Home Theater

Background

Experience

Old Sony GX909ES A/V Receiver

Fig 2

Fig 3

Pioneer VSX-1019AH Audio/Video Receiver

Fig 4

Fig 5

Philips 60PP9202 Rear-projection HDTV Monitor

 Sony Bravia 3D HD KDL-46NX711 TV

Nov 2011 - Got a Sony MRW-EA7 universal Multi-Card memory card reader with USB interface.  A USB cable allows it to be easily accessible from the front of the set.  The idea is to allow someone to see their digital photographs on this screen.  It supports over four dozen card types.


28 Sep 2011 - Spent a couple of hours on the phone with Sony advanced support trying to be able to view photos on the Sony directly.  I can now view photos by using the "My Media" option from the LG BD 390 home page.  It sees the shared folder in My Network Places as does any wireless device in my house.  But in order for the Sony to display a photo a "DLNA server" (Wiki) needs to be running on my desktop.  For example when Twonky is downloaded and run I can see photos on the Sony.  But that is unacceptable since Twonky needs to always be running, i.e. it's in the system tray all the time using up computer resources.

The thing that's driving me is that the image quality of this set is phenomenal.  I'm currently learning how to use my Nikon D300s DSLR camera and have discovered RAW image files that contain 14 bits per color channel.  The Sony only displays .jpg files which are 8 bits per color channel, a lot lower quality image.  Digital NeGative files (Wiki DNG) contain much more than TIF including all the color channel bits.  I think that TIF (Wiki) can also support more color deepth than jpg.  The idea is that members of the local camera club could bring their laptop and show very high quality photos on the Sony screen.

This is a Costco model number.  Note:  When you buy high end items at Costco using their American Express card you get a couple of more years on the full warrenty (something that's worth hundreds of dollars).

In order to make use of the better image quality of .tif files I got an Apple TV box.  This is a small hardware box that supports .tif files.

July 22 2011 - Using Nikon D300s digital SLR to make Red-Blue colored glasses (Anaglyph 3-D) 3D still image based on YouTube instructions.


July 14 2011 - Searching Amazon for "3D" in Movies they are mostly animated, documentary or horror.  Avatar in 3D goes for $126!.   Be careful, very few of the Avatar Blu-ray disks are 3D.  Most of the 3D at amazon is the old colored glasses (Wiki: Anaglyph 3-D).  Note: When a computer is used, like in animation or CGI, it doesn't cost much more to get a 3D rendering.  Documentaries can be shot using a 3D camera.  But studio 3D shooting is much more complex for some reason.  The Sony HDR-TD10 camcorder does NOT output any 3D files, so the only way you can see 3D images taken by this camera is to connect the camera to a 3D HD set using an HDMI cable, what a bummer.   Confirmed this with Sony.  Maybe their next 3D HD camera will be better.

July 2011 - spent about an hour trying to get info from Sony about how to watch 3D that could be fed from the wireless network.  It requires a Digital Living Network Alliance (Wiki: DLNA) server device on the network.  This is a Sony backed, but open source, protocol.  Windows 7 with Media Player 12 might do this, or maybe Windows XP with Media Player 11 (12 does not work on XP). If you know more let me know.

May 2011 - Tried to watch 3D on Youtube (Youtube is supported on the Sony TV) but the "3D" icon does not appear under the video.
Menu \ Videos \ Youtube \ Search "How to watch 3D videos on YouTube" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNuKAaC337U
Phoned Sony, but all representatives were busy so hung up since I'm paying for the phone call.
Sent them an email asking how to see YouTube 3D videos.

                                                       ^
                                                    "3D" icon visible on desktop computer.
Sony says that this set does NOT support YouTube 3D (i.e. YouTube is colored glasses (Anaglyph 3-D) only as of July 2011).  See the Sony 3D web page.  It's not clear why there is a side-by-side and a over-under display mode.

2015 - I still have not found a reasonably priced 3D TV camera that can produce files that allow reasonably priced editing.  Microsoft Movie maker allows combining stills, titles and video into a final file that can be uploaded to YouTube or watched on your TV.

