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Above is the equipment rack with the centre speaker resting on top. The equipment is as follows... Top left is the Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-Ray Player. Top centre is the Yamaha RX-V2600 dts-ES/DD-EX 7.1 THX Certified receiver rated at 130Wx7. Top right is the Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player. Bottom left is the Harmon Kardon EQ8 Graphic Equalizer. Bottom Centre is the Yamaha CDC-585 Carousel CD Player. Finally, at the borrom right is the JVC XV-S500BK DVD Player. Click on the image to enlarge.
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Above is the heart of the Holodeck, the Yamaha RX-V2600 dts-ES/DD-EX 7.1 THX Certified receiver. One of its many strengths is its ability to upconvert low resolution video to higher resolution at either 1080i or 1080p. It also sounds as good as it looks with plenty of power, 130W x 7. The 4 pictures show the front and back of the unit as well as the hidden panel and two remote controls.Click on the images to enlarge.
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Above is my very modest DVD and CD collection. The Blu-ray & HD-DVD collection is below. Click on the image below to enlarge.
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The Home Theatre Room (Thumbnail Images)
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Here are a few pictures of the new room. Click on the images to enlarge. The first shot is the front soundstage. I ran a PVC conduit inside the wall from the component rack up to the ceiling and then across to the ceiling-mounted projector. These contain all of the video wires. The second shot shows the right side of the room, which has 3 large windows, one being visible here. I installed shutters to control the ambient light from these windows. The following picture is a shot of the main seating area. In the fourth shot you can see the surround speakers and the projector which mount off the 12' ceiling.
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The Speakers (Thumbnail Images)
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These are shots of the speakers in my system. Click on the images to enlarge. From left to right is the 130W PSB
Subsonic 6 with a 12" driver. It is located at the front left corner of the
room. Next are the main speakers, PSB 300i's, which are mounted on 32" stands to place their tweeters at ear level while in the listening position. Next is the PSB 200Ci which is a shielded centre channel speaker which currently rests on top of the equipment rack. After that are the PSB Ambient II quasi-dipole speakers, which I use as my surrounds. They are located to the left and right of the listening position and mounted off the ceiling. Finally there is the PSB Alpha C which I am using as the rear centre speaker to match the Ambient II surrounds.
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The Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-Ray player is capable of playing the next generation of movies in full Hi-Definition, 1920 x 1080. It has gotten rave reviews for both picture and audio quality for Blu-Ray disks as well as its ability to up-convert standard dvd's to 1080i and 1080p. The audio connections include HDMI
in 7.1 and analog in 5.1 channels, optical and coaxial digital audio, as well as the standard 2-channel audio. The video connections include HDMI, component, S-video and composite. It is capable of
playing all of the newer audio formats available to Blu-Ray which include Dolby
Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, dts HD Master Lossless and PCM up to 7.1. To make a long story short, it brings movies to life with audio and video the likes of which I have never seen before. I have it hooked up using HDMI
for the audio and component for the video.
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This is the newest addition to the Holodeck. The Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player is a Hi-Def player with a 1080i output. It plays standard dvd's as well as the newer HD-DVD format, not unlike the above blu-ray player. The hookup is also similar to the way I have the Panasonic player connected, with an hdmi cable for the audio and component video for the video. It is capable of the newer audio formats available to HD-DVD which include Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital TrueHD. It is a welcome addition to the Holodeck,
allowing us to enjoy all of the movies available to the Hi-Def formats.
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The Front Projector (Thumbnail Images)
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I have recently made major changes/additions to the equipment in the Holodeck including the projector (a Sony VPL-VW11HT LCD unit with a WXGA resolution of 1366x768) and a DIY 96" 16:9 fixed screen. The projector is fed with a 36ft long RGBHV Liberty Cable delivered from the equipment rack to the projector via a PVC conduit that runs behind the wall and above the ceiling. I also prelaid a 43ft long Ultralink HDMI cable for future use. The projector is mounted 11ft away from the screen using a custom modified Sony mount that drops the unit down by 24". Surge protection is accomplished with the Monster SW200 which can be seen in the last picture. Click on the images to enlarge.
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My Home-made Projection Screen (Thumbnail Images)
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This screen, which is silver/gray in colour, gives my projector an increase in both colour saturation and black level. One of its benefits is the ability of the screen to block out off-axis (ambient) light. I used a sheet of formica as the screen surface and spray-painted on top of that with Tremco High Heat Enamel (aluminium). I used slotboard for the borders, cut to a width of 3" which I stained flat black and covered with black velvet. The borders have a slot running around the perimeter that overlap the formica sheet by 1/2" on all sides. The formica sheet simply fits in the slots of the borders thereby keeping the screen surface flat on the wall. The actual screen size (without the black borders is 48" x 83.5"). All screen images were taken with a
Sony
DSLR-A300 digital SLR camera. Click on the images to enlarge.
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