CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[stefuel]

[MikeEby]

I have a little more than 425 BD movies on my media server, it's takes up about 10TB. You can now buy 2TB drives for $100-$110 each so I have around $500 invested in storage based on the current cost. Motherboard cpu & ram would be around another $200. So from a pure cost side and plug and play the the Sony has an advantage. The media server however has an advantage because it can be use by several displays in the home, and is much faster loading. I've never been crazy about mechanical changers...But that's just me.

Mike

[Spanky Ham]

Honestly, I am with Arnold on this. To me, HTPCs are just becoming to much of a pain in rear. When I first saw someone's HTPC that had a couple of hundred dvds on it, I couldn't help but think am I to lazy to just go and put a disc in the player? I have thought about using the HTPC for Netflix rentals, but now I am getting to the point where I don't even want to mess with that. Anyway, nice theater Arnold!

[achase]

As always, I've found the HTPC discussions enlightening. While I fully appreciate the technology behind a server idea, to use the saving of a few seconds to pop in a disc as a justification for a system is almost comical. I tried to do a bit of 'back of the envelope' calculating, and any way I look at it, the hours upon hours to burn the movies, the hours and expense to construct a server and wire the interface, and even the speed (or lack thereof) of scrolling through a film list just doesn't add up to me. Most times I know what I want to watch, and the discs are physically just a few feet from the player. While theoretically one could just sit in their seat and select a whole bunch of films, I can't see myself sitting through six or eight hours of films at a time. And when I look at boot-up times for the server, power consumption, and the vulnerability of a hard drive to instantly wipe out hundreds of films, I keep coming back to just looking at the rows of Blu-Rays (which are in alphabetical order), putting one in the player, and walking the 20 feet to my seat. Perhaps in other homes, where films are viewed in many rooms, having a central access to the films might be helpful, but in my case I just can't see it.

[ecrabb]

I'm with you, Arnold. I'm a total tech geek, and I just don't see the appeal to a full-on media server with hundreds of movies loaded on it. I mean, I just don't watch the same movies over and over. Yeah, it may be neat to have the movies all queued up in the server and be able to scroll through them, but other than that, it has no value to me, at least not considering the time it takes to set the machine up, get the software and hardware all configured, de-bugged, and everything working right. Just not worth the trouble.

I have an AppleTV with the kids' movies on it, some trailers and such on the PS3, and beyond that, I'm perfectly happy slapping a disc in the player and waiting the 30-60 seconds to skip the trailers and FBI warnings.

SC

[perisoft]

For my part, I use an HTPC due to cost (at this level, presumably not a major factor for Mr. Chase). There's no way I could afford a player, a DTS decoder or similar to get audio to my (cobbled-together) separate amps (or a HT receiver of adequate quality), and - more crucially - no way I could afford a parametric per-channel gamma device.

With the ability to do super-detailed gamma / gray tracking on board the computer, and a Nikon SLR, I can get color quality as good as anything out there at any price. Otherwise I'm stuck with mediocre tracking and terrible black levels, at best.

The knock-on effect, of course, is that I can't use 'real' bluray player software - no commercial players will render on anything other than an overlay, and thus the gamma app I use won't work. So everything has to be ripped. Once they're ripped, might as well archive 'em.

But, yeah, if I could do all of that in my price range, I'm not sure I'd have a huge incentive to stay with the HTPC despite the customization. I just gotta have good color and audio, and on a budget, it's not happening any other way.

[MikeEby]

I guess it’s whatever trips your trigger. Often times I’ll go down to the theater and just watch some of my favorite scenes from a picture. Having your entire collection at disposals with a few clicks of a remote without getting up is very appealing.

One second I’ll be watching the Canal Chase in "Terminator 2", jump parachute scene from "Star Trek" (2009), then watch the opening scene from "Cars". The transition from movie to movie takes literally seconds.

I also use direct analog RGBHV from the HTPC to the projector and avoid all the HDCP handshaking non-sense. I will agree an HTPC/Server is geeky...no question there.