Fig 20	At the right, top to bottom: Pioneer VSX-1019AH Audio/Video Receiver LG BD390 - 1080p High-definition 2D Blu-ray/DVD/CD Disc Player (replaced with the Oppo 3D Blu-ray player) Panasonic DVD-F84 5-disk DVD/CD Changer JVC TD-W309 Dual Audio Cassette Deck Pioneer CLD-V820 Laser Karaoke Deck JVC HR-S5100U Super VHS Deck
	On the left edge in this photo (right side when seen from the front) there are manual control buttons. To the right are the various input connectors. Click image for larger image. If cursor is (+) click again.

HDFury2 HDMI to Composite converter

In order to get the HDMI equipment to output 1080i (or 1080p) video for the Philips rear projection HDTV a converter is needed.  Need to get a 2 meter HDMI cable since this unit will end up very close to the input terminals on the back of the HDTV.

The small screws that connect the supplied cable to the unit are impossible for adult hands to access and even with tools they are impossible to seat.  They may be mis-dimensioned.

When playing copy protected media the output is at 480p, but when not copy protected the output can be as high as 1080p.  One solution is to use this converter and the other is to make a copy of the movie using something like DVDFab that removes the copy protection.

Video & Audio Connections (Wiki)

Composite Video (Yellow RCA Jack, sometimes a 1/8" Jack) (Wiki)

Fig 6

This is the first generation method of transferring a video signal.  It's a 75 Ohm cable with RCA plugs on each end.  The receiving device should terminate the cable in 75 Ohms.  Some monitors have a pass through capability where the impedance is high but the last monitor in the chain needs to terminate the cable.  This is an analog signal that combined all the video information.  The problem with combining all the information on one cable is that they interfere with each other.  The audio connections need to be made using some separate method.

S-Video (4 Pin DIN type connector) (Wiki)

Fig 7

The Luminance (Y) and Chroma (C) signals are run on separate coax lines which greatly improves the quality of the picture.  Some devices have a switch associated with the S-Video jack so that when a S-Video plug is inserted the associated Composite Video (yellow RCA jack is electrically disconnected).  Therefore if you fed the yellow RCA jack a signal and there is a S-Video cable connected to the same port number the signal on the yellow RCA jack may NOT be an active input.  The audio connections needs to be made using some separate method.

Component Video (Red, Blue & Green RCA Jacks) (Wiki)

Fig 8	Fig 9
Cable for either Red, Green & Blue or YPbPr.	YPbPr RCA Jacks

There are two flavors of this analog format.  The older one is Red, Green & Blue color video with the sync on a separate cable or combined with the Green (Sync On Green: SoG).  HP used the latter with their color workstation computers and used BNC connectors.

The more modern flavor for home video equipment is YPbPr.  Most equipment does not support 1080P over component video although it should work. 
The audio connections need to be made using some separate method.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) (Wiki)

Fig 10	Fig 11
HDMI Type A plug connector.	HDMI Type A receptacle connector.

This is the current (2009) high end connector that carries signals for both audio and analog video as well as two way control signals allowing the boxes to talk to each other.

There is a 2-way digital dialog between the source and sink boxes.  For example in the case of a monitor the source asks if the monitor is HDCP (copy protection compliant, WiKi) in addition to technical details.  When the monitor says it is compliant then the source will feed it 1080p video.  Note the actual video could be either analog or digital (Wiki: DVI).

Versions (Wiki)

1.0 December 9, 2002 and is a single-cable digital audio/video connector interface with a maximum TMDS bandwidth of 4.9 Gbit/s
1.2 August 8, 2005 and added support for One Bit Audio
1.3 June 22, 2006 and increased the single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbit/s) CAT1 cable is 74.25 MHz & CAT2 cable is 340 MHz, 3D @ 1080p
1.4 May 28, 2009 increases the maximum resolution to 4K × 2K (3840×2160p at 24Hz/25Hz/30Hz and 4096×2160p at 24Hz, which is a resolution used with digital theaters); an HDMI Ethernet Channel, which allows for a 100 Mb/s Ethernet connection between the two HDMI connected devices; and introduces an Audio Return Channel, 3D Over HDMI (HDMI 1.3 devices will only support this for 1080i)

TOSLINK or Optical Cable (Wiki)

Fiber optic cable for audio.

