Archive from 04-05-2002
Gar ( 207.1.1.86 ) at 2:24 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Wild Bill
Meridian: Some guy has a 557 Amp listed cheap, this Amp is a fantatic Amp for 2 channel, just as good as some Threshold gear I have had before.
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 2:23 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Gar: Creative Labs since last August. The downside to most positions like mine is the pay, you'd have to take a serious paycut I'm sure. And you can't have mine 
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 2:20 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
distributed exclusively by Pioneer
Curtis: Looks like the listing got removed,sorry.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 2:13 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Diana Krall DVD
I picked up the new DVD last night and I'm very pleased. I went by Brian's store and listened to it on several of his systems. dts seemed to put too much of her piano in the right rear. When I got home and listened on my DD only system, it was much more balanced with the piano slightly outside the RF speaker. Sounds great.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 2:11 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Gar: It's not nice to fool poor old Curtis like that.
Gar ( 207.1.1.86 ) at 2:11 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Curtis
That was a late April fools for you 
Although the thought sounds like a good one
Gar ( 207.1.1.86 ) at 1:49 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Curtis: Diana Krall Naked in Playboy next month.... Wow, I am all over that. This sultry jazz singer will be posing for all the world to see. What a set of lungs she must have!!!!!!!!
Tony C ( 205.188.193.158 ) at 1:47 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
BC: Man that's harsh. But I'm very happy that you made the cut.
It's really unnerving isn't it.
Best of luck to us all.
Robert: Glad to hear you're ok too.
Gar ( 207.1.1.86 ) at 1:47 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Robert: Who are you working for? Are you still with Pioneer? I got booted out of a few clinics today. The Ultra liberals in this town are only going to make things worse for the consumer in the long run. This is my last time at a Pharm Rep, I been on boths sides of the fence and both look grim.
BC ( 166.35.220.132 ) at 1:26 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Robert: Thank you sir! Layoff's happened yesterday but I'm still here. Can't say that for half the people in the class I'm taking. They were told to come to a meeting yesterday at 11:30 and never came back.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 12:35 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
distributed exclusively by Pioneer
Robert: Then hook me up! Where shall I send my resume?
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 12:29 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Chris L.: A hearty congratulations on your upcoming nuptuals. We're going on 9 years and to think if I wasn't so stupid, we'd be married sooner. Congrats,remember, no cameras at the bachelor party are allowed !
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 12:21 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
distributed exclusively by Pioneer
Curtis: PIoneer Entertainment actually has a rep job open for this side of the biz !! You Diana Krall groupie!!!
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 12:18 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Gladitor in HD Sunday night
Curtis: I'm all over it !!!
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 12:17 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
BC: Further good luck in avoiding the axe.
I think I'm ok now myself. Back to business as usual... whewww !!!
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 12:11 PM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Mrs. C
Tony C: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
When you said you felt like Danny Glover, I could only assume you meant you got "picked apart by a sniper" errrr, your wife after reading this story. If you were a cat, you would not have too many lives left my friend.
Enjoy !!
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 11:55 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New dedicatede HT room
Gar: Yes by all means I meant to include all high quality one lens FPs. The only 10HT I have ever seen was setup in what I can only describe as ultra-torch mode. The store refused to back off of the contrast & brightness controls while assuring me that their clients ALWAYS prefer the picture all F*&ked up. That was the last time I ever set foot in that store.
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 11:42 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New dedicatede HT room
Curtis: I second that, also take a look at the Sony 10/11HT and the new unit by Hatachi.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 11:37 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New dedicatede HT room
Kieran: When your eyes are tired of doing electro/mechanical focus of blue guns, geometery headaches and esp. convergence setup - do yourself and your friend a favor & check out the new Sharp 9000 DLP 16:9 FP. Point and shoot, do some minor tweaking and you're done.
A side benefit could be that you get to borrow the little thing when your friend is out of town to "fine tune" everything with exotic test equipment aka: your wall.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 11:08 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
WB to deliver 720p HD?
I'm not supposed to cut & paste this:
“One of my responsibilities at The WB is HDTV. While we are not ready for a formal announcement we hope to have some HDTV this fall and are making preparations to distribute it to our affiliates. We will use 720-P. Since our target audience is 12-34 and skews female, finding advertiser support is a little more challenging.”
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 11:01 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Tony C: http://www.moulinrougedvd.com/index_frames.html
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:55 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
Curtis: Well the only thing there going to cause is more confusion for exisiting customers. I do subscribe, but I don't like the amount of control
some of these companies have. I have even heard some DTV employees are telling about information and giving information out to these hackers, so I bet there is a way around there codes.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 10:51 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
Gar: Well the 1st thing that hackers will need is a bunch of the new generation cards. Owners dumb enough to hand over the ones that DTV issues to them may wind up with no cards if DTV was smart enough to disable the card the instant someone trys to modify it. That's what I would do if I were in their shoes.
Tony C ( 64.12.104.162 ) at 10:48 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Gar: LOL! I guess it is hard to think of TV Land or the Cartoon network as "intellectual".
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:48 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New Aragon Amps
Gasgeek: That is one of the things I liked about the Aragon piece is the easy way they have the pass through setup. The units have been delayed for sometime now, if this unit is allot better than my Anthem piece I can trade it in for full value.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 10:47 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Mrs. C
Tony C:ROTFLMAO! I can clearly imagine your panic. Huge congratulations on your new RP my friend. I suspect your work productivity today will stay at zero - enjoy.
You change aspect modes in a 2-step process 1) hit "Pic Size" (2nd button from the left top, it brings up a menu of 5 choices #'d 0-4. 2) hit the # of the mode you want.
For most 4:3 material I use TheaterWide 1. It keeps the center of the image in proportion while it stretches the left and right. The others zoom or stretch too much for my tastes. Full mode is for anamorphic DVD's.
Picture settings. Try these for starters.
Video Mode: Movie
Brightness: 50
Contrast:45
Tint: 0
Sharpness:20 to 30
ALF: Auto light trash: Off
Skin Tone Correction: Off
Video Noise Reduction: Off
Mode: Film (turns on 3:2 pulldown detection)
Convergence: Go ahead and do the 9 point conversion - it won't hurt anything but expect it to drift quite a bit for the 1St 100 or so hours
Remember to save all of your settings before shutting the RP off. Each input can be set/saved individually.
I'm doing this from memory. RTFM you lazyman!
If you want to wow Mrs C. than go pickup the Moulin Rouge DVD. I picked it up last night. Kieran is correct that the video on this disc is awesome. It also has some pretty good THX Video setting test screens at the intro - I think you go to Options or Setup to get there.
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:46 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
Tony C: It will be interesting to see if our Canadian friends think of this, I have cousins that receive DSS signals thats because they can't subscribe to it, so I hear. I bet as I write this some hacker already has a new card and is already working on a way to rewrite or overwrite these cards.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 10:44 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Aragon Amps
Gar: The 8 channel analog bypass on the Aragon Stage One is handled through the DB-25 input much like the new EAD Pre/Pros.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 10:42 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New Aragon Amps
Gar: Yeah, the look is cool. It appears that the 2000 series is an upgraded version of the Acurus line, but at an increased price. I'm still waiting on the Pre/pro to check it out. From everything I've read, the Anthem is a very nice piece. The specs on the Stage One look pretty impressive. The two channel is very similar to their two channel preamps. Basic straight pass through. We'll see. I can't get a deal on the Anthem as only one guy in our area has them and he works out of his house. Oh well. Still waiting to see about the new Arcam FMJ AV8 too. All this, and I'll probably end up with an EAD 8000 or 8000Pro when it's all said and done.
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:39 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
ldquo;By developing a new generation access card that strengthens the DIRECTV System’s security, we continue to take aggressive steps to curb piracy and protect our intellectual property as well as the interests of our customers, retailers and programmers,” said Roxanne Austin, president and COO, DIRECTV, Inc.
Yeah "intellectual property" give me a break!
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:36 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
Tony C: Most of these hackers are very good at what they do, I expect them to get around this problem too. If there is a way to reprogram a card there is a way to rewrite it.
Tony C ( 64.12.104.162 ) at 10:31 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
Curtis: Remember that I told you it was a matter of time for the pirates?
You can steal music, but you can't steal the air.
Tony C ( 64.12.104.162 ) at 10:28 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Mrs. C
I forgot to tell you guys this part.
Tweeter called my line while I was in the shower. I expected them to come after 9A, but at 7:45 I saw a message waiting for me on my line.
It was them saying that they would be here between 8 and 10A.
Well, I start to freak a little bit because the whole plan was to have the old tv out and the new one in while she was gone. She wouldn't even know till she sat down to watch a movie.
It's 10 to 8 and I'm getting a little antsy because she's still here.
"No early clietn this morning, Hon?"
"nope".
All I could think was GET OUT!
So, while she's finishing her coffee, I go down stairs to get ready.
I move all the furniture, I start to loosen the screws of the railings.
Then, I get on the phone so she won't question why I'm not leaving for work.
It's 5 after 8, I'm dying and she FINALLY puts her coat on.
Then, she looks at me and says, "Oh, I forgot my clippers." And down the stairs she goes.
I hear what was almost a hushed screem.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of questions and some explaining to do on my part.
Had I waited, 10 minutes, it would have worked perfectly. But I know she passed the truck as she headed out of the subdivision. Because they were there minutes after she left.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 10:27 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTV replacing all access cards again
This should fry the pirates for a while. DTV is mailing out new cards to all subscribers to enhance security. How much $ must this cost to do?
Expect swap out instructions to show up on ch. 222 most likely.
PR here: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/aboutus/headline.jsp?id=04_02_2002A
Tony C ( 64.12.104.162 ) at 10:16 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
IT MADE IT!IT MADE IT!
Did you guys ever see that Vietnam War movie (I wish I could remember the name) with Danny Glover. And just before Danny gets picked apart by a sniper, the patrol encounters a Veitnamese prostitute. Danny is really into it, but the girl says, "no, no, black men too big!".
But Danny says, "No, wait, see...it's not too big".
The girl takes a look and Danny is relieved of some built up tension.
Well that's kind of what happened this morning.
I said KIND OF! (you sickos)
OK, the delivery truck pulls up the kid gets out to check out the situation. Looks down the stairs and says, "no way".
