Looking for info on Surround Sound + Home Cinema

Dec

Folks,
I know this is'nt usually discussed here but I'm looking into vamping up my sound on my TV/Satellite and looking at going for a home cinema kit with the full surround sound. I can't see a forum that is dedicated to this subject around here or anywhere else in Ireland. Does anyone know of any forums out there ??
The reason I require an Irish forum is because most UK ones discuss the UK shops that will chip the DVD players but they don't deliver outside of the UK. I'm looking for the same kinda of information but with info based on this side of the water (shops, costs etc ...). Sorry for popping this in here but it is kinda related to Digital Satellite.
Cheers,
Dec..

phoenix2181

I've heard that powercity of all people offers chipping dvd's for 2o snots when you buy a dvd from them, a mate got this done but it took them 2 weeks to deliver on this!

phoenix2181

oh yea i forgot to metion that richer sounds is a good place to buy home cinema kit...good prices & a very good selection, they have a website at www.richersounds.ie
hope this helps

Hi there!
Yes Richer sounds are Excelent-I would big time recommend them, having bought an AV amp there recently.
They can also arrange chipped DVD players-but check out:
http://www.homecinemaheaven.co.uk/
They are excelent and even with the sterling difference do great deals and all their players are chipped!
also check out this forum http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=9
Become a forum member there and ask all the questions, you need to and they will be answered.
Also have a look at the various threads there-A mine of information!
Also the thing I like with that forum is the discounts available as a member with its many sponsors

If ya want more advice on that topic no probs-send a private message.
Hope that helps
mm

Aagh-you were looking for an Irish site weren't you-didn't read the last part.
Well apart from Richer sounds above haven't seen any.
However-all the online merchants connected with the above UK forum do business with the ROI-I know this as I've dealt with them and their prices are competitive.
mm

Dec

Thanks Lads for your replys.
Both Powercity and Peats have emailed me back and told me that doing mods voids their warranties but Peats forwarded me a site www.dvdireland.com that sells the chips (about £24)
I'm still waiting to hear from RicherSounds to see if they can do it.
As for prices I have found that on one particular system that I am looking into at the moment, PowerCity is the cheapest (£74 cheaper than Peats and £125 cheaper than Richersounds) It pays to shop around.
Thanks again !
BTW. mm that forum is v.good - I hadn't seen it before !

Hi Dec,
Just to let you know,
I bought a pioneer multiregion DVD from UGH on that forum.
Their Mod is software based so it Wont infringe warranty ie:the player isn't opened!
mm

happyhammer

i bought my DVD from Tesco's in Ireland!! The Wharfedale's don't need any hardware mod's to make them region free, simply a remote control hack so there no problem with warranty.

Thats correct, but They will not cope with RCE disks.
There is an even cheaper one than that available now, Multi region here:http://shop.iol.ie/shop/products.asp?
mm

A_TV_WATCHER

Just on this,

I bought a Grundig DVD playe in Dixons which you can 'deregion' by holding down a couple of buttons on the main box and accessing the Engineers Menu.

Very easy and no messing with Warranties etc.

There are a few good DVD 'Region' sites out there which tell you which players have software 'deregion' codes.

Couch Potato

Originally posted by happyhammer
i bought my DVD from Tesco's in Ireland!! The Wharfedale's don't need any hardware mod's to make them region free, simply a remote control hack so there no problem with warranty.

Hi happyhammerm, I also have that DVD - Can you let me know the remote control codes for switching regions please.

happyhammer

see below:

I've not got any RCE encoded DVD's do i don't know if it will play them as is suggested below.

I assume its a 750S DVD player?


regards,

happyhammer



=====================================

Make sure there is no disc in the player. ·

* Open the drawer
* Press ZOOM
* Press A->B
* Press the UP CURSOR
* Press the LEFT CURSOR
* Press the DOWN CURSOR
* Press the RIGHT CURSOR

If you've done it correctly, 'Region Free' should flash on the screen, you
should then be able to play any disc from any region.

You can also specify the playback of any Region manually, which *should*
help with this new RCE protection lark, by doing the following;

* Open the drawer
* Press 1 four times
* Press the number for the region you want (1 for R1, 2 for R2 etc)

Couch Potato

Cheers,

I will try it tonite and let you know !

No sure what the model is !

