Professor.Ham.Slap

Really? I've had nothing but phenomenal luck with the RC-64, particularly with dynamic passages. Granted, I am not running with anything like Krell (at least not yet.... maybe someday) but I've always thought this speaker's strength was to handle loud passages without any hiccups given the larger driver array. Perhaps there's a bad voice coil in there somewhere causing distortion?

What do you mean it isn't going to be a match-up? It already is. You have studios X, Y and Z supporting one format while studios A, B and C support another. That is EXACTLY how the Beta/VHS thing went down, and in the end it cost consumers truckloads of money, as well as the studios while the market took it's sweet time converting all the beta owners to vhs and the ever so slow downward slope in deck pricing. To my knowledge - there is ONE commonly available dual format player "out there" - the LG BH100 - and it is priced way out of reach for your every-day consumer at $1200. With "cheap" HD decks being $300 and cheap BR decks being $500 - even choosing one format or the other is still out of reach for most consumers, and will be until at least Xmas 2008, and even then I don't think we will see decks of either sort that are below $200 unless things get standardized, and you can forget about universal decks being much under $500. It's just not worth it to shell out that kinda coin for the average movie watcher. Right now, yes. But the new LG BH200 is coming out as well as Samsung's dual format player. They are retailing at $999 for the start, and the price will fall about $200 pretty shortly thereafter (so $800 before 2008). This isn't speculation, I've confirmed the prices with both companies talking to their reps. But right now you have quite a few people supporting both formats which you really did not have in the 70's. Beyond that, I attach HD DVD players to approximately 1 out of 2 HDTV I sell. Is there a chance that either one or both formats will die? Sure. However is it worth it for me to spend $350 on a player and enjoy HD movie for at least two years in all their great picture and more importantly, sound quality equaling the master track. One final note, as far as pricing, we wouldn't be seeing $300 HD players right now if it wouldn't be for the format war. If I would venture a guess, it'd probably still be around $700 for the minimum. As technologies increase as they always do, prices will continue to fall, even on the hybrid decks as we will see a 33% price decrease from the time the hybrid decks were released less than a year ago.

It really is a night and day difference between the two. My speakers really shine with the TrueHD tracks. Get yourself the Toshiba HD-XA2 as it has the analog outputs which your Rotel can use.

Just a quick addendum: this standard has been built in to both formats from the beginning. The only reason this is unique is because it's the first time this has been available to stand-alone units. People have been doing this with PC's for a while. Also, because of the codecs, you still need a HD DVD/Blu-Ray player. As far as the formats are concerned, this isn't going to be the Beta/VHS match-up that everyone has been talking about. Universal players are out there and dropping nicely in price. Like it or not, both formats are along for the long haul and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I will also hop in and say that the new formats sound phenomenal via HDMI. I am really waiting for this whole TrueHD thing to start kicking off in terms of movies though.

This is a little unique, but my specialty is marinades. I worked in a small but nice restaurant during my high school years as a cook which essentially gave me insights on how ingredients taste together. Long story short, I've spent quite a few years working all this out but I'm at the point now where I can pull together ingredients and randomly place them together, which has turned into rubs and marinades for the grill. My favorite concoction for this past grilling season has to be a raspberry port marinade. Put some fresh raspberries and red onions in a food processor and puree them. Add about a quarter bottle of six grapes port and some dill and of course salt and pepper to taste. Add a little lemon juice to counter the sweetness and soak your meat in it for a good 24 hours. Works really good with venison.

Quick question for those that receive their paychecks from Klipsch: It mentions it will be available in mass retail outlets. Does anyone know if Best Buy would be one of the retail outlets to receive these headphones? I can't wait to bust out the employee discount on these.

