I have a plan
droogiefret
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My old setup of CRT TV - Sky + - DVD Recorder + Wired Surround system - BT phone and Broadband - WII has just broken down 'cos the TV went on the blink.
So .... Having bought a 42" Panasonic Viera Plasma and discovered that I can get excellent freeview HD from my aerial (couldn't even get a picture from it analogue and was totally SAT reliant) I have thought long and hard.
So I am thinking.
Cancel Sky and see what I miss (it can only be box sets on Atlantic, Aussie cooking on Watch, Movies and full F1 coverage).
Then get a fast Virgin cable connection and see what my viewing options are supplementing FreeView and FreeSat from the Net.
Get a PS3 for HQ playing, gaming (and recording?).
If all that seems fine, cancel BT phone and broadband and just keep my mobile phone.
Ditch the wired surround and get a decent sound bar.
Does this sound a reasonable plan?
So .... Having bought a 42" Panasonic Viera Plasma and discovered that I can get excellent freeview HD from my aerial (couldn't even get a picture from it analogue and was totally SAT reliant) I have thought long and hard.
So I am thinking.
Cancel Sky and see what I miss (it can only be box sets on Atlantic, Aussie cooking on Watch, Movies and full F1 coverage).
Then get a fast Virgin cable connection and see what my viewing options are supplementing FreeView and FreeSat from the Net.
Get a PS3 for HQ playing, gaming (and recording?).
If all that seems fine, cancel BT phone and broadband and just keep my mobile phone.
Ditch the wired surround and get a decent sound bar.
Does this sound a reasonable plan?
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Comments
I would get a proper PVR for either Freeview or Freesat depending on what system you choose to use (or even both). That way you would get the same sort of functionality as your existing Sky + box.
I would also be tempted to go for a good proper surround system over a sound bar any day of the week. You don't have to spend a monstrous amount of cash either, for example £180ish would get you one of these
http://www.richersounds.com/product/1-box-home-cinema-systems/yamaha/yht196/yama-yht196
Which would probably blow the proverbial socks off a soundbar and be far more versatile into the bargain. That is if you want loads of speakers spread all over the living room.
If you do go for a soundbar be careful to check the connections it has onboard. If the TV supports Audio Return Channel over one of the HDMIs then a soundbar with ARC as well may be an easy option to hook up. Otherwise you need to check whether the TV has an analogue or digital audio output (most likely the latter these days) and make sure the soundbar has a matching input.
Thanks Chris. The surround system I've got is pretty good - Harmon/Kardon AVR130 with a set of 5 dual Bose speakers and a woofer. Maybe I shouldn't be so hasty in ditching it. I was thinking of cutting down on spaghetti behind the TV .... but if soundbars aren't as good maybe I'll wire it up again and see how we go.
I see what you mean about the PVR - TV tuner seems pretty good - shame to have to duplicate it in a PVR. I'll have another look at what add ons I can get on a PS3 - it would seem a waste to get a blu ray pvr with freeview tuners and then get a PS3 for gaming anyway.
More thinking then.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Play+TV+PS3&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=PlayTV&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
I hope that this helps.
The only hope is that you can plug everything into the telly and have that route the surround signal to the amp via the digital audio output. But it may not support all formats so could be a bit hit and miss.
A more modern unit like the Yamaha I linked to has several HDMI inputs and you hook everything up to that and it sucks the audio data out of the data stream.
An alternative to both a full surround system and a soundbar if you don't want wires all over the place is one of these.
http://www.richersounds.com/product/speaker-packages/onkyo/htx22hdx/onky-htx22hdx-blk
It looks like a simple 2.1 system but the sub hides a pretty capable AV amp in the back. And it can be expanded to a full 5.1 system if desired.
The point about having a PVR is not really to replicate what is in the TV for no reason. It is a necessity if you want to record a different channel to the one you are watching. And as many PVRs have two tuners on board that means you can record two channels while watching a third on the TV at the same time.
And there is no reason either to get a Blu-Ray recorder if you don't want one. The normal definition of PVR is a hard disk recorder with a couple of tuners. No optical disk recorder (DVD or Blu-Ray) included. So you would not be duplicating disk players by having a PVR and PS3.
Yes - I think the penny has finally dropped on that one! I think there was something in my head saying I shouldn't be duplicating tuners and recorders. One recorder for freeview, one for cable or Sky. But I guess that's just the way it is - since you don't centralize all the recordings anyway it doesn't matter.
I'll look into sound systems - I like the idea of something wireless - something that could double up for music - but that will take a bit of thinking through. In the meantime I've wired up the AVR130 via it's optical inputs - I can feed that from the Sky box, the DVD or the TV and seems to work fine.
Again, thanks for the ongoing advice.
Thanks TV KIng. I was starting to look at Play TV. As you've pointed out, it would exclude HD so it's probably not the best route for me. I really notice the difference now between HD and SD and will almost watch any old tosh in HD rather than SD now!