Boom. Nothing. Just dead-pan face, No Way.
Suddently I start thinking I'm going to have a Mits.
But I say WAIT! I built this box, see! And I bring him into the work room, which is in the basement, and tell him that it fits.
Still he's really not into busting his nuts so early in the day.
So he tells me to grab the box and we start to work it around to see how it fits.
He tells me that the problem is that they slide it down the stairs on it's side, not on the bottom because it's hollow.
I explain that the sides are square, 61x61 and he doesn't believe me till I get the measuring tape out.
He measures, looks it over and says, "OK, we'll give it a try".
I ask him about the old TV. "Will $40 get the old TV back up the stairs?"
He says, "We'll see how the first one goes. I may not feel like it."
So, we get it set up and with my help, and the most modest scratch in the wall, we get it in. Just like Danny Glover did!
It's working, I only did a quick set of contrast, sharpness, etc.
I did not do any convergence. I'm going to use Avia and stay home toady.
Curtis: Since I haven't even opened the manual yet, how do you adjust the video modes, not the inputs. I got that, but more specifically, the 4:3 fill modes.
Thanks eveyone, I'll get back to you in a few hours.
Gar ( 204.71.148.115 ) at 10:13 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New Aragon Amps
Gasgeek: I like the looks of there Amps, and I was going to buy there new Pre/Pro, but with Aragons track record on pre/pros I went with the Anthem. Plus from what I saw it had more to offer for the money.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 9:55 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
... I would have emailed this to you but my Outlook client is fried and needs reinstalling. Early bird gets the worm. There's a 2nd DTC on the same board with more use. Use the NYC price to bring this guy inline.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.240 ) at 9:39 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
DTC 100 ~$300
Kieran: Dude, maybe I'm just lucky but there's something you'll want to check out. Mint DTC, only used a few times, best offer >$300. HD dish is also available" In NYC. Reason for selling - landlord forcing everyone to remove dishes.
Now what's the guy going to do with the dish & no receiver? I would offer $301 for both. Good luck. http://www.avsforum.com/classifieds/classifieds.cgi?session_key=&search_and_display_db_button=on&db_id=1985&query=retrieval
Rich ( 152.163.197.207 ) at 4:03 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Scott Pop, u have e-mail.
Scott "popcorn" ( 207.193.33.85 ) at 2:46 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Scott "popcorn": Oops... guess it doesn't handle the semicolons... but it does handle commas and spaces
Scott "popcorn" ( 207.193.33.85 ) at 2:46 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Kieran: problem with parsing URLs in the SML code! That URL below has semi-colons in it, so the SML mistakenly recognized the first semi-colon as the end or the URL. Something to consider...
Already considered it long ago... if you just put quotes around the URL in the SML (the quotes work with any "parameter" of an SML function), it will take the whole bit. In this case, you get: f=60;t=000202";this link
Kieran ( 209.204.144.50 ) at 2:04 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Curtis: It's definitely worth a try, to see if she can get some OTA channels from Sutro. BTW, the calibration wasn't free... well, I thought it was, as she's the mom of an old high school buddy, but she insisted on paying us. And, she was so impressed with our attitude, and knowledge, that she has asked us to help her contractors design her a dedicated HT room for her new ranch up in Mendocino County. This is tentative, but could be very fun. I'll keep the forum posted on details, if it comes to fruition. Her first indication was that the room will be a full blown HT, with theater seats, FP, the works. We'll see... it's still a ways off.
I didn't mean to sound touchy about the DTC100 price thing... I was teasing more than anything. It's just that I *have* been looking (for another friend who wants one... and less so for myself, since Dad has mine) and there are NONE for below $300. Not that I've seen anyway.
Kieran ( 209.204.144.50 ) at 1:48 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Anthony Gallo speakers
Cytotech: Yamaha RX-V430 ($299) or -V420 (less than $299, not sure how much tho') might do nicely... The 430 has dpl, dpl-II, dd5.1 and dts5.1.
Gasgeek ( 209.179.213.70 ) at 12:19 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
Winston. I was out of the office all day. I'll check the email when I get in tomorrow.
Gasgeek ( 209.179.213.70 ) at 12:19 AM EST Thursday, April 4, 2002
New Aragon Amps
Played with a new Aragon 2007 amp yesterday. Sounded pretty good. This is the 7 channel unit. It's all aluminum and lighter than it looks for it's size. It's big. This was a silver one with the blue light. Looked pretty cool. The Stage One pre/pro hasn't arrived yet. More later.
Cytotech ( 67.232.172.221 ) at 11:05 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Anthony Gallo speakers
I have a client(side job) that is in need of new speakers. I showed her pictures of the Gallo Nucleus Micro system(since it sounds better to me than Bose, and is still considered a "lifestyle" system. Any thoughts on these?
Also any thoughts on a receiver for under $300? I am thinking Denon or Yamaha. All input is welcome and appreciated.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.157 ) at 10:19 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Kieran: It seems that every other Wega or RP or whatever that I have taken the time to properly adjust picture settings on just end up back in torch mode. Users don't always want detail and clean images, they just want wow. I have given doing up free calibrations out of frustration with otherwise smart people who want that "really good bright picture back."
Of course you should do calibration w/ avia or VE. FYI you'll find the needle pulse pattern worthless (the line never bends). One thing users are reporting is that percieved detail goes way up when you set the contrast low. One dude over on htspot has his set at 15 for all inputs 7 swears by it!
Didn't know I was bombarding you with the last DCT price. My point is that if I can find a deal like this in 10 minutes then so should any other person with a Net connection. No other use for the box? What do you call HDNet and HBO/HD? You're welcome to borrow my OTA antenna when I'm in Chicago or the weekend of 5/10 while the house gets tented for termite gassing (ugh) For all you know she may be able to get 10+ digital OTA's.
Tony C ( 205.188.197.52 ) at 10:10 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
I hooked up the Toshiba SD3750 DVD player tonight. I pretty nice machine but nowhere near the quality of my old Sony. But it does have more features and has a very good picture.
I went to Remote Central to see if anyone had a cool ccf for it, but there were none.
While on Remote Central, I downloaded a ccf for a 65H81 which should be the same for my TV. It had the codes for the inputs as well as the codes for the service menus.
Tony C ( 205.188.197.52 ) at 10:08 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
White bass
BAGMAN: In this part of the country, it's the Wolf River.
I go to Freemont WI.
The fish this time of year in the cold water is very good and it stays fine if frozen.
However, if you catch them after early spring, just do it for fun because the meat gets mushy as the water temperature rises.
I catch alot in Illinois, but never eat them. In fact I don't keep any fish I catch in Illinois.
BAGMAN ( 207.30.182.95 ) at 8:05 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
White bass
Tony C: Where in the world does one go fishing for white bass. Do you remember the days when they would come in close to shore and boil the top of the water. Lake Erie still has white bass but not in the numbers that they were 10 to 30 years ago. They were,at best, fair eating. Good if eaten that evening but did not refridgerate or freeze good.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 8:01 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Scott Popcorn: problem with parsing URLs in the SML code! That URL below has semi-colons in it, so the SML mistakenly recognized the first semi-colon as the end or the URL. Something to consider...
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 8:00 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Okay, instead, try checking out THIS thread:
http://www.hometheaterspot.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=000202
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 7:57 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
9" CRT rptv
Anyone who might be in the market for a truly high-end RPTV, check out f=60;t=000202;this thread.
Seems there's a line on some brand new (discontinued) Phillips 64"ers, with the 9" guns. That's probably the best HD-ready RPTV ever made. (without regard to the line doubler, about which I know nothing... just talking pure HD picture quality and resolution.)
BAGMAN ( 207.30.182.95 ) at 7:56 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Chris L.: Best of luck to both of you.
BAGMAN ( 207.30.182.95 ) at 7:53 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Bagman
Joe: Aztec Autumn was the name. I read it in about three days, it was good.
Tony C ( 205.188.193.34 ) at 7:45 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Big Al: YOu have mail.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 5:45 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Curtis:Thanks for the explanation about what you meant with Movie mode, versus sports/standard/etc. Come to think of it, what I was seeing could be the effect of SVM combined with normal pixelization that the line doubler adds anyway. I'll bet that with SVM off, the problem I saw will be much less objectionable. That was a brain fart on my part... I know better than to forget about disabling SVM. In fact for the set I cal'ed last night (a Sony WEGA) I made sure to turn it off.
40 Sharpness is excessive on my RP - try 20.
I'm not going to "try" any setting. I'm going to bring AVIA and calibrate it properly, and how ever it ends up, is how I'll leave it! Like I said, I only turned it down to 40 as an initial precaution against overdriving the CRTs. 40 may not be ideal for the best picture, but it is not going to overdrive the CRTs enough to damage them, unlike the 80 or so setting it was at initially! 
If you really want to know, here's my logic for choosing 40 for brightness, contrast, and sharpness... All three of these were WAY too high initially... like around 80 or 100 (contrast was at 100), as is normal out of the box. MOST average TV owners "think" that the extremely bright over driven picture is "good". Since I wasn't able to do a PROPER calibration using AVIA, but I wanted to turn down the settings from the "torch" mode, I chose a setting slightly higher than what I figured it would end up at after a proper calibration. This way, the owner will get used to a slightly dimmer (albeit more detailed) picture, and then when I bring it down even more after a proper calibration, they won't notice it so much, and will likely just notice the improved detail. Often, people who's set's I calibrate, complain after the fact that "it's too dark" and get so hung up on how "dark" the picture is they don't want to listen about how much more detail there is. So, since I knew I'd be coming back in about a month or less, I thought I'd "ease her into it" so to speak, especially since I had no calibration disc with me.
I only had a limited amount of time, and adjusting oversan and size would have taken too much time. The convergence was bad enough initially that it was worth the 5 minutes it took me to run a quick 56 pt convergence on Normal, Theaterwide2 and Full sizes. Glad to hear you can still turn off the blue gun... I'll use that next time.
As for feeding it an HD picture... well, you seem to forget where we ARE! If it were that simple, I'd be watching my DTC100 by now. And she doesn't have DSS, either. So, hooking up a dtc100 would not get her anything.
HOWEVER I would like to try puting up a big rooftop UHF antenna, like the mesh/bowtie one you have now, on her house... because she does live quite high on a ridge, and if anyone can get OTA signals from Sutro up here, the houses in her neighborhood are the ones. We'll see...
