogged.

For A$1000, I think the spec is unbelievably good.