New to home cinema and want uncluttered options

[admin_exported]

Hi

Just in process of redecorating living room and using it as a good excuse with wife to go flat screen. Will be hiding cables through plastering and false wall so she agreed to this!

I currently have (or will have)

1) Panasonic Tx37 -LZD800 as good speakers apparently on tv

2) Virgin media - V+ type recordable box

3) X Box 360

4) a 5m wide by 6m living room will telly in the corner.......and I have forward planned by plastering speaker cable into my rear left and right wall areas

I am looking for advice as I want to get a blu ray dvd player and some sort of home cinema system that my blu ray, tv, virgin box and x box will all want to connect to. Ideally I am looking for a solution for minimum of hassle as I wont profess to be an expert here and will rarely use the surround system except for movies, footy, occasional gaming. Was tempted by a blu ray home theatre all in one system but so few on the market. (Rationale for this was driven by less boxes and only need 5.1)

Would appreciate advice on best blu ray and surround system options that would allow my pre-planned cable to be used and allow for connection of all devices. Budget is £700.

Do I go down a separate blu ray ( Panasonic BD55 with viera link to telly?) and surround system, or is there an all in one option

The other main query I have is driven by how I connect all these elements to any amp or all in one.....ensuring I use my cable now in place and dont need to rip holes in the wall again

Welcome any advice and please keep it simple (as I wont feel patronised)

Thanks in advance

Gavin C

 

[professorhat]

A good surround speaker system for an uncluttered setup is the Q Acoustics Q-AV system - as you can see from the review, it removes the requirement for the front three speakers, instead just using a soundbar for these. The problem is, the cheapest I can find it on a quick search is £450, leaving nothing for the rest of your system!

Given the budget, I would be tempted to go for the Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray player (which can be found for about £180), the Sony STR-DG820 amplifier (can be found for about £230) and then something like the KEF KHT-1005.2 speaker system (available for under £300). This will give you the full HD audio available on Blu-Ray discs (which is just as an important part of Blu-Ray as the improved picture in my opinion). There are other all-in-one solutions, but no decent ones at that price I know of which would be any less cluttered than the above.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Gavin C:
Hi

Just in process of redecorating living room and using it as a good excuse with wife to go flat screen. Will be hiding cables through plastering and false wall so she agreed to this!

I currently have (or will have)

1) Panasonic Tx37 -LZD800 as good speakers apparently on tv

2) Virgin media - V+ type recordable box

3) X Box 360

4) a 5m wide by 6m living room will telly in the corner.......and I have forward planned by plastering speaker cable into my rear left and right wall areas

I am looking for advice as I want to get a blu ray dvd player and some sort of home cinema system that my blu ray, tv, virgin box and x box will all want to connect to. Ideally I am looking for a solution for minimum of hassle as I wont profess to be an expert here and will rarely use the surround system except for movies, footy, occasional gaming. Was tempted by a blu ray home theatre all in one system but so few on the market. (Rationale for this was driven by less boxes and only need 5.1)

Would appreciate advice on best blu ray and surround system options that would allow my pre-planned cable to be used and allow for connection of all devices. Budget is £700.

Do I go down a separate blu ray ( Panasonic BD55 with viera link to telly?) and surround system, or is there an all in one option

The other main query I have is driven by how I connect all these elements to any amp or all in one.....ensuring I use my cable now in place and dont need to rip holes in the wall again

Welcome any advice and please keep it simple (as I wont feel patronised)

Thanks in advance

Gavin C

An all in one system will mean that you would have to add more cables to your screen. Your best bet is to get a budget AV receiver like the Sony STRDG820 (circa £230) and the Sony BDP S350 (£160) which would leave you around £300 for speakers. This isn't a lot but you will still get a brilliant sound (from what you have already). Below would leave you some extra for cables. You will need hdmi from bluray to receiver, hdmi from Virgin box to receiver (you already have an hdmi from your screen, that would go in the monitor out hdmi slot on the receiver. I don't know anything about the Xbox but if it's hdmi then that can go in the receiver too.

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-BDPS350
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-STRDG820-BLK
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=TANN-SFX5.1-SIL

 

[Gerrardasnails]

professorhat:
A good 5.1 speaker system for an uncluttered setup is the Q Acoustics Q-AV system - as you can see from the review, it removes the requirement for the front three speakers, instead just using a soundbar for these. The problem is, the cheapest I can find it on a quick search is £450, leaving nothing for the rest of your system!

Given the budget, I would be tempted to go for the Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray player (which can be found for about £180), the Sony STR-DG820 amplifier (can be found for about £230) and then something like the KEF KHT-1005.2 speaker system (available for under £300). This will give you the full HD audio available on Blu-Ray discs (which is just as an important part of Blu-Ray as the improved picture in my opinion). There are other all-in-one solutions, but no decent ones at that price I know of which would be any less cluttered than the above.

Two out of three snaps!

 

[professorhat]

Great minds think alike!

I forgot about the connections - as Gerrard has said, all HDMI sources can hook into the amplifier's HDMI in ports and then you just need one HDMI out to the television. I believe the Virgin also needs an optical lead from the box to the amp for 5.1? I'm not 100% on that so hopefully someone else can confirm.

On the Xbox, this will depend on the model you have. If you have an Xbox with the HDMI output, again, just an HDMI cable into the amp will suffice for both audio and video. If you have the version with no HDMI out, your best bet is to use the component cable and hook this directly into your TV and then use an optical lead from the component cable into the amp - this will give you surround sound through the amp.

Don't be too worried about connecting up an AV amp - it looks mad with all the connections on the back, but the vast majority won't be in use. WHF have a couple of guides here which can walk you through connecting everything up and you can always post back here if you're having any issues.

 

[True Blue]

Confirm you do need optical link for 5.1 on V+

 

[Gerrardasnails]

True Blue:
Confirm you do need optical link for 5.1 on V+

I thought it was established on here before that you don't.