BTW, you keep touting your $250 purchase of a dtc100... next time you see one for $250 or less, let me know and I'll buy it. I've searched, and haven't seen ANY for that cheap anywhere. THAT was a true "Curtis-Deal" (TM) 
LOL!
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 5:28 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
BIG AL: Yeah and I got a pretty sweet price too.
I don't see a problem getting it donw the stairs. But you never know.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 5:09 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Interesting XBox article
I found this article to be interesting... especially the part where they say that DOA3 is not 1080i, and they verified it with the game's developer! Go figure.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.157 ) at 5:02 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Kieran: Maybe the edge noise problem is something I don't notice or have grown to ignore. I wasn't talking about 3:2 detection, I meant the 1st picture mode where the options are Sports/Standard/Movie/Pref. Movie turns SVM off. Pref is your last saved setting. All inputs can keep individual Prefs in memory. You probably know that you need to save all settings or they'll get lost on power-down. 40 Sharpness is excessive on my RP - try 20.
No harm in doing a 56 pointer early on as long as you plan to return. Duane & others told me there is far more drift early on. You should also do sizing, geometry and focus before the 56 pt. convergence. most overscan too much out of the box.
Here's a great way to disable the internal doubler: feed it a HD source! The last DTC-100 I bought was all of $250 (AVS classifieds). It's a crime how many HD ready sets never get put to their full use. Other than that I'm unaware of a way to bypass the 540p doubler.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 4:58 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
BIG AL: What's a USB cue cat?
BIG AL ( 148.77.32.21 ) at 4:13 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Plenty of USB cue cats left for anyone interested. big_al6@yahoo.com
Tony C.; Koool! Toshiba has always been my fav. for the $$$. A few years back (when I was younger) I helped a buddy take a metal and wood framed 300 gal. aquarium out of his basement, and put his new all glass 300 gal. replacement in it's place. Had to brace the stairs with 6 4x4s! My tv was easy compared to that. Yours will be too!
RickMTB ( 207.18.199.196 ) at 4:11 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
BC: Glad to hear you are not effected by today's news...
Kieran ( 192.25.142.22 ) at 3:42 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
New TV
Tony C: Good luck moving that 65HX81 downstairs! I'm sure it will go smoothly... I'm sure you'll love the set.
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 3:17 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
New TV
The last couple of posts about the Toshiba were interesting since I just bought the 65HT81. Delivered tomorrow. Hopefully, I will have the old TV out and the new one in place before Mrs. C comes home from work.
If I do...she'll never notice untill we go downstairs to watch a movie.
Kieran, I read about the edging problem. An ISF guy told me about them. it was the only thing bad he had to say about the TV. Whereas, the fixes for the Mits were much more complicated.
So, I'll give you guys a shout tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 3:07 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Gladitor in HD Sunday night
Curtis: I try not to miss it. I tried to turn friends on to the show, but they say it's too depressing. I guess they're right.
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 3:04 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
T-Man: I don't think it's the tree. I think it's ECMs that DTV is sending out. It's checking your card against your receiver.
Do the channels then mysteriously come back again?
This has been happening to me for about two weeks.
I get the same message, or the screen freezes or it just goes blank.
Next day, there it is.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.22 ) at 2:53 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Winston aka The Spleen: COOL! Looking forward to watching this dvd! How is the sound? Is it just mono, or did they re-mix it?
Kieran ( 192.25.142.22 ) at 2:48 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Curtis: Like I said, I tried both "video" and "movie" (I called it 'film') modes for all sources... and didn't see much of a difference. I did set it to the medium temp setting, not warm. I turned off all auto picture settings. I left Sharpness around 40 I think... maybe it was 30, but I think I left it at 40. Anyway, I didn't have a cal disc (AVIA or VE) with me, so I just wanted to get it down below 50 for the time being. You're preaching to the choir about sharpness adding noise and ringing, my friend. Yes the LD output is attached via a decent Monster s-vid cable.
I remembered your comments about the Sony looking better direct than through the iScan, which is why I posted here. I was expecting a pretty good picture for DVD.
I doubt it's GIGO for the dvd player... as what I'm seeing is the same effect for all sources, just not as bad on the DVD player (best quality source) so I'm thinking the dvd player is fine.
Re. the convergence... I disagree. I think it's well worthwhile to do a quick convergence even on a fairly new set (she's had it for a couple weeks anyway). Convergence will drift over time no matter what, and I'll be back there fairly soon anyway, to do a full AVIA cal, at which time I'll do the convergence again. In the mean time, her theaterwide and normal size modes look a lot better.
To elaborate on the bad picture... Maybe I'm just expecting too much?
What I saw looked to me like very small pixelization on edges... which is what made me think it was the line doubler, since I saw it on both DVD (digital source) and the analog sources (LD, cable, VHS).
I wonder are there any tests I can do to ensure that the line doubler is working properly? Is there a way to fully disable or bypass it, so I can check for a drastic difference? Switching from 'movie' to 'video' mode doesn't turn off the line doubler, it just changes how it does the doubling.
The owner was very pleased with the picture, so I didn't say anything, for now.
Thanks for any further input.
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.76.2 ) at 2:39 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Gasgeek: You have mail.
Kieran: I have the GB&U dvd, it's and excellent transfer with some interesting extra scenes. Enjoy!
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 1:58 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
BC: As one who spend many years in corporate America, I have found that sometimes forced staff reductions can be a good Thing (TM)... like ridding the deadwood who you always wondered ever got their job in the 1st place. There was tons of this back when I was in banking.
BYork ( 198.74.16.148 ) at 1:44 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Chris L -
CONGRATS!
BC ( 166.35.220.132 ) at 1:36 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Curtis: Yep, so far today we have only lost one person in our group and we all knew he was getting the ax (he did too). This guy was a total loser and sorry excuse for a human being, (liar, cheater, etc.)
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 1:30 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Kieran: Only thing I can think of is you may not have put it in Movie video mode. The WideScreen Review of this model also says that the medium color temperature is closer to D6500 than the warm setting.
Be sure that all of the auto picture settings are turned off (fleshtone, ALS, etc.) Sharpness shouldn't be set above 25 for any source or you're only introducing noise that never existed in the source material. Did you attach the DVD/LD player via S-video? Should look at least passable.
Owners on The HT Spot are reporting limited, if any benefit to using a progressive scan DVD player on this display. I haven't tried one so can't comment yet can tell you that a Sony DVP-S7000 connected direct via component cables looks better than it does going thru an iScan 1st.
It could be a bad set, good old GIGO (that's not the best DVD player on the planet) or a combination of both at work. There's no point in going into the 56 point convergence adjustment until it has gone through a good months' worth of being on. Anything you see today will drift quite a bit.
Yes you can turn off the blue gun. It's done with the "Ch Trn" button located below the volume button. Can you elaborate on the bad picture a bit more? Every sample I've seen in stores look pretty solid though none were properly setup as usual.
Rich ( 152.163.204.51 ) at 1:29 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Scott Pop, Got your e-mail, i'll get back to u tonite...
Rich ( 152.163.204.51 ) at 1:26 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
XL Big Al, You're The Mannnn
Rich ( 152.163.204.51 ) at 1:23 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Chris L, Congrats!!!!
Kieran ( 192.25.142.22 ) at 1:13 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Toshiba 57HX81
Am I missing something?
The other night, Dan and I went over to help a friend's mom setup her new 57HX81. It was delivered and installed by Good Guys, and of course they screwed up the wiring, and speakers (why they messed with her speakers is beyond me). Anyway, I didn't have AVIA with me, but did do a quick convergence on two video modes. Convergence was actually not too bad on the FULL mode out of the box. Since I didn't have AVIA with me, I just turned down the contrast, brightness, and sharpness to about 40% (they were all over 70%) and left the color and hue at 50%.
I didn't have time to really delve into the owners manual or explore the menus and settings, so I'm thinking that I might have missed something... because the picture REALLY didn't look all that great. Granted, the sources were analog cable, VHS, and LD/DVD from a Pioneer DVL-700 combi player (no-progressive scan dvd, and no HDTV source). However, I was expecting more than what I saw, based on Curtis' comments about the internal line doubler's quality. Curtis, do you think there's some setting that I missed in the menus to activate it or something? I tried switching it from 'film' mode to 'video' mode, for each source, but didn't notice much of a difference, if at all.
I'll be going back there eventually, possibly to install a new receiver (hers is an older Sony ES DPL unit) and a prog-scan dvd player. So, any suggestions will be welcome.
Also, I noticed in the convergence (the 64-point service one, not the 9 point user one) that you now can only turn off the red and green guns, but not the blue gun! That's messed up, big time, IMO. Have any of you tired this on one of the new Toshibas yet? Older Toshibas allowed you to turn off red and/or blue, but green was always on. Green is a much easier color to converge to than blue, since you can't SEE the blue very well against the black background.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.22 ) at 12:57 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
I picked up this DVD at Walmart last night for $9.50... for that price, and with anamorphic video, I figured a classic like would be a worthy addition. Has anyone watched this dvd?
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 12:16 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
BC: Worldcom, right? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020403/bs_nm/telecoms_worldcom_dc_7&cid=580
It must be a positive sign that you're in class. Why would they want to train you further just to give you a pink slip? Best of luck through it all.
Jeff S. ( 129.42.208.150 ) at 12:14 PM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
T-Man: Are you using a mutiswitch? Your symptoms sound like a bad multswitch, or at least one that is on it's way out. The reason for losing some channels and not others would be due to the way the multiswitch works. It splits even and odd number transponders into different voltage ranges. When the multiswitch malfunctions, you normall lose either your odd or even number transponders which accounts for you not receiving some programming but not others. But, if this is your problem, it would normally affect all receivers hooked to the multiswitch, so you should be missing the same programs on all your sets.
BC ( 166.35.220.132 ) at 11:58 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
I guess it's my lucky day. I'm in training today (all week actually) and just heard from co-workers in the office that layoffs are happening right now. I guess that mean's I'm ok since the pager hasn't gone off! hehe
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 10:36 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Gladitor in HD Sunday night
HBO/HD will air it at 8PM PST. While the aspect ratio isn't as good as the DVD, the resolution is far better. In DD 5.1 as well.