Somehow I have a strong feeling that he's just blowing smoke (Bay that is) given his history. I'm sure once they show him the paycheck he'll be just like everyone else in Hollywood. Meh, aside from Transformers, I can't think of anything that Bay made that I was a fan of. Especially Pearl Harbor. EDIT: Bay has actually already released a statement again saying he has calmed down, however he does hope that they will reconsider (doubtful though, considering they're already in an 18 month contract). To quote Jay from Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, "I hate how fake this town is."

Here's the thing, everyone is still comparing this to the whole VHS Betamax thing. The only possible parallel to that war is the fact that someone might end up holding an obsolete player (which it looks like that is even incorrect given the number of announced and unannounced combo players I know are coming out). The line people forget to draw is that the original betamax players that came out cost around $999+. Adjusted for inflation the $300 HD-A2 would cost $75, which makes a beta or VHS player over 13 times more expensive than the cost of getting into the current format war. The point is, even as a poor college student, I saw the value in jumping in simply because I could begin enjoying HD quality movies with amazing sound quality that really brought my Klipsch speakers to a whole new level for $350 with my Toshiba HD-A20. If it were to lose, so what? I'm out $350 which is about the same cost as a month's worth of utility bills. Furthermore, I don't understand while everyone (and I'm not trying to knock anyone, but particularly those in the Blu-Ray camp) feel the need to ONLY focus on the negative side of this format war. Here is what it has given us so far: incredibly cheap players from both Blu-Ray and HD DVD and cheaper media, whilst the cost of entry is only a few hundred dollars. And add on it's been said many times (even by Sony execs) that the war could never have been over in less than four years if at all, you've got a long time to run with the so-called losing format. The negative? Well, possibly the need to have two HDMI ports used (unless you go with Samsung's up and coming combo player that costs as much as Sony's Blu-Ray player) and the slight possibility of being out a few hundred dollars. Fair game in my eyes.

It really depends on your taste. I personally tend to lean towards DLP projection when LCoS isn't a viable option.

I like both the Panasonic and Mitsubishi projectors and honestly I think you'll be happy with either one. The Mitsubishi will have some really nice vibrant colors and performance wise it is a very wonderful performing projector (I installed one for a friend before). The Panasonic produces colors that are a little bit more natural, but not as vibrant so it kind of depends what you're looking for. As far as a screen is concerned, get yourself some Screen Goo (www.goosystems.com). You'll need to get the base coat and the actual finish that you want depending on your room. Read up on it though, it's one of the best performing DIY screens you can get. Very easy to apply to the wall too.

Actually as things stand right now, there's very little you can or will be able to do with HDMI 1.3 as far as True-HD and DTS-MA are concerned. Virtually all of the high def discs (HD DVD and Blu-Ray) are flagged with Advanced Authoring. What this does is determines that the sound format must be decoded inside the player and can in no way be decoded by your AVR. Also, since the 360 Elite came out and now that the Pro also has HDMI, the 360 HD DVD add-on is almost just as good as a standalone player (minus the fantastic upconverting capability.

It is HDMI 1.2, but do we really need 1.3 for a gaming system? I'd argue pretty heavily on no. Really only a handful of televisions will actively use all features of HDMI 1.3 (Deep Color being the primary example) and most consumers will not even be able to tell the difference. I'm thinking the key here is the source. Movies placed on HD DVD and Blu-Ray and the like can certainly benefit from it because they are shot in the real world or rendered using many powerful server farms. Any on-the-fly rendered image really won't benefit that much from the enhanced color, as it's just another layer that would require a lot more processing power to decide whether we're looking at red 48% or red 48.2%. Just IMHO.

*Insert snarky comment here*

Well, actually they didn't for quite a while. Magnolia getting the Reference series is rather recent and up until that time Best Buy only carried Synergy, although we still can't get our hands on the "good Reference." But bigger is ALWAYS better. I have the RC-64, RF-7 mains and an RSW-15 subwoofer. And yes it does make that big of a difference. Honestly, if you have to do it in segments (mains first, sub later etc. etc.) do it that way. I have about 4 years of piecing dedicated to my system and it is just phenomenal -- like I couldn't be happier with anything else right now. As far as getting the discount, you should be able to grab some Reference. The only things off limits are the top of the line Reference series (RC-64, RF-83 and so on).

