Theater System
Do you have to program the home theater system?
I just bought a home theater system,5.1,some DVDs work with the whole system(speakers) some dont just the side ones,am i doing something wrong or,it scans the dvd for the best proformance?
Two things. You should have a button so ANY DVD would use all 5 speakers. But you do this manually now.
Now if you do not change nothing, then put in one DVD that uses all 5, then the DVD is in 5.1 mode. Some DVDs can have a stereo or 5.1 output. When watching a DVD movie, go to the audio section, if it has one, and there should be different modes of audio there. like 5.1 or stereo. Now, there are some movies, like my old Kung-fu movies and old DVD, that may only have the play and select scence mode. You do not have an audio choice and they will play on the stereo mode. You have to manually adjust the speakers to use the 5 speaker mode.
So DVDs vary in audio output. But if it has stereo output you have to fiddle with the system so you can get 5 speaker output. Whereas it a DVD says 5.1, then if you have the capacity it will play all the speakers. Hope this helps.
Yamaha's YHT-393BL 5.1-Channel HTiB System is the easy way to enjoy the cinema experience at home. Featuring 500 watts of power (100Wx5), the latest HDMI specifications, and popular Yamaha technologies like SCENE and CINEMA DSP, you'll be sure to get the most out of your high-definition movies and music.
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Coby DVD938 5.1-Channel DVD Home Theater System with Digital AM/FM Tuner, 5.1-channel progressive scan DVD player with integrated amplifier, DVD, DVD±R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, CD+G and JPEG compatible, Dolby digital decoder, plays digital media files directly from USB drives and SD/MMC/MS cards, integrated digital AM/FM tuner with 40-station preset memory, dual microphone inputs for karaoke function, digital and analog AV outputs for home theater use, NTSC/PAL compatible, convenient front panel and on-screen display, multiple language, subtitle, and camera angle support parental lock control, AC 100-240V automatic power switching, FCC approved and ETL listed, Home theater speakers included; 5...
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Expect exceptional value from this robust and compact 5.1 Theater system designed to make High Definition TV and sources really come to life with the Power, Detail and Emotion Klipsch speakers are famous for...
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Immerse yourself in your movies and music with Coby's 5.1-channel home theater speaker system. Fill your room with 300 watts of surround sound from five 3-inch satellite speakers and a floor-rattling subwoofer...
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LG has redefined what to expect from home theater. This isn't speakers and a receiver in a box. With the LHB355 Network Blu-ray Home Theater System, you get unrivaled Blu-ray technology, out-of-this world sound and instant entertainment...
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The rear speakers come wireless right out of the box (no additional purchase necessary). The Blu-ray player is wireless ready, and compatible with the wireless LAN adapter DY-WL10 (sold separately).
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The missing piece to your home theater puzzle is this 7.1-channel speaker package from Onkyo. The perfect addition to your DVD player and home theater receiver, the SKS-HT540 provides all the speakers you need to enter the all-enveloping world of surround sound...
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1000W 1 Disc HTiB, 4 Satellite, HDMi/ 1080p, Made for I Pod, Demo Mode
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Yamaha's YHT-493BL 5.1-Channel HTiB System is the easy way to enjoy the cinema experience at home. Featuring 500 watts of power (100Wx5), the latest HDMI specifications, and popular Yamaha technologies like SCENE and CINEMA DSP, you'll be sure to get the most out of your high-definition movies and music.
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Be surrounded by superior sound with the Samsung HT-C5500 Blu-ray home theater system.
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Everything about 3D Vision shrieks pain. From the potential mind-splitting ache it can induce in your head to the wallet-splitting system specification required to get it to work. It's the propitiatory of the propitiatory; requiring specific drivers, games, displays, graphic cards, Windows Vista and of course glasses; all that even before you can consider trying it.
It's like buying a car and then being told the petrol can only come from one garage, washing it with the wrong water will make it explode and using the wrong air in the tyres will make it ride like a drunken bucking bronco. Who would put themselves through all of that pain to experience something you can get by poking your head out from under the duvet each morning? NVIDIA fans, apparently.