Now if I can only convince my GF not to watch Six Feet Under at that time "but honey, the Tivo will save that for you forever", I'll have to say. That show is strange but it really grows on you. Anyone else watch it?
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 10:32 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
T-Man: If you have an easy alternate mounting location, I would do that. May as well upgrade (now where have I heard THAT word before?) to the elliptical dish while you're at it. Advantages are;
1) Includes a multiplexer giving you 4 outputs
2) Sees up to 3 sats
3) Allows HD content to come on down
I think American Sat in St. Louis has good mail order deals on the dish. Call them & say you saw a $100(ish) price posted on one of the AVS forums.
T-Man ( 209.166.149.228 ) at 10:19 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
BC: Regular dish, dual LNB. I think the tree may be the raeson for the freezing issue. But the channels being dropped is a mistery.
Curtis: I'd like to trim the top of the tree but its not in my yard. May have to move the dish, and upgrade to an elliptical while I'm at it.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 10:08 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
T-Man: If it's only happening on one receiver the idea of switching it out is a good one to narrow down the problem. Check your signal strength and try to get into the upper 70's/ low 80's. Trim the top of the tree - it can't be helping things.
If none of this does any good I suugest calling DTV's Customer Retention people. Tell them that you tried getting an EchoStar signal and that works flawlessly. i bet they offer to give you a new DirecTV receiver (or super low price) or two - just so you won't defect as a customer. This has happened in the past, but it depends upon who you get on the phone.
BC ( 166.35.220.132 ) at 10:06 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
T-Man: Are you using an elliptical dish or reg.? Are you using a splitter or multiplexer?
If you haven't changed anything, I'd guess it's the tree. I had a tree grow and had to move the dish. I don't recall it only blocking certain channels though.
A standard splitter will cause problems and block certian groups of channels. You have to use a multiplexer, at least with an elliptical dish.
T-Man ( 209.166.149.228 ) at 9:52 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Dish Reception Problem
Your thoughts please. For some time now (3 or 4 months) the the picture on my TV (both TVs, I have two receivers) will occasionally freeze up or "skatter". I thought, and still kind of do, that it was the top of a pine tree that had grown and the tip was blowing back and forth in the line of my dish. Now a new problem cropped up a few days ago. Some of the time, more often than not, I will not get a picture on some of the dish stations but will on others. On the ones I'm not getting a picture on it will periodically say it is searching for a signal. Sometimes I get all the stations again and later some are gone. It is the same channels I can't get everytime (at least halfof them BTW). The kicker is, I think I'm only having this problem with one of my TVs.
I called Directv just to see what they thought and they suggested switching the receivers to see if that was the problem (easier said than done!). If it wasn't the receiver then it was a cable problem or a dish problem. Any ideas or comments? TIA
Curtis ( 206.170.6.90 ) at 9:45 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
April stats
With one game down (Giants smoked the Dodgers in LA's home opener) Barry Bonds is currently on pace to hit 324 homers this season! I was there when he hit # 73 last season ... that's one strong human being.
Tony C ( 152.163.207.73 ) at 9:02 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Curtis: You have mail.
Chris L: If you're still getting used to saying that you're engaged, wait till you have to introduce her as your wife! Gets easier after the first 20 years. Congratulations!
JJ: Call Curtis! Or me. Time for a new TV.
Joe ( 198.208.6.35 ) at 7:38 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Gar go to Yahoo and do a search for &*( offenders Wisconsin
Ron H ( 24.167.68.198 ) at 5:31 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Congrats to you Chris!!!!!
Kieran ( 209.204.144.50 ) at 2:55 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Congrats, Chris!!!! That's awesome.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.21 ) at 12:58 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
there!
Curtis ( 206.170.7.21 ) at 12:58 AM EST Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Batchelor Party!
Cytotech: I am so there1
Cytotech ( 67.232.190.170 ) at 11:37 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Batchelor Party!
Chris L.: Congrats dude! Let us know when the batch shindig comes around!
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 11:32 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
distributed exclusively by Pioneer
Robert: That's what it says on the DK liner notes. If your current gig doesn't work out the way you want, you never burned any bridges with them. I vote you go back if for no other reason than to get into this side of their biz.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 11:29 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
why
JJ: Email me your short list and I promise to get you firm quotes for what can be had. i'm assuming you mean picts of the artwork, right? I may have to shoot those myself as the digital phots managed to get deleted (the only downside to digital photography - no negatives & people forget to archive stuff). The only White House photographer to find the shot of Clinton & Monica hugging was was one shooting with film.
JJ ( 165.247.35.229 ) at 10:49 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
why
Curtis: prices I could only dream of? send if you please. along with those pics so I can bounce off my friend...
I wonder what my bonus will be? tax refund not to the levels I expected, but then, we only paid 1/3 year of mortgage interest
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 10:32 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Joelc: BarBABEdos - now that beats the weather. My folks vacationed there several times way back when and loved it. The slideshows of it that my Dad forced anyone who entered our house to watch were the only ones that wouldn't put everyone to sleep. You shoulda seen all the exciting farm implements in the USSR slideshows.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 10:23 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
why
JJ: (in my best sympathetic Homer Simpson father voice)
Well son, sometimes the big guy upstairs takes away the things we love the most.
My opinion is that someone is trying to tell you to upgrade to a shiny new HD ready RPTV. Your pal Tony C can likely refer you to an authorized source with prices that you only dreamed of. If he won't then I will.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 10:19 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Chris L.: It's always the guy who INSISTS that he's never, ever going to get hitched that gets married next! Big congratulations dude. Put your future bride online so we can warn, er I mean congrat her.
If you don't like the DK DVD I will gladly buy it from you - lots of friends who would love to have it, especially the dates who saw her live.
BTW, I am NEVER EVER getting hitched again
JJ ( 165.247.35.229 ) at 9:44 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
why
why, oh why is my picture messed up??? aarrrggggghhhhh. it hasn't gotten better after being on for 2 hours. The washing machine is not running. I tried my other dvd player, same thing. f* f* f* f* f* f* !!!!
AVB ( 64.41.33.123 ) at 9:30 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Chris L.: Queen - The Game, Side one, Song 3.
AVB ( 64.41.33.123 ) at 9:25 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
DTC-10
Joe: Supposed to come out at the end of this month. List is $4K but will go up after the introductory period is over.
Gar ( 207.1.1.116 ) at 9:05 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Chris L.: Congrads Chris!!!!
Gar ( 207.1.1.116 ) at 9:04 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Sex Offenders
Joe: E-mail that site to me garman@tds.net
Thanks Joe
Chris L. ( 24.50.100.88 ) at 8:54 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Curtis: Thanks, dude! I'm going to buy this based on your recommendation, so if it sucks....
Joe: 23?? That's some scary shit, man. I don't even like thinking about that stuff.
Although I may have to seeing as I JUST PROPOSED TO MY GIRLFRIEND
I know, I know...it's almost as scary typing it as it was saying it.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 8:24 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
DVD Ram
Joe: Yeah, that'll be the day when we can buy affordable RPTV's with the same level of resolution as a good crt computer monitor. True 1280x720p (i.e. what you get with a 16:9 window on a computer set to 1280x1024 resolution)is amazing. The Phillips 64"er with 9 inch CRT's was the closest I've ever seen. (talking rptv's not FP's of course.)
Joe ( 152.163.195.176 ) at 8:09 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
DVD Ram
Man I watched some Farscape on the puter today. It's amazing how much better the detail is compared to the RPTV.
Joe ( 152.163.195.176 ) at 8:07 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Sex Offenders
So now that I have a child I looked up Sex Offenders in my town. I was shocked to see there wwere 23 listed. It is good to be able to look them up.
Joe ( 152.163.195.176 ) at 8:04 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
AVB
AVB: I seen you mentioned the DTC-10 the other day. When is it due out? I think that one will be out of my price bracket, but it's good to compare.
AVB ( 64.41.32.32 ) at 7:42 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
AVB
Joe: Just keeping up. I want to see the DTC-10 before I start getting serious about replacing the Sony.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 7:15 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Chris L.: FIne then, I'm a happy pig!
I picked it up (on sale @ Tower for $19.95) and spun it up. DD 5.1 as well as DTS 5.1. Enhanced for widescreen 16:9 disc.
Superb video, at least the lighting on DK is right-on. Lots of individual strands of hair are easily resolved. Other band members (a who's who of jazz BTW) get the mostly red stage lighting. Great high speed night photography of Paris streets in the intro.
DD 5.1 audio (this disc along may be reason enough to get a DTS DVD player if it possibly sounds any better than the DD). Holy F*&king Sh#t batman. This is one of the best live recordings I have ever heard. Turn your sub down 'cause the string bass will rattle the house off the foundation. The best use of LFE ever for bass, IMO.
The entire mix probably sounds better than being at the theater. Vocal is right where it should be. The percussion & piano (also a percussion) are simply amazing. Everyone else is in balance. Surround effects are mostly limited to crowd applause, as it should be.
17 songs performed with long improv riffs on many. She somehow manages to sneak piano from Day Tripper at the end of All OR Nothing. If you have ever played any kind of music with a group and know the feeling of nailing a song, then you'll understand the grins on all the musicians faces.
How will I tell my GF that I'm going to have to drop her in favor of Ms. Krall?!
Overall I'm still trying to decide if I really like this DVD ... NOT. It's a A/V demo keeper, check it out at least as a rental.
Joe ( 152.163.195.176 ) at 7:09 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
AVB
Are you considering the Anthem for your system?
Tony C ( 63.42.206.127 ) at 7:01 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Joelc: Take me with you...
Joelc ( 216.223.128.150 ) at 6:21 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Well... just thought that I would drop in to say hellow.
I have been home for a day and am now off to Barbados first thing tomorrow morning. Here is to hoping that everyone has a good few days.
later guys, and be well!
Chris L. ( 24.50.100.88 ) at 6:06 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Curtis: LMFAO!! You're a pig,man!
BTW...I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow. I haven't listened to any of her albums or anything but lately I've been getting into the musical side of DVDs.
It's gonna look funny sitting in the rack next to Metallica, Queensryche and Alice in Chains though.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.155 ) at 5:59 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
... answered my own question. It be a DVD.
http://www.towerrecords.com/product.asp?pfid=2632350
Let's see what's wrong with tis picture. DK performing live for 90 minutes in 5.1 in Paris.