Hi everyone,
the advantage of having a modded player over one that can be hacked, is that you only have to put your US region 1 DVD in and it plays-no going through the above procedure,or longer with some models.
Your player behaves like all disks put in are European region two.
The mod on the pioneer I have is a software one with no loss of Warranty.
Going down the hack route would annoy me , having to key in several things each time I wanted to play an american or ozzie disk.
and as for the rest in this house, the machine would be broken by the time they got it to work:rolleyes:
But its a personal thing though-to each their own.
Beware the cheaper players though as with all cheap versions.
mm

phoenix2181

a good site to find dvd hacks us dvdreviewer.co.uk as the name suggests its a uk site with nice reviews of films, players and even news & movie gossip

thegills

I was looking for a Home Cinema System (HCS) that could play MP3's and CD-RW's so I brought an MP3 disk, a copied CD and a proper CD into Dixons. I tried different HCS models - LG, Sony and Philips. The CD produced sound in all 6 speakers, the copied CD in 3 and the MP3 disk in only the centre speaker. Can anyone explain this.
I am now looking at buying seperates - Amp, speakers and DVD. I don't know which connections to get on the back of my DVD though, in terms of sound and video - I was told optical sound and RGB Scart video ???. Any info greatly appreciated.

happyhammer

Madman, on the Wharfedale, once the hack is done, its only done once. I assume most player software hacks are the same.

Thegills, i had a few bob six months ago and bought a sony A/v amp and sony speaker set. I rushed in because i was flush at the time. In hindsight, i should have checked around a bit more, particularly the speakers. I love my existing Hi-fi speakers and should really have investigated using these and buying separate centre, surround and sub-woofer. Check home cinema choice magazine.

On the A/V amps, they all seem to have S-video and co-ax for the video input/output. I messed around a bit but have finally ended up with not using the Video inputs at all. Why? Because its better to use RGB.
The TV has only one RGB input in a scart so i've ended up doing the following (all scart connections):

DVD - VCR1-VCR2-Digibox VCR-DigiboxTV-TV1.

The VCR has two scarts that can be in/out and both RGB.



Happyhammer

Happy hammer-cannot speak for the Wharfie-but afaik when you play a region 2 after playing a region one-you have to go through the hacking procedure again for the player to "pretend" it's in America.
For RCE region one disks-you have to put in a non rce region one, let it play chp 1, take it out and then the player will play the region one rce-not all hackable players though.

Your sound system is coooool :cool: Home cinema choice is a super dooper magazine:)

Big question , when are Sky going to give us Dolby digital 5.1 or DTS-The meanies:mad:
mm
apart from on the expensive and so far not available in ROI , Sky plus box that is.

happyhammer

mm,

i can't say i'm interested in the SKY+ features except Dolby Digital.

I would like to think its only a matter of time before someone makes a small add-on to an existing digibox to output DD. The market must be huge for it! Some people say if it was that simple it would have been done by now, but SKY have only just begun DD so i'm keeping the fingers crossed.

Another option might be to chance getting a Sony digibox and wait for someone to get code to upgrade this if its possible( i still don't know if the hardware is in the sony box or not). I can't believe for one minute sky will download new software to sony boxes for DD so you'll have to wait for an 'entepreneur'.

Hey Happyhammer,
Have been told that if your Wharfie is the 750 or later version-It will cope fine with RCE disks:)
A lot of hackable players will not.
mm

happyhammer

mm,

looks like i chose wisely on the DVD player, not so sure about my AV amp/speakers. (sony str-db940 and sony SA-VE 705 )


happyhammer

thegills

Hi All.
Can anyone tell me if it is possible to play an MP3 CD on a DVD player (say Philips) and put the sound through an A/V and speaker system so that the sound comes out of the 5 speakers and sub-woofer. I have tested this in a few shops with different systems and have only managed sound out of 2 speakers. It appears the CD's are the same and that only DVD's reproduce sound in the 5.1 format...

happyhammer

thats correct operation. Your music is purely stereo. Your suround speakers should only come into play when the source is DD5.1

hh

Depends on the spec of the player-some do some don't.

You can buy audio DVD's which have 5.1 dolby surround encoding-they are not very common yet,but can be got in the likes of hmv/virgin or alternatively on line.

You must have a DVD player that will play DVD audio and your player will have cost £300 plus to do that.

It's possible to get a good DVD player for under £150 or so that will play Vcd'd and do mp3.
mm

If your amp has options for things such as Concert halls/Church etc ie: it can create its own sound fields (ala dolby pro logic style)
Then you can play your ordinary cd with Surround sound from all speakers including the sub woofer.This is what you should test in the hi-fi shops if they have a sound room,apart from justing testing Dolby 5.1 dvd's that is.

The sound from the ordinary CD when processed by your amp in that way won't produce anything like as good a result as 5.1 DVD audio dvd-but it is very convincing none the less.

hope that helps
mm

happyhammer

Some A/V amps have an 'auto detect' function for the audio source. If i put a normal CD in the DVD player, it will just have the Left and Ridht speakers plus the sub-woofer on.

I don't like the sound of a normal music CD when you switch on all the surround sound processing options. But i prefer vinyl anyway!




hh