Q&A - #16 - June 17, 1997
Q I read your article about
upgrading my current LD player to Dolby Digital, and I was really
interested in purchasing the upgrade board. But when I tried to contact Charles Triola via E-Mail or phone, I had no luck. If you have any information about where else I can get that board, let me know.
A Charles Triola is very busy with his company, and at times, can be
difficult to contact. If you continue to have no luck with him, there
are a few other options you can pursue.
If you are an electronic buff, and can read schematics, check out the
generic AC-3 mod board at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/1650/ac-3mod.html. You can
build your own board using the parts listed at that website, and
install it using the service manual of your LD player.
There are also people advertising on the newsgroup
alt.video.laserdisc. These people sell essentially the same generic
board. One person that has been advertising quite frequently has a
mod that fits most Pioneer and Sony LD players. The kit has everything you need, including a detailed installation guide. He can be reached at [email protected] (Europe) or [email protected] (USA). The cost of this mod is about $75 US. Many people also advertise on that newsgroup, selling the board, plus they install it for you. This can cost significantly more, anywhere from $150 US to $375 US.
Q I have A question regarding AC-3 & Pro-Logic subwoofer operation. I have been informed by a local dealer that if I connect my Rel Strata subwoofer to the LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel on a Denon AVC-3800 amp, that the sub will then not operate in Pro Logic as no signal will be sent to the sub. Is this true and how can the problem be overcome using only one sub?
A All self-powered subwoofers have two line-level RCA jack inputs (for right and left channels). If there are two different subwoofer outputs on a receiver (such as a separate LFE and subwoofer output), just run audio coaxial cables from these two jacks to the two RCA line-level inputs on the subwoofer. We do this with our setup, since the LFE output is on the outboard decoder, and the subwoofer output is on the receiver.
Q I have been overseas for 8 years and anticipate returning to the US in the next 2-3 months. I have visited your web site and realize I haven't a clue about any of the new technology, and can't even begin to
understand why one format might be preferable over another! I have gone
to several other Home Theater sites on the net in an attempt to catch up
on technology, but don't comprehend much of anything I read! My husband
and I have NO components whatsoever and would like to invest in a GOOD
home theater system; we are interested in buying the entire system all
at once, but don't know where to start. Can you give
me some idea of the amount we should budget for a respectable system
(including TV) and perhaps recommend, say, 2-3 complete systems and why
these would be good purchases, explaining compitability of components,
etc. Also, we would like to buy everything all at once, but it looks
like we should perhaps wait a year for some components - if so, what do
we buy now and what purchases should be delayed?
A Well, this is one reason why we don't publish names and e-mail addresses of readers who send us questions. You would be bombarded with info from all kinds of manufacturers! FORWARD compatibility is a major issue these days, because so much new technology is at our doorstep. I demonstrated a new set of speakers we are evaluating to a friend who had a budget of $1,500 for everything. The speakers are about $3,500 by themselves. After hearing AC-3 and DTS through the lab system, he said he will revise his budget because the sound is so fantastic with the new digital surround formats. You don't need to buy it all at once, as long as you plan ahead so that, once you do obtain some new components down the road, you won't have to discard any of the ones you have now. You are starting fresh, so it will be easy if you are careful.
You mentioned you want a "good" system. This word depends on your perception. The home theater system we use sounds much better than anything in a commercial theater. The keys here are the speakers and power amplifiers. Get full-range speakers for the front and rear, since digital surround requires full-range all around (except for the LFE channel). Using small bookshelf speakers all around, plus one subwoofer, is fine for an apartment, for students on a tight budget, etc., but for the "you are there" effect, floor standing speakers are best, or at least, full-range mini-monitors. Something like the B&W DM-602s for example, are the mini-monitor category, and are full range. The DM-603s are floor standers. Their center channel speaker is superb. A complete set of five speakers would be in the $1,500 - $2,500 range (see Volume 3, Number 2, 1996). Another choice would be Platinum Audio's Studio-3 floorstanding speakers. They retail for $1,695/pair, and there is a center channel speaker to go with them. This would be about $4,000 for the speakers.