Fig 12

This was developed to allow higher quality audio connections, like for DAT recorders and is supported by the Poineer A/V receiver. I'm using Toslink to feed the audio out of the Sony 3D HD set to the Surround Sound audio system in order to support Sony Playstation games (with HDMI feed to the 3D HD set) and watching video directly on the Sony 3D HD set by means of wireless internet feed to the 3D HD set.

Video Formats (Wiki)

Yamaha YST-SW315 Amplified Sub Woofer

The Sub Woofer adds the non directional low frequency sound that home sized speakers typically do not reproduce well.  This is a bottom firing speaker which makes the sound less directional than a front firing unit.  The pioneer receiver has 90 Watts per speaker so this one was chosen to have a little more (250 Watts).  The MCACC was run again which will turn on the Sub Woofer channel and readjust the equalization of the other speakers and set a crossover frequency.  If the volume knob is turned much higher than 50% the MCACC fails with a message that the sub woofer needs to be turned down.

I have had no luck with the "audio standby".  It's supposed to turn off the main power and turn it back on when sounds that the sub woofer should be processing.  The controls that effect it are the OFF-LOW-HIGH switch and the HIGH-CUT knob.  No combination I've tried works.  The problem being that it turns off OK, but then never turns back on.

23 Dec 2009 - The audio standby problem was related to allowing the A/V receiver to assign the left and right speakers as LARGE.  That means that the left and right speakers are getting the low bass frequencies rather than send them to the sub woofer.  Once all the speakers are set to SMALL or to THX (depending on which flavor of MCACC is used) causes the bass frequencies to be sent to the sub woofer and the audio standby works with the switch in the low position.

Also the system sounds much better with the sub woofer now doing it's thing.  The reason that the A/V receiver does not assign the speakers to small automatically is that there is provision for Bi-Amplification of the left and right channels where there would be two sub woofers.

Fig 13	Fig 14
Fig 15	Fig 16
Fig 17

Yamaha Patents

Tanaka and Yoshida, "Active Servo Technology", Oct. 1990, Japanese Publication: Yamaha YST-SW 1000 Super Woofer Tone Quality, pp. 1-3,--Radio Technology--p. 91.
4908870 Motional load driver, Katsuo Nagi (Yamaha Corp.), Mar 13, 1990, 381/96 ; 381/59 -
4943956 Driving apparatus, Masao Noro (Yamaha Corp.), Jul 24, 1990, 367/137 ; 333/217; 381/96 - electronics matched to speaker and enclosure
4987564 Acoustic apparatus, Kenji Yokoyama (Yamaha Corp.), Jan 22, 1991, 367/140 ; 181/160; 181/182; 181/184; 381/96 -
5280543 Acoustic apparatus and driving apparatus constituting the same, Kenji Yokoyama et al (Yamaha Corp.), Jan 18, 1994, 381/96 ; 381/59; 381/76 -
5313525 Acoustic apparatus with secondary quarterwave resonator, Michael A. Klasco (Yamaha Corp.), May 17, 1994, 381/350 ; 181/156 -
6731765 Loudspeaker device, Hiromi Sotome (Yamaha Corp.), May 4, 2004, 381/160 ; 381/182; 381/186; 381/300 -

7.1 Surround Speaker Setup

Left and Right Speaker Location

These speakers will sound better if they have their front face forward of the monitor, not behind it like in the Fig 1 at the top of this web page.

Small vs. Large Size Speakers

When the Pioneer VSX-1019AH Audio/Video Receiver does the full auto advanced MCACC speaker calibration it classifies the Left and Right speakers as "Large".  This may be a bug in it's software because when a sub woofer is being used they should be classified as "Small".  In the lower level MCACC speaker calibrations there is an option that can be set to YES if you have THX speakers and that switches them to small, but you can use RECEIVER ->HOME ->Manual SP Setup to change the left and right speakers to small.

Then all the sound that's below the crossover frequency for all 5 speakers gets sent to the sub woofer.

