A Bet Each Way

The Age

Thursday November 27, 2008

Adam Turner

Sometimes the best home entertainment system is the one you build yourself. Adam Turner reports.

THE never-ending march of progress means Ravi Seevanayagam's home theatre is forever a work in progress.

When the high definition format war broke out between Blu-ray and HD DVD, Mr Seevanayagam didn't take sides: he jumped right in and bought both. The same with the simmering high-def audio format war between Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio; rather than wait for it to resolve itself, he bought players for both formats.

So Mr Seevanayagam's new home theatre room is awash with audio and video players of all colours and creeds, built up around his Yamaha RX-Z9 amplifier and Polk Audio 7.1 speaker system. His AV cabinet sports a Panasonic DMP-BD10A Blu-ray player, Toshiba HDXE1 HD DVD player, Toshiba HD personal video recorder, Denon Super Audio CD player and Yamaha DVD/DVD-Audio player.

The entire system is controlled by a programmable Marantz RC3200 universal remote control, with a series of macros allowing him to set up the room for watching movies with the press of a button.

A Sony Bravia XBR series 1080p "Full HD" LCD television now shares the room with an InFocus X10 DLP 1080p "Full HD" projector and drop-down 100-inch LP Morgan projector screen that retracts into the ceiling when not in use.

The speakers, projector and screen came from Encel Stereo as part of Mr Seevanayagam's recent home renovation, while the amplifier came from Rio Sound & Vision in Thornbury and most of the other components from U&S Audio Visual in Preston.

"I'm a serious movie buff and I've been building up my movie and music collection for 20 years, along with a range of home entertainment gear to enjoy it with," he says.

"Recently I put a special extension on my house just for home cinema, with acoustic bats built into the walls to keep the noise in - so we don't disturb the neighbours if the system is running at high volume."

While many people waited for Blu-ray to see off HD DVD before embracing high definition movies, Mr Seevanayagam found there were advantages to being an early adopter.

"I still have some HD DVD movies and you can buy them very cheaply," he says. "The picture quality is just as good as Blu-ray, but once Toshiba stopped supporting the HD DVD format you could buy HD DVD movies for around $5. This meant I could build up a good collection of movies cheaply - especially because HD DVD is region-free so I can buy discs from anywhere in the world."

Mr Seevanayagam's home cinema is built around his Yamaha RX-Z9 amplifier, capable of supporting 9.1 sound (nine speakers plus subwoofer). Such an amplifier is designed to do justice to the high definition audio soundtracks on high definition movies, yet he bought the amplifier long before his

Blu-ray and HD DVD players.

"I don't buy all my gear from the same place at the same time, but I try to plan ahead - making sure new equipment has plenty of inputs and outputs, will go nicely with my other gear and will meet my future needs," hesays.

"When it comes to home entertainment, there's always something new and interesting on the horizon."

SOUND ADVICE

With the high-def movie format war finally over, Blu-ray player prices are starting to fall.

Panasonic DMP-BD35 $495

PANASONIC'S slimline Blu-ray player is compatible with Blu-ray's Bonus View and BD-Live features, letting you access advanced content such as interactive extras and internet downloads. It also features onboard Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding, plus an SD memory card slot for playing AVCHD and JPEG files.

Sony BDP-S350 $449

THE Sony uses the XrossMediaBar interface borrowed from the PlayStation 3 games console and is also compatible with Bonus View and BD-Live. When it comes to audio, it features onboard Dolby TrueHD decoding but not DTS-HD Master Audio, but it can output both in bit stream format to a compatible external decoder.

Samsung BD-P1500 $499

THE Samsung doesn't ship with Bonus View and BD-Live compatibility but is firmware upgradeable. It features onboard Dolby TrueHD decoding, with onboard DTS-HD Master Audio decoding also requiring a firmware upgrade.