I think they released the lesser quality one because of the price of HD DVD players. I think they felt they needed to get closer. Either way though, I actually wouldn't go with a Sony player at all though. Both of them have demonstrated video dropouts in our store. Instead if you're looking to go exclusively Blu-Ray, I'd say look into Panasonic's player. It comes with 5 free discs on top of the mail in offer, and is just a really solid player all around. But also if I remember reading correctly, the BDP-S1 also has a better de-interlacing chip in it so the 1080P stream will look better than the BDP-S300 model.

Here are some side by side photos (taken from AVS) from the movie Hot Fuzz (great movie, btw). There are some rather huge differences in picture quality between the two formats. DVD HD DVD Edit: I can't tag these in the forum because the software doesn't allow high-res shots. But yea, there is a huge difference to be had between HD and DVD. Edit 2: Alright, I can't get the HD screen to show up reliably. Here's a link to the original thread. (pops)

True, but the professional projectors from Christie and the like can produce a HUGE color spectrum. Pioneer plasmas have incredibly rich color and I think they have somewhere around a color pallet of around 100 billion displayable colors. The current generation Christie projectors have around 35 trillion and true minimum contrast ratios of around 2000:1. Either way though, I can fondly (and vividly) remember the first DLP cinema I went to. It was Star Wars Ep. III and the image quality was just something that was just mindblowing for those of you who haven't experienced it yet. Now if I could only find a digital cinema in my area with a Klipsch Audio system.

Essentially in order to get the full DTS HD or Dolby Digital TrueHD you need an HDMI capable receiver. The good news is it doesn't matter if the receiver processes the new surround formats because all current generation players decode the tracks and output it as multi-channel PCM so you get the full stream without any degradation. However, if you don't have HDMI in your receiver you can still get a somewhat higher quality stream through an optical connection. The Toshiba player will encode it as DTS 1.5mbps (the highest bitrate optical can carry) so you'll still get a decent benefit, but that being said I love the current generation HDMI receivers (I have a Yamaha and my father has a Harman Kardon, both of which are nothing short of incredible).

SHENANIGANS!

Well, yes, Bose does use inferior products for the price they charge. However the products are not inferior because they're using paper woofers in their system. It more comes down to the way it's done. For example, the motor structure in the cubes is alright for mid-range, but is complete crap for over 15khz so therefore no high end detail. The bass is also missing from the system due to the use of 5.25" drivers for a subwoofer. My center channel has 4 6.5" drivers. Figure that out. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the driver material on the Krell Master Reference Subwoofer is paper as well, and that is the godfather of all subwoofers.

I second that. I also would hate to have to resort to pulling files off my PC if I want to watch a movie. What if my wireless connection craps out in the midst of a movie? Hard drive crash? Sure a DVD player can go out but once again even a HD DVD player would cost about as much as a hard drive with the capacity to store uncompressed HD (plus no need for data reconstruction). All I can say is so far I love my HD player and I can't wait to stroll into Best Buy on December 2nd and pick up my copy of Transformers HD [H]

I have a friend in the market for a system. I'm posting this to him tonight and if they don't go, I'm about 90% sure he'll snag them.

I certainly will throw in my vote for the RC-64 to go with the RF-7's. I just personally think the 64 sounds a little more natural than the 7, but both are pretty darn good speakers. And now for the semi-canned response: see if you can get a dealer to give you both to audition in your room with your system and see what matches your tastes best.

Actually, I kind of like the format war. If it weren't for that, we would still be seeing $1000 players as the norm. Sony is currently subsidizing the added cost of producing BD50 discs so they would also be around $40 per movie if that were not the case. Besides, dual format players are on the way and both very well may be here to stay. And actually, I really hope so because that means they'll really have to work to keep an advantage.