"Diana Krall, the wildly popular jazz singer, takes her sultry voice to the Paris Olympia for this Dec. 1, 2001 performance. Mixing material from her first five albums with her favorite standards, this performance captures Ms. Krall in fine form.
-- (VideoLog Description)1226977"
It really should ship with a box of Klenex (tm);-) ... sorry lurking ladies.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.218 ) at 5:27 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
release due today
mic: Looks like a trip to Tower Records is in order then. I actually registered to win a trip for two to see the Paris performance.
Is this a CD or DVD?
BIG AL ( 148.77.32.21 ) at 4:22 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
AVB; Beat you by 4 speakers! Of course if we counted drivers, your numbers would be astonomical!
Rich; Only rich people have that many DVD players!
Joe, & anyone else interested; I'm probably late, but if anyone wants a USB Cue Cat, I have a dozen or so I can give out. E-mail your address, and I'll send you one. big_al6@yahoo.com
mic ( 166.68.134.175 ) at 2:37 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
release due today
For all you Krall fans:
Recorded live at the Paris Olympia on December 1, 2001, Krall's classic style blends equal parts artistic vision, hard work and determination. The British Columbia native began playing piano at the age of four and now has five stunning albums behind her. She made her debut with the critically acclaimed "Only Trust Your Heart" and the album topped the Billboard jazz charts for the most of 1998, earning Krall a Grammy nomination. She went on to win a Best Jazz Vocal Performance Grammy for 1999's platinum-selling "When I Look in Your Eyes" and became the first jazz artist in twenty-five years to be nominated in the Album of the Year category
mic ( 166.68.134.175 ) at 2:11 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Meridian 568 auction
http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/auc.pl?homeproc&1018059526
Wild Bill ( 209.246.43.138 ) at 2:03 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
AVB & Joe: List on the AVM 20 is $3199.
Gar ( 204.71.148.182 ) at 1:08 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
Joe: None so far, I am using Alpha Cores Balanced cables. Very good bang for the buck.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.218 ) at 12:25 PM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
or how about Googles PigeonRank (TM) search technology?
http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html
Curtis ( 206.170.7.218 ) at 11:45 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
April Fool
The Netscape-backed Open Directory Project took an April Fool shot at Microsoft, creating a mock press release from Bill Gates' software company announcing the launch of the "Gates Open Directory", or GOD, which seeks "to simplify copyright on the Web by purchasing all copyrighted material."
I'll see if i can still find the URL.
Joe ( 198.208.6.35 ) at 11:13 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
Gar: Have you found any flaws in the Anthem yet? What kind of Balanced cables are you using?
Gar ( 207.49.219.29 ) at 10:28 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
Joe:Bingo, I paid just a tad over $2400. But there new chip is coming out so that should raise the price another $300-$500.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 10:18 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
The Art of Zen and Moving RPTV's
Tony C: I decided about two rptv moves ago that the only way to go is to hire professional movers. Most of them actually have a set price depending on the size of the tv. They send three or four guys over and it's done. I believe it cost me $200 to have them move the Elite from the store to my place and to pick up my Toshiba and move it to the daughters house. This included insurance in case they dropped it. Well worth it in my book. I'm too damned old to be bent over trying to support 100+ pounds on an angle and drag them up and down stairs.
Joe ( 198.208.6.35 ) at 10:03 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
AVB: I got a price from a store in Winsdor for list at $2700. They are only allowed to give out list over the phone. I am thinking less then $2500.
AVB ( 64.41.32.201 ) at 7:59 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Anthem
Wild Bill: Did you post the price for the Anthem? I can't find it if you did. If you didn't, could you?
BC ( 166.50.65.3 ) at 7:40 AM EST Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Good morning guys.
I got an email from a fellow HTer with a pair of SVS 20-39 plus's that has offered to bring them over so we can see how they stack up to my M&K 5000. Should be interesting!
Wild Bill ( 12.78.122.76 ) at 11:22 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Tony C: billl@alternativetheatersolutions.com
Wild Bill ( 12.78.122.76 ) at 11:21 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Fear The Turtle! I watched them all year. A deserving champion.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.111 ) at 9:44 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Tony C: You mean to tell us that you let a little white stuff stop you from your TV?! Where are your priorities?
Sally Jesse would be enough to turn anybody off, good thing you saw decent programming earlier. The Toshiba fills are the best I have seen. There are compromises associated with taking any 4:3 to 16:9. I watch most standard stuff in TW1 mode because the center of the screen stays more correctly balanced.
Tony C ( 205.188.197.168 ) at 9:43 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
I added braces to the cube I made. The height is actually 1" higher than needed, but the width is, at some points .25" smaller than needed.
Depth, is right on.
The Toshiba is thinner at the top. So, bottom line is - it will fit.
What about the future? How will I get it up the stairs again?
Well, either I sell it with the house or I hire movers. Right?
Curtis ( 206.170.7.111 ) at 9:34 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Opening Day?
Wild Bill: Well to be honest we're both right. The 1 or 2 games yesterday were jump the gun OD's. Today is when everyone else started. Time was that every team started on the same day. Check the title on www.mlb.com for today.
Same thing with the NFL. The 9er's open againt someone on Thursday - the rest start on the following Sunday/ Monday. What has this country come to when Opening Day doesn't mean anything?
Tony C ( 205.188.195.42 ) at 9:01 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
I did not buy a TV today. It was snowing so bad, that I drove with my wife to take Son #2 back to school. I did call the guy and told him I'd be in Wednesday to make up my mind.
I did visit two other stores today just to look.
There is no question that the Toshiba has a better 4:3 fill. And next to the Mits (well it was next to a 73" Mits, you could see how red the Mits was. Unfortunately, the Tosh was running Sally Jesse, and the Mits had some HD nature show. So the picture could not be compared well, but I saw enough last Friday.
Tony C ( 205.188.195.42 ) at 8:57 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Wild Bill: Gragg isn't certified? Could be why he's cheaper than Craig Miller. Hmmm.
I still need your email address. You can find mine on the members page and email it to me.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 8:48 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEO V. (wherever you are...)
Joe ( 64.12.107.33 ) at 8:39 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
End of mini vaction
Well back to work in the morning. I have been off for the past 6 days and got very little done. It is going to suck @ 4 am when the alarm goes off.
I did get up to 188 DVDs inputed
Joe ( 64.12.107.33 ) at 8:37 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Bagman
Did you finish the Aztec sequal book you started a few weeks back? I was curious how it turned out.
JJ ( 165.247.58.223 ) at 8:26 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
double feature
Part 1
when last we left our Intrepid HT Fanatic®...
he was smiling broadly having just vanquished his crappy-picture-dragon.
we now join him as he wanders aimlessly about his home, head hung low, accompanied by an occasional side-to-side shake or shoulder shrug. Seems his efforts to destroy that pesky C-P-D were in vain. smudgy image is back, as well as the purple-y reds. What is he to do? project his trusty side-kick's (son) new miniature Toy Story (®Pixar and Disney, Inc.) basketball through his lenticular screen? No. he decides the better of it. His side-kick wants to go upstairs to put pyjamas on anyway.
Part 2
we rejoin or fanatic as he approaches the liar of the dragon once again. Hmmm. were is that dastardly beast? nowhere to be found. CPD is gone! hurray! sometimes patience is a virtue. But our fanatic is confused! is it a warm-up issue? was it the washing machine? stay tuned for further adventures...
Wild Bill ( 12.78.136.234 ) at 8:20 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
X-Box already dead?
Curtis: Ummm, yesterday was Opening Day and the Tribe, at least for a day, looks like they still have it. Bartolo Colon certainly still has it, whether he is 26 or 28.
BAGMAN ( 207.30.182.95 ) at 7:42 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
The Dance
Joe: I have the dvd, it WILL not play on the DVL-700. "Any Given Sunday" also will not play.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 5:07 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
bug SB big. I crack myself up with my typos.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 4:47 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
X-Box already dead?
Kieran, Gar: No, you really think that it's a gag?
I really thought all the snow talk was 100% April Fool stuff til I checked out the weather sites. Doesn't the bug guy upstairs know that today is baseball opening day? Anyone know if any games have been called off? I really feel for you guys. It's supposed to be "April showers", not April snow/ freezing rain/ slush.
Gar ( 207.1.1.103 ) at 4:13 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
X-Box already dead?
Curtis: Not sure if I believe that site. Seems like a bunch of Nintendo bastards spreading false rumors. Frankly I would rather see Nintendo go belly up since they never make there machines backwards compatible!!! 
Gar ( 207.1.1.103 ) at 4:07 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Tony C: Snowing here Buy the Toshiba!
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 3:38 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Joe: If you're a Sheryl Crow fan, then you will definitely like this one. The guitar player/musical director is the same guy that Don Henley used on his "Live Inside Job" tour. It's also DD and dts.
Joe ( 152.163.204.76 ) at 3:26 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Well Gasgeek I ordered Sheryl Crow. I should ahve it by the end of the week.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 3:18 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Tony C: Great news. On whatever RP you get the 1st thing you'll need to do is turn the contrast & brightness down. If it's the Toshiba, put it in Film mode. 30 days or about 100 hours should be about enough time for things to settle down enough for a full ISF session. Do not move it once the work is done. Make sure there are no static images left on for long periods (read: paused video games). Keep it in one of the full picture modes so the CRTs get a full workout.
Wild Bill ( 209.246.43.138 ) at 3:18 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Tony C: Not that it matters, but I'm pretty sure Greg L isn't ISF certified.
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 3:14 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
April Fools
Tony C: 5-7" of snow at my house.
Wild Bill ( 209.246.43.138 ) at 3:11 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
Tony C: Not that it matters, but I'm pretty sure Greg L isn't ISF certified.
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 2:50 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Me again.
I'm going to buy a TV.
Today of tonight. Tosh or Mits.
I looked a little at a different store this morning.
I do like the Tosh better.
I'm going with my original plan.
Plus, a traveling ISF guy will be in my area end of April.
Gregg Loevwen. Lots of hype on HTF.
But... should I wait longer? Like three months or so?
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 2:46 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
April Fools
Here's one for you.