Crossover Frequency

The Yamaha YST-SW315 Amplified Sub Woofer has an adjustment for what frequencies it passes and I've set it to 140 Hz, i.e. the highest frequency it will handle.  Did this for two reasons.  First to try and get the auto standby function to work, but that did not pan out so now it's on all the time.  Second, the center, and rear speakers are very small and even the left and right speakers don't have that good a base response.  Note the Voice of the Theater speaker has a 900 Hz crossover frequency.

After making the above changes the sound is noticeably better.

2-Way Wall Speaker (to the left and right of seating)

There are two speaker openings one facing left and the other facing right.  The wire is against the wall and there is solid speaker box facing the wall, ceiling away from wall and the floor.  Two grill cloth covers facing left and right.  The green lines give an idea where the sound goes.

This type is speaker is good for the surround speakers to the left and right of the seating position.  They are NOT good for the rear speakers that need to send the sound 90 degrees from the wall.

If you look closely two round holes behind the grill cloth can be seen.  The green lines were only drawn from the top circle, but should have also been drawn from the bottom one.

1-Way Wall Speaker

By 1-Way I'm referring to sound coming from just one face, not two faces like the side speakers shown above.

9 Jan 2010 - Got on eBay "New Pair 400W Acoustic Audio Surround Sound Speakers NR" from seller thedeepdiscount and installed them according to the 7.1 diagram at Dolby Labs for home theater systems.  Also moved the Left Front and Right Front speakers further apart to match the angles given by Dolby labs.  Home Depot has 16 ga speaker wire in 100 foot rolls ( a dollar lower cost than on a 100 foot spool) for under $25.  Note you don't need anything fancier or more expensive.

The system now sounds 100%++ better than it did before moving the front speakers and adding the rear speakers.   i.e. there's now 7.1 surround (8 speakers):
Front: Right and Left & Center
Side: Right and Left
Rear Right and Left
Sub Woofer - rotated the box so the port is now facing the corner of the room.

DVD Setup Menu

Some DVDs have an option in the Setup Audio menu for different sound encoding schemes.  For example Dolby stereo may be the default and Dolby 5.1 is an option.  In other cases the choice is between the default Dolby 5.1 analog surround and Dolby 5.1 digital.  So on the older DVDs it's best to check the Audio Setup to see if a higher quality sound is available.  It seems that newer DVDs default to the highest quality.

DVD Audio Modes

DVDs made at different times have different audio features. By pressing the Audio button on the player remote control the audio mode is displayed.  Pressing it repeatedly cycles the audio mode.  I've found DVDs that have a default of 2 channel stereo, but also have 5.1 surround.  So you need to press the audio button to be sure you are getting the 5.1 surround sound.

The A-7 Voice of the Theater®

This is a photo of one of the pair of speakers I bought around 1970.  The photo was taken by my son who now has them.  To put some scale on the photo remember the woofer is 15" and the cabinet is 52" high x 30" wide x 24" deep and weighs 170 pounds.

They were mounted into recessed boxes designed into the house by George Cody (architect & Toy collector) and a frame holding special speaker grill cloth was in front of them.  They are not designed to be pretty furniture. 

LG BD390 - 1080p High-definition Blu-ray Disc Player

OPPO BDP-103 Universal 3D Blu-ray Player

2019 February 20 My at&t DSL service failed twice in an hour, so I've installed a D-Link DSL-2740B modem to replace the at&t 7550 which seems sensitive to power glitches.  In the past couple of years there have been a lot more power failures than in the past few decades.  All my internet devices work fine on the new router except the BDP-103 which shows "not connected" when the test under the Network tab is run.  It does work with the external WiFi dongle.  There is not longer a support phone number for Oppo since they are going out of the Blu-ray player market (Oppo ditches hi-fi and Blu-ray player business - April 03, 2018). I've submitted a couple of support on line forms and while I get an automatic reply saying they received the support request, there is no forthcoming help.

I did get email support. 019 February 21
Setup Menu (Gear icon) \ Network Setup \ Connection Information shows network address of router (192.168.1.10).  (when the cable is plugged into a different port on the D-Link modem, this changes.)  This also seems to change day to day for the same port (there are 4 LAN ports on the D-Link modem-router).

