Television or Internet?

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Seriously? 52"? Turning your head while watching a movie is not a good thing. Unless you happen to live in a castle, it's just impossible to fit that thing anywhere. Or not to make it dominate the whole room. Same with PC screens, anything bigger than 20" is just insane, unless you only play with it.

5.1 surround... yeah, that's actually a must. They make some Star Wars stuff just amazing.

 

Most people who have a large screen TV have not measured their room to find out the best fit size TV.

The recommend TV for my living room was between 32 and 42 inches. I picked the smaller and now looking at it I can honestly say a 37 or 42 inch would make a big difference.

As for sound and picture quality; you have to see a standard and Blu-Ray DVD on a 1080P TV to truly understand what is all the hip about 1080P. If you add a high quality sound system than the 1080P TV and audio system truly starts to shine; especially when the whole system is setup using HDMI.

My future goal is to purchase a 42" 1080P TV, with a receiver that has HDMI inputs and outputs and connect all of that up to my PS3.

 

Here's a picture of our living room for you naysayers. I did a little browsing, and I found that our TV is actually undersized for "optimum" viewing. As you can see, I've got plenty of room on that wall for an even bigger TV. The mount I have can hold up to a 72" TV...which isn't out of the question in 5 years or so.

52" might have been a bit much for a tiny, 1bdrm apartment, but in our house, it's just right.

 

i voted internet as well, if i voted some good channels, like discovery or the such id have to pay around 50 dollars a month for a lot of crap and then just a few good ones.

i got a 37" full hd plasma for playing ps3 and watching blu-ray and normal dvd's

 

Kitrax you should have gone for a 32" or 37" LCD/Plasma. The 50" for your setup is way too large.

As I stated, most people buy TVs too big for their space.

Kitrax is your TV 1080P or 720P/1080i? Do you have Blu-Ray or DVD with an up converter?

I have a Blu-Ray player and I can easily tell the difference of the quality of the picture and sound when compared to standard definition DVDs. I just wish Blu-Ray prices would drop to around $15 for a new movie.

 

Firstly, my TV is 52"...And secondly, "too large" is in the eye of the beholder.

My tv is 1080p with a 120Hz refresh rate. I *had* a DVD player that could up-convert...but it died, so we've been using our Xbox as a DVD player. I'm planning getting a Blu-Ray player sometime next year...but for now, our satellite has over 100 channels in HD.

 

Do you have Dish Network or DirectTV for satelitte? I have DirectTV; what I hate about DirectTV is their HD channels are 1080i and not 1080P. I believe Dish Network has some of their HD channels broadcasting in 1080P. I maybe switching over come March when my contract expires with DirectTV.

As for size it is in the eye of the beholder; I bet when you watch a movie though it feels more like you are at a cinema and not in your home, which is the point of a large screen HDTV.

 

I've got DirectTV, and most of my HD channels are in 1080i...but about month after we had the service, our receiver auto-updated itself claiming that it can now receive and display 1080p. The problem with getting channels in 1080p is that the show has to be much more compressed, which in turn means more artifacts.

 

It depends. If you listen to music, some audiophiles prefer an analog signal. And some still even listen to mono! Recently, I picked up a remastered CD of the Beach Boys' masterpiece, "Pet Sounds," which contians both stereo and mono mixes of the original vinyl LP and the difference is very evident regarding the final mixing.

If you listen to music on your PC you probably won't notice MUCH difference. But the same recordings referenced on a high quality system will certainly bring out the differences. Of course, many CDs have been remastered, and the process creates a very different sound in some instances, whether in two channel or mono. The new remastered Doors collection for the 40th anniversary of their first LP release is a example of how remixing the sound in digital can really alter the sound anyway, even with added content. Yet, many purists are unhappy with some of the tampering of the original recordings, even though they were remastered by Botnick and Manzarek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_sound_vs._digital_sound

Nevertheless, some claim that analog is more natural than digital. There's this big debate about digital CDs versus analog Vinyl LPs. I have large collections of both, and to be honest it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. The problem is that the sound deteriorates rather quickly with vinyl and it is an ultra pain to care for vinyl recordings.

But there are advantages:

This difference becomes more noticeable in higher quality systems between analog and digital. Most sound is in the mid-range anyway, so that part of the audio spectrum is mostly unaffected by the age of the listener. Hearing loss is usually at the higher end of the spectrum, as one ages. High quality audio will be smoother, clearer, transparent and have more presence in the mids and is still noticeable, regardless of age, unless you need a Belltone or other device for normal hearing.

I prefer stereo for serious listening of music. I use a 5.1 system on my PC, but it's mostly for games. I don't watch many movies, but I do on occasion and I run those through my main reference system, which is a 400 watt separate amp, preamp, and runs through a pair of Polk Audio RT 1000s, both speakers have built in subs and can fill this side of my neigborhood with plenty of sound. I hope they all like The Doors.

 

Since this discussion has veered a bit off-topic, I have to say a few words about the viewing distance. First of all you need to define what you mainly watch, SDTV, HDTV or home cinema. In case of the latter, you also need to define if you watch SD or HD content. SDTV can be watched from quite far away, DVD content a bit less, while for HD content you need to be much closer, to see all that extra detail clearly. SMPTE defines a 30 degree viewing angle and THX a 26 to 36 degree viewing angle for movie theaters (the farthest seats, which I prefer). If you think about visual acuity, you would probably have to be even closer, thus having an even wider viewing angle.

For example, take Kitrax's setup with a 52" screen and 10 feet viewing distance. For DVD content this is fine, but not for HD. Depending on personal preference and eye sight, something between 60" to 80" would be preferable for a HD home cinema experience.

I have a 40" HDTV with a viewing distance of ~6 feet, resulting in a ~27.5 degree viewing angle. Decent for HD content, which is what I mainly watch, SD content looks quite bad at this distance. A good distance to properly notice all that extra detail in HD content too.

So to sum it up, the optimal viewing distance depends on the content you watch.

 

That's why I like my mount...if we want it a little closer, we can pull the TV off the wall by a whole 32".

 

Now that is a proper wall mount then, nice!

 

My mom keeps nagging me to buy her a flatscreen too, because of Lord of the Rings. I guess for some people bigger is better. Since I'm more into downloads and conventional TV, bigger TV/PC screens have little added value to me.
You sure have a nice setup there, the cat is supercute! I don't think I'd enjoy looking upwards all the time to watch TV, though.

 

That is cool, Kit. I like the way you have that mounted. We should have a thread on "man caves."

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28875797

 

My living room isn't all that great. Now...if I had an extra-large room, and $100,000...I'd make a full-blown home theater.