It's snowing. I wish it was a prank.
don't know about Gar, But I hear there's 2" on the ground in MSP.
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 2:28 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
X-Box already dead?
Curtis: Think of todays date, my friend.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 1:55 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
X-Box already dead?
Well that was quick.
http://www.nintendojo.com/infocus/view_item.php?1017640596
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 1:47 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
You fools!
RickMTB: Oh man, what a cold thing to do to a group of golfers! I'll bet your wife still cracks up over it.
Joe ( 152.163.194.178 ) at 1:44 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
DVDprofiler
Well I am 114 into the input process. This is going along ok. I have came across 5 so far not in the DataBase.
Robert ( 12.218.8.211 ) at 1:39 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Joe: The DVL700 would most likely need a firmware upgrade.
Joe ( 152.163.194.178 ) at 1:25 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
I would like to get FLeetwood MAc, but read somewhere that it will not play on the Pioneer DVL-700.
Heres a question, since I have not heard DVD Audio does it sound like the Elton John DVD?
Joe ( 152.163.194.178 ) at 1:23 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Gasgeek
Kool, I have the AC/DC. I think I will pick up Chery Crow and The Who.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 1:21 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Concert DVD's
Kieran: Actually, The Dance was one of the first DVD concerts released and IMHO, still holds up well. The 5.1 mix is fairly well done. The rears are used for ambience and crowd as I feel they should be. Off hand, the only complaint I have about the 5.1 mix is that there's way to much bottom end. Mainly, Mick's kick drum. Number one, he has a kick drum with another kick drum attached to the front of it. Number two, it's a hollow riser and it was mixed a little hot. I turn down the lfe and it's quite enjoyable, but this is JMHO. The PCM is excellent although I listen to the 5.1.
RickMTB ( 207.18.199.140 ) at 1:05 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
You fools!
Curtis: Sorry to double... I was had big time one year by a college friend that was getting back at me and a few other college friends with an elaborate prank. He used to be a teaching pro at Palo Alto Muni and he convinced me a few friends that he had gotten comps to play at Pebble. One friend went out and bought new clubs, we all took a day off work. Well, we played Pebble all right... at a golf course simulator in Sunnyvale. All our wives were in on it... i could still kill mine for keeping it a secret (though taking a rare day off to play golf wasn't so bad
RickMTB ( 207.18.199.140 ) at 1:02 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
You fools!
Curtis: Used to work there... the acquarium was called the Sharkstation launch (complete with live sharks). One year they built a golf course in his office, another year they decorated it like a day care center (the company had hired some president from Kinderphoto). The last year I was there they had a big squirt gun battle between buildings. Each event was celebrated by t-shirts (still have my Sharkstation t-shirt). Seems the gags are getting less "prankish", since the ones I have heard about recently seem to involve having him play hocket versus Shark players...
Curtis ( 206.170.6.110 ) at 12:39 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
You fools!
Happy April 1st all. Watch your backside today. Anyone have a good AF story to tell?
Some of my favs are the antics that Sun Microsystems does to McNeally. One year they built an underwater platform in the middle of a man made lake on their main campus. They drove his Ferrari onto it, a very odd sight to see it hoving on the water. On another AF day one of the Sr. Engineers entire office was turned into an aquarium with all of his stuff still in it!
Kieran ( 192.25.142.23 ) at 12:08 PM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Concert DVD's
Gasgeek: My roommate Dan has Fleetwood Mac-"The Dance". What do you think of the dd5.1 track? vs. the PCM 2.0 track? Dan and I both prefer the 2.0 track, but I was wondering what you thought of it, being that you have such a large music-on-dvd collection, and have therefore listened to a lot of 5.1 music.
Gasgeek ( 4.21.3.3 ) at 11:36 AM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Concert DVD's
Joe: Good morning Joe. I've got lots of concert favorites, but I'll start you off with a couple of quickies. Some you may have, some you may not.
A must have in my opinion, is the "Music for Monserrat Live." It's all the British music royalty doing a benefit for the island of Monserrat that got beat up by the volcano. Most of them used to record there. Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Sting, Elton John, and Jimmy Buffet (I know he's not British, by neither was Carl Perkins who's also there) who wrote the Volcano blows song while working in Monserrat and looking at the volcano. The highlight is Paul McCartney doing Golden Slumbers with all the above playing as well as a full choir and orchestra directed by Sir George Martin. He also does Hey Jude, Yesterday and Kansas City. DD and dts.
Another must have if you're a Who fan is the The Who, Live at Albert Hall. Over two hours of their hits. Great audio and Zak Starky (Ringo's boy kicks ass) is their drummer. Very good.
Eric Clapton and Friends, A benefit for the Crossroads Center, is also classic. His version of Little Wing with Sheryl Crow and David Sanborn is unbelievable. Friends include the previous two along with Dylan and Mary K. Blige (which is what the skip arrows are for.)
Also love EC's Live at Hyde Park.
Bonnie Raitt, Road Tested
Keb Mo, Sessions at West 54th.
A sleeper that you might not know about is the Tribute to Brian Wilson (done for TV) Vince Gill doing "Warmth of the Sun," Ann and Nancy Wilson doing "Good Vibrations" with the Harlem Boys Choir and Carly Simon, David Crosby and Jimmy Webb doing "In My Room" are worth the price of the DVD alone. Other people including Elton John perform great versions of the Beach Boys classics.
If you're an AC/DC kinda guy, "Stiff Upper Lip" is killer.
Journey Live 2001 (Replacement for Steve Perry sounds better IMHO)
There's also the classics, John Fogerty's "Premonition", Tina Turner, "Live in Amersdam", James Taylor, "Live at the Beacon Theater", EC "Unplugged", Eagles, "Hell Freeze's Over". Joe Cocker, "Across From Midnight" (2 channel PCM but cooks). Rolling Stones, "Bridges to Babylon". Don Henley, "Live Inside Job". etc., etc. Roy Orbison, "Black and White Nights". Sheryl Crow, "Rockin' the Globe". Steely Dan, "Two Against Nature". And of course, Fleetwood Mac-"The Dance".
This should get you started. I've got some more suggestions if you're interested.
Tony C ( 208.209.205.117 ) at 9:29 AM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
Stewart Screens
Wild Bill: I'm helping my cousin build a dedicated HT in his basement. He has 9' ceilings. We're going to be doing a lot of work, and also contracting a lot of work.
He already bought a Sony 10HT and he paid $1,400+ for his Greyhawk. I told him to take it back. We really don't need the screen for some time as we are just getting started.
I could use your email address. We will need other supplies as we move along. Thanks.
AVB ( 64.41.32.202 ) at 6:09 AM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
then how about your favorite speakers?
Rich: I remember them well, they needed a lot of space around them to work they way they should. Obviously, VMPS has to be my favorite brand overall. Incredible bang for the buck at all price points.
Rich ( 205.188.195.26 ) at 1:37 AM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
then how about your favorite speakers?
Anyone remember the old Mirage M1si M3si bipolars from the mid 90's? i think AVB does, Well i have a pr of M5si's, they image quite well and because they're bipolar towers the sound stage is huge. As much as i like them sooner or later i'm gonna sell them, i got my eye and ears on the Vienna's.
Gar ( 204.71.148.161 ) at 1:10 AM EST Monday, April 1, 2002
then how about your favorite speakers?
Curtis: I would have to say "Dynaudio" no matter what speaker I tried I have always come back to these. Time and time again, I always seem to have a pair in my house. Also my current pair of Joesph Audio bookshelfs are very good. Here are the new ones I want....
http://www.dynaudio.com/products/confidence/c2/c2.htm
I want these in Rosewood
Robert ( 63.50.3.30 ) at 11:16 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
then how about your favorite speakers?
Curtis: I had two, the KEF C35 bookshelf with 8" woofer and the neodymium coincident/concentric tweeter (in the voicecoil of the 8") because, no matter where you stood/sat you were in the sweet spot, awesome!! The other was my ADS M-9's. I got three for $400 as a cosmetic damaged sample, they were $600 each if I recall. THey had a 7" woofer, 3" DOME midrange and 1" softdome tweeter. Absolutly smooth across the entire frequency range. I sold them for $1000 for all three and regret it to this day.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.142 ) at 11:04 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
then how about your favorite speakers?
Robert: Sounds as though we have all been through a lot of speakers.
What was your (everyone is welcome to chime in here) favorite speaker and why? Either pairs or arrays - current or past.
My answer is a no brainer. B&W 801's, Series II. Even with a modest receiver most everything sounded sooo sweet. When I finally hooked them up to a real amp/ preamp, they came to life. Female vocals and piano (two of the hardest things to get right, IMHO) were frightenly real sounding.
For some boneheaded reason I decided to trade them to my dealer for a pair of DefTech 2002's. The guy that bought them from the dealer still tells everyone how happy he is that he picked them up.
Gar ( 204.71.148.153 ) at 10:52 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Speakers
AVB: I believe you, you have about 15 years on me also, plus more experience in the speaker market.
Gar ( 204.71.148.153 ) at 10:50 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Tony C: The owner from University Audio and a friend of mine stopped by to help me tweek my system and he said Stewart is coming out with a newer screen version of the Grayhawk. Said it even had better blacks. hmmmmm, maybe I might bite...
Wild Bill ( 12.78.178.45 ) at 10:22 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Stewart Screens
Tony C: Tell me what you're looking for and I'll give you the cost.
Robert ( 63.53.2.147 ) at 9:36 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Tony C: Not many online sources for that one, try AVS forum for Draper though. THat's what I have. m1300
Tony C ( 205.188.193.182 ) at 9:10 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Does anyone have a link to where I can get an online quote for Stewart screens?
Joe ( 64.12.107.53 ) at 8:29 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
UHmmmmmmmmmmmm DVD planet close to the same price. Off to DVD express. I only have 1 LaBatt left so I must do this soon.
JJ ( 165.247.33.50 ) at 8:28 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Circuits
AVB: yes the heaters are on a seperate circuit. but, yes I believe the work was not doen by a pro. at least the dry-wall rough-in. things don't quite 'fit.' I also had a problem on the circuit the washer/dryer are on . they began to not work on occasion (bad sentence). I also made sure all connections were tight on those outlets too.
Scott has it right. there are 2 each hot and neutral. but I think one of those 4 was loose, and was active intermittently, thus causing my problems with the set.