Menu photos taken 2019 February 22

on screen Network Setup Menu

	Connection Information: shows 192.168.1.10 (network address of individual port on D-Link modem/router) Player Name:  OPPO BDP-103 BD-Live Network Access: Off My Network: On Gracenote Lookup: On Internet Connection: Ethernet (option is Wireless)
	My Network: On Gracenote Lookup: On Internet Connection: Ethernet (option is Wireless) Wireless Setting (grayed out) IP Setting: Auto (DHCP) (Wiki) - this was the problem, it was set to Manual with wrong supporting information) Proxy Setting: Off Connection Test (I've been told running this helps "reset" the BDP-103, maybe or maybe not?)

-----------------An alternate if IP Setting: Auto does not work --------
Change DNS 1 to 008.008.008.008 and press ENTER
Change DNS 2 to 000.000.000.000 and press ENTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on screen Video Setup Menu

	Picture adjustment Dual HDMI Output: Split A/V 3D Output: Auto 3D Setting: (Blank HDMI2: Yes, 2D>3D Depth: 8, 3D TV Size: 46) TV Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Wide / Auto TV System: NTSC Output Resolution: Auto
	TV System: NTSC Output Resolution: Auto 1080p 24 Output: Auto DVD 24p Conversion: Off 4kx2k Output: Auto HDMI Options

on screen Device Setup Menu

	Firmware Information: BDP10X-83-1226 Firmware Upgrade (blank) Firmware Notification: On Remote Control Code: Code 2 (related to Big Ass Fan) HDMI CEC: Off Standby Mode: Energy Efficient Sleep Timer: Off
	Front Panel Brightness: Dim Cache Media Info: On (allows restart where stopped on DVD) Persistent Storage Netflix VUDU Settings Management Reset Factgory Defaults

4 Feb 2013 have on order an OPPO  3D Blu-ray player.  This player gets great reviews and I had some gift coupons so it's on order along with a 3D version of Avatar.

6 Feb 2013 - see above for the addition of a wired LAN connection to the existing BD390 Blu-ray player and the improvement in Netflix quality.

Issue 1.  When watching Avatar in 3D the sound stopped, but when watching in 2D the sound was there.  This was caused by the dual HDMI outputs.  The Pioneer VSX-1019AH Audio/Video Receiver not being able to process the 3D signal on the HDMI2 output.  The fix was to download the newest firmware for the BDP-103 then in:
Video Setup \ 3D Setting \ Blank HDMI2 select YES.  This feeds audio only to the VSX-1019AH and leaves HDMI1 feeding 3D HD video directly to the Sony TV set.

Understanding Dual Display Mode The dual HDMI outputs on the BDP-10x series of players provide additional versatility in the connections you are able to make to the rest of your equipment. The player's Dual HDMI Output setting defaults to Split A/V, which allows video output to a display and audio output to an AV receiver / processor, but this setting can also be changed to Dual Display in order to accomodate connecting to two displays. Using Dual Display mode will result in both audio and video being sent to each device that is connected via HDMI, but both the audio and video quality may be limited compared to using a single HDMI connection or Split A/V mode. The player's Output Resolution cannot be adjusted per HDMI output, so it will be limited to the highest resolution supported by both devices. For instance, if one display is capable of receiving a 1080p signal, but the other connected display cannot receive a signal higher than 720p, the Output Resolution will be limited to 720p for both outputs. Audio is handled similarly in Dual Display mode, though it is often less of an issue since many displays do not contain any Dolby or DTS decoding capabilities. As such, audio will often be limited to 2ch PCM when using Dual Display mode.

Issue 2.  The Motorola Electrify 2 cell phone (and the iPod touch) can both generate 1080P videos so there needs to be a way to display these.  I tried using the Apple TV but the WiFi connection does not have enough bandwidth which was one of the motivations for adding a wired LAN connection to the Home Theater equipment.

Netflix seems to have fewer buffering problems since using a LAN cable between the router and the BDP-103.  But when watching Netflix using WiFi on the Sony flat screen it seems to work OK.  So the benefit of the hard wired LAN to the Oppo is questionable.