Mike

[garyfritz]

I totally agree with your position, Arnold. But talk about comical:

[achase]

[garyfritz]

OK then, but if you're leaving the server on 24/7, you don't get to complain about boot-up times!!

[achase]

[garyfritz]

Not trying to wrestle you into submission, Arnold -- just yankin' ya a little. I think your theater is spectacular!

[Clarence]

Still backed up with a lot of other stuff, but figured I’d add another chapter to my rambling recollections…

After getting the tour of the Lobby and Projection Room, we went into the Theater. Pictures just don’t do it justice. The screen was even larger than I’d envisioned, but the room seemed shallower. Ceiling height was really nice. Most of us have drooled over Theo K’s designs for years ( http://www.tktheaters.com ). This one had the recognizable TK signature touches… very ornate, very classy. The lighting was impressive. The grills, the trim, the ceiling work, the fabric, the stage… everything was top notch.

A few nitpicky things jumped out at me… the cupholders in the seats didn’t have a bottom… just a ring. It would hold a paper cup from the concession stand just fine, but if anyone had a bottle of water, or I think one time a friend of mine might’ve brought a bottle of beer into my HT, but it would drop straight through. I think Arnold chose those cupholders because they were wood instead of plastic, but I think I’d look for some black plastic inserts to drop in to hold a bottle. Like I said, nitpicky.

The other thing I noticed was that the seat rows weren’t staggered. In commercial theaters, it’s nice to look between the heads of the people sitting in front of you. I didn’t have anyone sitting in front of me here, but the height of the rows in Arnold’s Theatre should be enough so this won’t be a problem.

Arnold left the side-lights on. And the rope lights on the stairs. I’m used to a very dark viewing environment. But you don’t want 105 people wandering around in pitch black, so this was probably a more practical light level. But it didn’t help the contrast. Don’t get me wrong, the PQ was very good and that screen is huuuuge. But I would’ve never guessed 20+ ftL. I remember Cliff’s stack making my eyes squint. The light from the ILA was at a very comfortable viewing level. Convergence and geometry was spot on. Colors seemed very accurate… not over-saturated like a lot of digitals give. Maybe it was the lack of contrast due to the ambient light, but the colors didn’t seem as deep or richly saturated as CRT. But I’m sure everything was accurate and at reference… not pumped up or cranked up.

I was surprised at the number of hot pixels, or whatever the more appropriate term would be for the green specks in the panels. The most noticeable one was in the lower right corner, out of the 2.35 frame. But there were half-a-dozen more that you could notice from the front row. Arnold also mentioned that he had a hair in the optical path… it was probably only the size of an eyelash, but on screen, only during a bright white scene, it ended up being 3 feet high in the left-center of the projected image.

Gotta head to the airport. More later...

[kal]

[kal]

[ecs1]

Clarence, the inperfections are in the ILA (hot specs) are so miner they do not in any way diminish the viewing of any material. Those Values are the best of the best. Fast high contract and very little flaws. You should have seen some of the average valves. Also remember that's a huge screen. take a CRT projector blow it up to 28" and I'll show you modeling on the phosper. Over all it a very nice Image not One sign of any digital artifact. smooth and clean.
I'll let you finnish the review.
You will have to stop buy and see my 12K setup I'm near Leesburg, VA I have a 24 foot Ciniperf at 28 FL 3/2 roll off.
Regards

[ecs1]

One last thing those That CDXL 60 is only good for around 500 HRs so roll off the first 100 hrs is pretty step. A new lamp should give arnold around 24-26 FL end of life maybe 14-16. but 16fl is open gat at the local ciniplex and your lucky to see that.
Regards

[stefuel]

[ecs1]

stefuel, Arnold is using a white horse processor. It's amazing it takes the 1080P 24 HDMI and simple converts to 1080P60 RGBHV it's amazing.

[Clarence]

[stefuel]