Joe ( 64.12.107.53 ) at 8:17 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
I am getting disapointed in the prices on Amazon. I will have to try DVDplanet next.
Gasgeek, anymore concerts to suggest?
Joe ( 64.12.107.53 ) at 8:15 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Yes I knew about TNG coming out. I have about 50 eposides on LD so I am not sure If I am going to buy DVD or not.
Scott "popcorn" ( 64.218.217.116 ) at 7:52 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Joe: You know that the first season of Star Trek: TNG came out last Tuesday, right?
Joe ( 64.12.107.26 ) at 7:26 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
The wifes family is gone, I think I will shop for some new movies. My Star Trek collection is not complete yet.
Joe ( 64.12.107.26 ) at 7:23 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Wild Bill
I was asking about the Rock+. I have been reseaching the Anthem and will get a local price on Monday. I was wanting to wait and pay cash, but there are a few places around that do 6 months same as cash.
Once I get the local price I will check with a new companey and then across the bridge. I was debating on if I should put the Pre/Pro on the left side, requiring 4 meter interconnects. The other choice is to put it on top of the amp ( seperate shelf ) and run .5meter balanced connections.
If I go with closer to the amp I will have to run 4 meter Digitial from the DVD player. However the Toslink for the Mega Changer and the 5 disc changer would be 1 meter.
So far the only thing that I can find on the Anthem is the lack of an RF demod input. But once I consider I only have 10 or so AC-3 LDs it's not that big of a deal. In fact most of them are still in the wrapper.
So unless I am missing someting I don't see a better deal then the Anthem. I am reading the manual for the second time. Of course I can just wait for you to install few and bombard you with questions 
Robert ( 63.53.3.85 ) at 4:36 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Curtis: That was car, I am north of 20 for home (and that pairs)
Robert ( 63.53.3.85 ) at 4:34 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Curtis: Speakers, have or HAD? I'm north of AVB if its had, I had two cars stolen/broken into with 28+ (rough guess but low/mid/high in four corners plus 2-8 subs plus a lon;y 3 1/2 center speaker PRIOR to surround sound for the car)in each when I was competing in car audio. I was FICKLE when I was younger and my system was always for sale, I'd sell speakers and amps right out of the car after a competition!!
Robert ( 63.53.3.85 ) at 4:30 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Tony C: Ok OK, but I did sell off my DVL700 AND a DV525 I had.
AVB ( 64.41.32.163 ) at 3:02 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Speakers
Gar: Over the years?? Jeez, I bet I could more than double my total if I thought of every speaker I had in the last 30 years. When I worked for HK I bet I went thru at least 10-12 pairs of JBL's alone
Gar ( 156.46.203.154 ) at 2:52 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Curtis
I lost count on how many speakers I have had over the years, but it is
over 40, thats because I used to work at a few stores and had access all
the time.
Gar ( 156.46.203.154 ) at 2:52 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Curtis
I lost count on how many speakers I have had over the years, but it is
over 40, thats because I used to work at a few stores and had access all
the time.
Scott "popcorn" ( 66.137.70.229 ) at 1:33 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
JJ: well, if there were two hots and two neutrals, it sounds like that outlet is part of a chain of outlets... this is very common... one hot and one neutral are from the circuit breaker panel, and the other pair go to another outlet. Though there should have been two grounds also.
AVB ( 64.41.32.163 ) at 12:53 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Speakers galore
Curtis: Well, that does include the 4 not in use
Wild Bill ( 12.78.178.133 ) at 12:47 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Wild Bill
Curtis: The HD Final Four feed was interesting to say the least. It did offer a good comparison between the worst and best that is available, all in one show. I'd guess the spot for your projector would be about 960p but you'd have to try a couple of different settings to see which you prefer.
Wild Bill ( 12.78.178.133 ) at 12:44 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Wild Bill
Joe: MSRP on which setup? The Rock+ lists for $5199 and the Digilink is $2795. Do you need Anthem list prices?
Rich ( 64.12.103.184 ) at 12:22 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Speakers galore
Curtis: lol
Rich ( 64.12.103.184 ) at 12:20 PM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Happy Easter!
Now i gotta get dressed and go to church
Curtis ( 206.170.6.219 ) at 11:19 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Speakers galore
AVB: On behalf of the International Speaker Manufacturers Association, let me just say thank you.
80 friggin' speakers man? Contest over.
Gar ( 207.49.219.40 ) at 9:50 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: I have 8 but gave one away a few weeks ago to my Brother-in-law.
Joe ( 152.163.205.52 ) at 9:42 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
JJ
14/3 would commomnly be used in a fan / light combo. You use one leg to power the fan. You use the other leg to power the lights. This allows switchable controls for each one seperate.
So you could walk over to the wall and trun on you cieling fan and leave the light off, without having to pull the hanging cord.
It's good to hear you fixed it for under $10.
Joe ( 152.163.205.52 ) at 9:38 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
It is also possible that someone used 14/3 w ground instead of 14/2 with a ground. That would explain the exta wire.
Joe ( 152.163.205.52 ) at 9:36 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
JJ
If you had 2 hots and 1 nuetral in a gang box you could use a isolated plug. This would give you 1 circuit on the top and 1 circuit on the bottom.
It sounds more like you have some wiring done by smeone taking shortcuts.
AVB ( 64.41.32.67 ) at 9:01 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Circuits
JJ: The heaters should be a seperate circuit from your outlets unless your codes are drasticly different then here. 240 is 2 phases (usually) in the home so you do have 2 "hots" a neutral and a ground. This could be split using the outlet as a pass through for one phase but that really is not the normal way to do it. This would also mean that you'd have only one breaker for both the heat and the outlets. Since you have two breakers this is not the case.
JJ ( 165.247.33.50 ) at 7:57 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Happy
Happy /insert favorite religious holiday here/ everyone!
JJ ( 165.247.33.50 ) at 7:24 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
Scott "popcorn": interesting. in the location of the outlet I replaced, there were two each hot and neutral, I stripped them with the 16ga notch, but I think the wires were 14. the breaker seems like a regular 15 amp.
side note: the room is wired for 240/20 amps to feed some electric baseboard heaters. never use 'em. Tho I don't think I would ever need the 20 amps for any system I'd have.
Scott "popcorn" ( 64.218.216.53 ) at 3:01 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
JJ: what is the effect of say, two hots + 1 neutral? or one hot + 2 neutrals
The effect would be no gain. Electricity makes a loop, and the resistance of the whole loop is equal to the resistance of the most resistive part of the loop. Now, 2 hots and 2 neutrals would make a difference... if the circuit breaker was equally "beefed up" as well as the outlet, power cord, and internal power supply circutry was also "beefed up"... But then you have to think about the internal circuitry past the power supply, how much current it draws, etc. I choose not to even bother thinking about it and just use wire that is big enough for the rated current of the device
AVB ( 64.41.32.187 ) at 12:13 AM EST Sunday, March 31, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Curtis: OK, 18 speakers in 2 cars, 28 in home (counting subs too) 6 in boomboxes, 3 portable radios and 6 computer speakers. 3 clock radios and a whole house system with 10 speakers. Add 3 speakerphones and 3 intercoms and the total is 80.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.100 ) at 11:54 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
CBS really laid an egg tonight
Anyone who saw the Final Four in HD tonight must have thought something was wrong with their setup. What was wrong? They used at least 50% SD cameras stretched to fill a 16:9 frame. The ball looked more like an Easter Egg, the contrast was blinding and of course the detail and colors look terrible once they switched away from the main full court HD cameras.
Some fool also screwed up the audio, many locals had no audio at all while others had huge level differences between the game and the commercials. If this was the 1st HD broadcast I had ever watched, I would have passed on ever investing in it. The worst part is that the HD CBS games shown over the past weeks have been spectacular picture quality. What a time to f*ck it all up.
Let's hope they review the tapes tomorrow and make changes before Monday's final game. Someone really deserves to be fired over this - it was that badly done.
Curtis ( 206.170.7.100 ) at 11:37 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
T-Man: Tell me about it. I'm too lazy to even start to them them all. Surely someone has too much time on their hands & will offer up a tally. I'm guessing I must have a # in the dozens.
T-Man ( 216.151.66.207 ) at 11:18 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Curtis: Way too many. Last count, at least 3 full audio systems in the attic, not to mention many odds and ends.
Tony C ( 64.12.103.174 ) at 10:31 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: No Rich, two of Robert's DVDs are NOT in the house!
Nonetheless, the man has a lot of DVD players!
Curtis ( 206.170.6.249 ) at 10:31 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: Jeez, you guys are such geeks I have 4. Ht room, notebook, X-Box, and kitchen.
Want to see really high #'s? Let's see how many SPEAKERS everyone has. Both in use and in storage. Count everything incl. HT, boomboxes, clock radios, speakerphones, computer, intercoms and how many in your cars.
Rich ( 205.188.193.22 ) at 9:35 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Robert/Wild Bill, WOW Wild Bill ties me at 7 and Robert blows us away at 9! Nine DVD sources in one house! Thats Incredible!
"Rich hands Robert THX Cert DVD Trophy knowing that no one in here is gonna top 9
JJ ( 66.32.3.209 ) at 9:35 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Winston aka The Spleen: I don't think TAW rents the colorimeters any more.
maybe we should invest in one as a group?
how many people would be interested?
Rich ( 205.188.193.22 ) at 9:28 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Joe: LOL!!
Gar ( 208.166.200.246 ) at 8:51 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Busy Saturday morning...
Kieran: Ok is this a road bike or MTB? It it is a road bike, I am going to give you crap! 35 miles in one day, oh Nelly! back at ya.. jk
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.72.194 ) at 8:42 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Kieran: I always foreign language movies in their native language - I hate English-dubbed movies even more than I hate pan-and-scan. (Watch enough anime, hong kong films etc. and start getting fluent in Japanese/Chinese). So of course I watched Das Boot in Deutche.
I'll drop you mail tomorrow about your Star Wars LD. Awesome bike ride dude! You've shamed me, I need to get on my bike more often.
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.72.194 ) at 8:32 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Curtis: My understanding is that people attending the ISF classes get about five minutes of hands-on calibration experience. If you don't know what you're doing going into the class you sure won't be an "expert" when you complete it. That's what I found to be true when I was looking for a local tech - I knew more about calibration than they did.