The solution to this problem involves adding a streaming server, see the OPPO DLNA Media Streaming FAQ - BDP-93 Media Files FAQ What kind of user created media is supported -
Oppo recommends the oshare DLNA server - SourceForce page -

Download the zip file and expanding it,
then running oshare.exe
allowing the firewall to allow access
select the folder on the shared network to allow
leaving oshare running on the desktop computer
select network from the oppo home page
select the desired folder and file to play.

The 1080p video I made on the Electrify 2 phone played with fantastic quality and sound with no glitches.

Issue 3. The Hugo 3D Blu-ray disk would not play because it was a UK region version and the stock BDP-103 plays only U.S. region disks.

Unofficial OPPO BDP-103 Frequently Asked Questions - Oppo BDP-103 multiregion DIY kit - PRO - this kit supports auto DVD region free operation and using the remote to change the player region by pressing 1, 2 or 3.

Issue 4. Some DVDs are hard or impossible to get in the U.S. but are available with a different region code and in a different video format.  So it's handy to have a DVD region free player.  The Oppo BDP-103 (and my prior DVD players will play different (probably all) video formats (Wiki: NTSC, PAL, SECAM) and output a U.S. format that my monitor can display.

It seems the U.S. has censors (not called that, but that's the effect) that limit what we can see.  But region free players can get around some of that.

If you want to make the BD-103 DVD Region Free this can be done using a software update (that needs to be redone if you set your player back to factory defaults or update it's firmware).

DVD Region Codes The world is divided up into 6 DVD regions (Wiki) and when a new movie is released it is released in each region in some sequence.  AFAIK this is done to lower the cost of making film prints.  So the reels of film are moved from region to region as the film gets shown in different regions.  There is also a pecking order of release something like movie theaters, Pay Per View cable (and now internet), then DVD/Blu-ray.  To prevent people in regions from seeing the DVD until it's their turn the DVDs are region coded and most DVD players are coded with the region where they are sold.  Although there are "region free" DVD players. Blu-Ray Region Codes Blu-ray disks use a different, but similar region code (Wiki) scheme where there are 4 regions (A/1, B/2, C/3 or none).

 Note:  You can burn either a CD-ROM or DVD, but it must be burned as an iso image, not a data file.

1. Download the Super-Disk.iso file for your model player from http://multi-region.net for example this one for the BD-103.
2. Burn the file as an iso image, not as data.  If you look at the directory of the disk after it's burned and see a folder "Super" and inside that folder you see:
FUNCTION_0.cfg
OS.sys
README.txt
SPECIAL_CONFIG.spe
then you have correctly burned an iso image. When this disk is put into the Oppo player it will eject after a couple of seconds.  You now have a region free player.

But if you see: 
super_disk.iso
then  you have burned a data disk.  If this disk in put into the Oppo player the TV screen will show Data Disk and will not do anything.
(on order 20 Feb 2013

HD Monitor

Room Lighting

DVD vs Blu-ray

Samsung 933HD Plus Wall Mounted HDTV

This 18½" HDTV is being wall mounted using the 75x75mm VESA (Wiki) hole pattern (either 6-32x½" or 4-0.7x12 mm screws into the back of the TV).
The instructions said to drill a 3/16" dia hole 2½" inches deep for the two mounting screws, but that's way too small a drill, ended up with a #6 and can just tighten them.

	Sanus Vuepoint Model F10 TV Wall Mount Small VESA TV wall mount at Wal Mart. The two bars and the large black nuts and bolts are only used for a 100mm hi x 200 mm wide VESA TV set, not used for this small set.
	Samsung 933HD with F10 Mounted on back The white dust on the TV is from drilling the dry wall and stud.
	Harbor Freight 95914 Color Sound TV Camera
	Samsung 933HD mounted high on the wall Driveway image on screen

References

2023 Aug 26: I don't think YouTube can process THX/surround sound properly.  Some of the demos are silent when the sub woofer is supposed to be working.

YouTube:  What Happened to THX?, 7:46 -
YouTube: THX and Dolby sound intros COMPILATION - sound test, 4:50 -
YouTube: T-Rex Entry Scene (Jurassic Park) ● 8K HDR ● DTS X, 3:21 -
YouTube: Surround 7.1 "Sphere" | Trailer | Dolby, 0:33 -
YouTube: Dolby Audio - 7.1 Surround Test Demo, 1:49 -

Links