But enough whining, does it work? Well of course it does - this technology is technically years old, ELSA (a now defunct NVIDIA partner) was offering 3D glasses back in the 1990s and there were even some insane anaglyph-based attempts on the Spectrum requiring the traditional red and green-lensed glasses. The run-down of required equipment shapes up as Windows Vista, a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or better graphics card, the stereoscopic 3D driver from NVIDIA, a compatible 100Hz+ display, the glasses and a compatible DirectX 9/10 game. If you've got all of that then you're sitting pretty.
The weakest link in this house of cards is the gaming element. Despite NVIDIA's ability to have more than 300 directly supported games, if the game's not listed then it's not going to work. Take a peek at www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce_3D_Vision_3D_Games.html for a list of games NVIDIA likes to claim have good compatibility, though it lacks the larger 'Not recommended' list found within the driver.
Pumping on your Stereo
NVIDIA does need to be given credit for designing a near foolproof installation and set-up. Testing with a basic 8600 GT (despite the minimum requirements) and then a GTX 285, the 3D Glasses install wizard asks you to run through a couple of basic display checks to make sure the stereoscopic vision is working. The final step offers alternative 110Hz and 100Hz modes to help remove the effects of any lighting flicker for 50Hz power supply countries. Once that has been completed, whenever a compatible game is launched, the 3D trickery kicks in automatically. A number of hotkeys enable you to toggle the effect, tweak it and enable an embedded laser-sight.
It's surprising how instant the effect is - millions of years of evolution have created a beautifully adaptable stereoscopic viewing machine: us. Pop on the correct glasses, look at a l20Hz screen and the brain is fooled into seeing depth. But is it any good? Initially, there's definitely a sense of euphoria and wonder, as this new 3D realm is revealed. 'Looking into' your favorite game is a great new experience but once you start to play around with different games, it's quickly apparent this isn't a level playing field. At its best with Left 4 Dead, some primal instinctive part of the brain lights up as you realize you now have depth perception.
Zombies flailing towards you suddenly have a natural order and a beauty as they spiral in space with a well-placed shotgun to the head. Blood spurts in awesome Jackson Pollockesque fashion onto your virtual camera lens that views this apocalyptic world. This is the 3D at its best; it works straight out of the box complimenting the gameplay, even enhancing it. The crosshair is solid, the effects inhabit real space, the feeling of tangible depth is palpable. Another showcase game is Burnout Paradise. While the immediate sense of space is perhaps less impressive - possibly for the lack of flying zombie corpses - it's intriguing how your eye begins to take new visual cues onboard, focusing on 'distant' junctions, objects and other landmarks seems to make timing turns and strategies easier.
My eyes.
At its worst, though, it's a frustrating mess. A crosshair that makes you feel you've drunk five beers, constant ghosting from lights and effects, while struggling to make the stereo effect work at all without inducing eye-strain. Somewhat akin to magic-eye pictures, it's an effect that you gradually get more and more used to or not at all.
But the title we tried that should win a special award for being most migraine-inducing is perhaps Fallout 3. We staggered from Vault 101 euphorically looking towards what we expected to be some soul-lifting panorama of post-apocalyptic destruction, to be greeted by the same old flat view with a 'scenic overlook' sign poking out in the foreground.
Hardly awe-inspiring compared to the first time we gazed around that view on a 2D screen. While at other times it feels like you're watching Chinese shadow theater with cutouts held at different depths. You feel this is the last trick NVIDIA has to pull out of the 3D hat. As with SLI and physics processing it's another wait-and-see technology. There's promise in there, but little currently really delivers. The best description of it is as a $200 novelty, it's cute for half-an-hour and then... Perhaps if there was head tracking, like we've seen created with the reverse Wii controller hack, that would add the extra immersion that these glasses are crying out for.
As it is, until games are directly written for the system they're not much more than an expensive novelty. A shame: as they do a good job of oozing great potential.