A five-channel power amplifier is a must for a good home theater. The Sunfire Cinema Grand (see Volume 3, Number 3, 1996), at $2,375, gives you 200 watts per channel, and the Carver AV-705 (Volume 4, Number 2, 1997), at $1,199, provides 125 watts per channel. Both products are excellent. Now, you need a subwoofer. A good subwoofer is extremely important to the home theater experience. I would suggest either the Velodyne F-1800 (Volume 3, Number 3, 1996), at $1,999, or the M&K MX-5000THX (Volume 3, Number 1, 1996), at $2,499. Both subs will rock the rafters. If you don't want to spend that much on a subwoofer, the Sunfire Subwoofer (Volume 4, Number 1, 1997), at $1,250, is dynamite in an 11" cube.
For a surround sound processor, you can get the top of the line components like Lexicon, Meridian, and Theta Casablanca, which will set you back about $5,000 - $10,000 for all the options, or get a mass market receiver, such as the Yamaha RX-V990, for less than $1,000. Outboard decoders for AC-3 and DTS will plug into this receiver, for a total cost of about $2,000. The Yamaha will sound almost as good as the top processors. If you get a receiver, it MUST have a set of 5.1 inputs on the back, for adding outboard decoders, and a full set of pre-out jacks (one for each of the five channels - plus one for the subwoofer) to connect the receiver to an outboard five-channel power amplifier. The power amplifiers that come with receivers are OK, but if you want full scale movie experiences, more power is needed.
A laserdisc player and a DVD player will give you the best images for movies, but unless you have a local video store that rents laserdiscs and/or DVD movies, you would have to purchase movies to watch them. If there is such a store near you, then bypass a VCR and get a laserdisc player (one with an AC-3 RF output jack on the rear). Technology is moving towards DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) with movies on them. The image quality on DVD is the best of all the current formats, but there is not much software (movies) out there yet. There are thousands of laserdiscs available. However, in anticipation of a future DVD library, get a TV with component video inputs. These are described in last week's Q&A. The DVD player can wait, as long as you have a laserdisc player in the meantime. Besides low image quality, VHS movie rental tapes tear the heck out of a VCR, and they don't have any provision for digital surround sound (AC-3 and DTS).
Q I am just getting into home theater, and I see movies listed as "Widescreen" or "Letterbox". When I view them, I only see a rectangle on the TV screen, and there is something missing at the top and bottom. Could you explain what all this is?
A Just about every movie filmed after the mid-1950s was made in the "widescreen" format. This meant that the movie was shown at the theater on a screen that was physically wider than before (the older motion pictures). There are several ways of doing this. Let's take an image of a beach scene shot with a 50mm lens onto a 35mm motion picture film space (approximate). 
It has an aspect ratio (width divided by height) of 4:3 or 1.33. This is the way movies were shown before about 1953, and it would fill your TV picture screen. If the image is cropped, by placing small metal plates in front of the film before the image passes through the projector lens, an image of 1.85:1 (a standard for American movie theaters) can be obtained, 
and it is usually enlarged so that it is wider on the theater screen than the older 4:3 image. It can also be cropped to 2.35:1, which is another standard aspect ratio for theaters. 
However, standard film space images cropped to 2.35:1 won't be very bright on the screen, so they are converted to full frame in the release print (the print shown at the theater) by anamorphics. This squeezes the picture so that it is back to a 4:3 image, occupying the entire film space, and then it is unsqueezed by a reverse anamorphic lens on the front of the projector. The movie can also be filmed anamorphically to begin with (CinemaScope ® and Panavision ®), so that the image on the camera negative film is squeezed. 
In this case, the 50mm anamorphic camera lens takes in twice the image side-to-side as the 50mm normal "spherical" lens. The release print is a positive of the squeezed camera negative and is unsqueezed by the anamorphic projector lens. 
In order to show a "widescreen" rectangular image on a 4:3 TV, it has to be reduced in overall size so that the sides of the image can be seen. This leaves some blank space at the top and bottom of the TV screen.
� Copyright 1997
Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity
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