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.72.194 ) at 8:29 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Tony C: Here you go... http://www.tawinc.net/trad.htm
Also try this site: http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/
Curtis ( 206.170.6.249 ) at 8:13 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
ISF calibration
Tony C: Back when Duane calibrated my 65"er RP, (8 plus hours) he told me that I already knew more than the ISF classes teach. It is not rocket science & anyone with an average IQ and the cash to take a 2 day course - *POOF* you're suddenly a "Certified ISF Expert!"
There are many weak ISFers out there. Always, always ask to see a display they have worked on before commiting - preferably an identical model to yours. Talk to the owner and ask how well problems were handled.
JJ ( 66.32.3.209 ) at 7:44 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
funny guys.
though now I find myself thinking: "maybe wire isn't just wire"
I mean, here I have an outlet. I am getting juice. it works, sort of. change it out/tighten it up -> totally different picture.
what is the effect of say, two hots + 1 neutral? or one hot + 2 neutrals
Tony C ( 152.163.201.84 ) at 6:54 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
JJ: I love happy endings. It's so Hollywood.
Joe ( 205.188.192.168 ) at 6:51 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
So you are telling us you had a screw loose 
JJ ( 66.32.3.209 ) at 6:25 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
when last we left our intrepid HT Fanatic:
he was having problems with the picture on his aging toshiba rptv. Colors didn't look right, apparent noise.
Last night he did another re-calibration, picture looked good. this morning, things look bad again. smearing, colors off. Watchable, but not right. for example, if you know To Story 2, Andy's room is blue with yellow stars on the wall. The bottom of the stars are sort of yellow, gradually getting red toward the top. weird. things don't seem to want to 'stick'.
He decides to install an 'industrial grade' outlet that feeds his system. Leviton Hospital grade it is. It appeared one of the white wires or one of the black wires was loose (he can't remember which). With no cahnges to the set, picture now is very good. reds are red (not purple) stars are yellow top to bottom :-). He is not sure if it was that loose wire or what. If the picture stays this way, he will be very happy...
Kieran ( 209.204.144.50 ) at 6:18 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
And to those who don't celebrate Easter, Happy Vernal Equinox! (or Sabbath, or Sunday, or whatever you feel like being celebratory for!) Just have a good weekend, darnit!
Kieran ( 209.204.144.50 ) at 6:15 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Busy Saturday morning...
Wow... quite a busy day today around here. Lots of good HT talk...
I rode a 35 miler with a couple of good climbs today on the new road bike. That makes 116 miles since I picked up the bike Wednesday night. Not too shabby for 3 days of riding. I'm taking Sunday and Monday off to rest my rear (and legs) and will ride to work again starting Tuesday.
Tony C: Wow, if a 10HT + screen + cables is w/in the budget (or close to it) I'd say go for it! That would be SUH-WEET!
Spleen: I picked up the new Tombstone, but have yet to watch it. I've got several DVD's to watch that I haven't had time to yet, including Tombstone, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Pearl Harbor. Do you watch Das Boot in German or dubbed? I prefer German w/ the subtitles. That's one of my favorite dvd's for sure. I hate that so many of my favorite DVD's are 3 hours (or more!) long.
Happy Easter everyone, if I don't post before then.
Tony C ( 205.188.193.36 ) at 5:38 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
ISF calibration
Winston aka The Spleen: I always said that a guy could do any job, if he has the right tools.
So where do I get info on DIY calibration, including the rental of the analyzers?
Robert ( 63.53.1.198 ) at 5:22 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: PS2, Laptop #1, Laptop #2, Desktop #1,Main HT, Secondary HT, ONe at neighbors, one at Cousins, portable w/ screen =9
Joe ( 152.163.194.176 ) at 5:10 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Curtis
If I sounded shitty, sorry.
Joe ( 152.163.194.176 ) at 5:07 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Rich
Only 2, but I do have a THX piece now
Joe ( 152.163.194.176 ) at 5:07 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Wild Bill
Wild Bill: Cool. I am about 80% sold on the AVM 20 at this time. I am still looking at a few months out. I think Monday we are going to look at carpet and 2 recliners. I have 2 rooms left to carpet and I need reclincers for tht HT room.
What did you say the MSRP was on that setup?
Curtis ( 206.170.6.249 ) at 5:06 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Wild Bill
Wild Bill: I hope you guys are able to watch the Final Four tonight in HD via OTA or E* CBS. I may as well ask the going rate for a Rock+ if I'm going to feed the FP something good. What range would you guess is the sweetspot for the 9" CRT AmPro?
It sure will be nice one of these days when all source material is native HD.
Wild Bill ( 12.78.121.222 ) at 4:53 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: 7. Four standalone DVD players, an HTPC, the upstairs computer and the PS2.
Wild Bill ( 12.78.121.222 ) at 4:51 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Wild Bill
Joe: The Rock+ and Digilink combo are doing a superb job. I'm scaling everything except HD to 1440 x 720 with no trace of artifacts. JohnO is coming over tonight for the Final Four so maybe he'll post his impressions. I also hooked up an Anthem MCA 20 into my system last night. I haven't had a chance to put it through its' paces yet but so far so good. I hope this means my demo MCA 50 and AVM 20 will arrive soon. It would suck if the AVM 20 arrives and I don't have a 5 channel amp.
SDI is Serial Digital Interface. You have two connections from the DVD player to your processors. A single digital connection for audio and a single digital connection for video. I'm using two coaxial digital cables for the connections.
RickMTB ( 216.119.135.246 ) at 4:15 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
RPTV
Ron H: Unfortunately, the threat of thunderstorms coming from the west (and poor BC is getting hammered in Dallas) with the threat of the "T" word. Though its just muggy and windy up here as I type...
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.67.88 ) at 3:34 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Curtis: I remember cheering Ron Santo from the bleachers at Wrigley when I was a kid.... those were great days, wish I was going with you guys!
PS - just kidding about the community college of course, you're lucky to have a daughter that understands the importance of a good education.
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.67.88 ) at 3:22 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
ISF calibration
Tony C: I wasn't able to find an ISF tech in my area that I felt I could trust so I learned how to do a complete monitor calibration myself... it's not all that hard especially if you only need to learn about one particular model. Color analyzers are available for rent online and it's simple to make a color comparator yourself if you want to do things on the cheap. I was able to correct my set's greyscale to about +/- 200 degrees of D6500 at the dark end and perfect D6500 from the middle on up, tweek a slight geometry problem and disable red push on the color decoder. You might consider doing the job yourself, you'll save $$$ and have the satisfaction of knowing that your set is calibrated to perfection.
Gar ( 207.1.1.108 ) at 3:11 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Gar trivia ?
Curtis: Rich is pretty darn close.... Does this include computers and the Playstation 2 and the Xbox?
Winston aka The Spleen ( 12.83.67.88 ) at 3:11 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
G'day all. Stayed up until 3:00 am last nite watching movies including A.I. (terrible, I had to shut it off after an hour), Funeral in Berlin (a very good follow-up to the excellent Ipcress File) and the entire director's cut of Das Boot which I've seen several times and was in the mood to watch again. Up and out of bed by the crack of noon. "What's for breakfast?"... "Lunch."
I highly recommend the new release of Tombstone, it's excellent. Also recommended: K-Pax and the new Roger Waters concert disc.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.104 ) at 3:01 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Sony T60
BAGMAN: Yes I have had the T60 up for a week or so. Picture quality varies of course by the amount of compression DirecTV applies to a particular channel, and even that varies. HBO east seems to be the best.
The UI is great. I put in "tennis" on a wish list and it has recorded things I had no idea were being aired. The 8 second replay button is perfect for sports. My only complaint is that this thing runs fairly hot. It needs room to breathe and will no doubt force me to inclrease the AC volume going into the room this summer.
Tony C ( 205.188.193.57 ) at 2:44 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Me
I heard from an ISF guy (who I would hire to do my set) who gave me pros and cons on both Tosh and Mits. He likes both and can get a great picture on both.
I asked him what he owned...
Tony C ( 205.188.193.57 ) at 2:41 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Viva La Spring
BAGMAN: I've been planning my fishing trips. right now, two for the Wolf river. Soon for Walleye and then mid-May for white bass.
This summer, Lake Erie. don't forget the smallies they have there.
Curtis ( 206.170.6.104 ) at 2:27 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Joe: Hey I didn't mean to put you on the defensive, okay? For all I know Tony only requires 2 inputs. If the Mits or anything else has those ins then he's good to go. What I meant about "the only thing that matters" was matching the inputs with his source outputs - it was not a general statement.
Must have been my bad. Sorry if I offended you. I must have not read your "if I am correct" disclaimer before I posted. Tony and I visited several stores when he was in town. We looked at RPs, FPs, & plasmas in addition to 2 displays setup in my HT. I do think that I have a bit of a clue as to what he's looking for in a HD ready display yet would never claim to know everything.
Yes, I would steer any friend away from Mits products based only on my nightmare experiences with 4 of their products and the lame service/high repair costs I received. Another person may have had nothing but bliss with their Mits's. They can and should post their opinion here for Tony to weigh in his decision.
BAGMAN ( 207.30.182.51 ) at 2:26 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Viva La Spring
Robert: Thankyou for the sympathy. Let's just say we never had this kind of company in N.E. Ohio. Amazing what nice weather brings. What model of Tivo do you have and how do you like it? On a side note, we went fishing the other day and tonight we are having a fish fry, salt water fish... I don't know! I'm thinking that I already miss Lake Erie Walleye and Perch.
Rich ( 205.188.197.39 ) at 2:10 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Tony C: Welp i might of beat ya but it was a photo finish LOL
Tony C ( 205.188.193.57 ) at 2:07 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
More DVD Trivia
Rich: You beat me. I have six.
A combie player in the HT, and the Sony 7700.
A combie player in the FR, and a samsung DVD.
A PS2
and a laptop.
Tony C ( 205.188.193.57 ) at 2:04 PM EST Saturday, March 30, 2002
Joe: What I was looking for was discreet IR codes for inputs. The remotes for both Mits and Toshiba scroll through. But I've learned that both can have direct selection of an input once you program the Pronto.
Robert: The deal my cousin got was an open box and the only one left. I gu