Paul C:I have recently bought myself a 50" Panasonic plasma full HD TV (TH-50PZ80B) and now want to get a good 5.1 surround sound cinema system to compliment it. As the TV is full HD I think that Blu Ray would be the obvious way to go.
I am undecided as to whether to go for a single package provided by one manufacturer such as the Panasonic SC-BT100 or a seperate player and speaker package or a complete seperates system with an AMP. I would like the speakers to be relativly inconspicious ( the speakers provided with the SC-BT100 are fairly large)
My room is 5.2m X 4.4m and I do not want to spend to much money on this, £500-700 is my negotiated budget. Sound clarity is my main priority rather than out & out volume.
I am keen to stick with Panasonic for the DVD player to maintain the VIERA LINK that this would provide (or is this important?).
The Panny BD35 would do nicely, it is more expensive than the Sony 350 (on offer with free discs). As to how useful Viera Link, Bravia Sync etc. are, I'm not sure as I've never had the cause to use them! I think they offer control over the various equipment using a single remote for volume, power etc. I have a universal remote that takes care of selecting inputs etc. and controlling volume so it has never entered my head to select kit from one manufacturer in order to use these control function systems, so they wouldn't be important to me! I would recommend a universal remote such as the Logitech Harmony One to control everything anyway and although they do seem expensive, I wouldn't be without one now.
Speaker wise, the budget package of choice is the Jamo HCS5 A102 5.1 setup. They're small and should fit in with your requirement to be "discrete". Your room is large though and I'm not sure they would fill the room.
Paul C:I also require to connect up an existing Philips DVD recorder and my Nintendo Wii. Also most likely in the future I will get SKY+ installed so I neet to take these connection requirements into account.
As you wish to have all the equipment at the opposite side of your room to the TV, I think separates are the only way to go. The AV receiver could act as the central hub of your system switching both video and audio and running minimal cabling to the TV.
If your Philips DVD recorder has component video or HDMI, you could route the video connection via a compatible amp to upconvert the output to HDMI resulting in one cable from the amp to the TV. The best video output from the wii is component video (red/green/blue) so if you haven't already got the component cable for the wii, I recommend you do. Again, you could route the video output from the wii via the amp. AV Receivers (amps) are becoming more and more the central hub of an AV setup supporting video conversion, switching, video upscaling (not a required feature on budget amps) as well as audio decoding/processing and amplification. Amps that support video conversion would be the Denon 1909 and Yamaha 763 amongst others.
Connecting sky+ is more of a problem. In order to maintain picture quality, the best output is RGB over SCART. Some people have had reported good results using s-video so if you wanted to route the video output via the amp (and upconvert to HDMI) you would need to use s-video or convert the RGB output over SCART to component video using something like a QED RGB SCART to component converter which would drive the budget up. Obviously sky+ hd is the way to go and simply uses hdmi (video) and a digital audio connection (either optical or digi-coax)
Panasonic BD35 - £200
Jamo HCS5 A102 - £200
Denon 1909/Yamaha 763 - £300 (richer sounds)
Unfortunately you would need to add a few more ££ on for cabling so you're at the top end of your budget with separates but it would be the better option imho.
Paul C:The TV is situated fairly centrally on the 5.2m wall and the cabinet/ stand for all the boxes of tricks will sit in the rear far corner to keep the TV wall neat and clean. This gives a cable distance of approx 10 lm.
I hope that some of you out there can point me in the right direction to help me make the correct decision and also provide advice on which cables would be required (and where to buy) to connect up all my boxes up and to get the best out of everything.
Running 10m cables isn't a problem. Various places sell 10m hdmi cables that should work fine but hdmi is a complicated beast and compatibility issues can be experienced, particularly over long lengths. I would try tmfsolutions.co.uk (octava), bettercables.co.uk or ukhdmi.com. All of them sell good quality hdmi cabling that will perform perfectly. Remember to test any cabling prior to final installation and if chasing cables in the wall, keep AV cables separate from power cables and run inside conduit (leaving plenty of room) for maintenance and expansion and fit brush faceplates at the entry/exit points to keep things neat. Replacing a broken cable down the line is costly and would be a major hassle. Buying better quality cabling is no guarantee of failure but some cheap cables can fall apart or fail. Fit once.
I don't know how much speaker cable will be required but 16awg cable will be fine. Belkin sell it in various reel sizes but if you need a lot try this:
http://www.cabling4less.co.uk/index.php?pageLayoutId=28 (£37 for 100m should do you (and your neighbours!!))
For the other cabling stick with makes such as profigold and you won't go wrong. For optical I would recommend Fisual pro (£5 from audiovisualonline.co.uk. It is identical to a QED cable I have and fits and performs exactly the same for a quarter of the price)
You will basically need:
Input cables to amp:
Sky+ - S-video (video) & optical (audio)
Sky+HD - HDMI (video) & either digi coax or optical (audio) (new boxes have both. Use coax if you can)
wii - component video (c/w analogue audio)
DVD Recorder - dependent on model (video) (& possibly either digi-coax or optical for audio)
Bluray - HDMI
TV - optical (I think the Panasonics also have RCA phono analogue audio output. I wouldn't bother with TV audio output to amp if you have sky+/hd (twin tuners).
Output cables from amp:
Speaker cable
Subwoofer cable
HDMI (video to TV)
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