I have a number of questions about my home theater setup. I have done a lot of reading, but I'm never real confident I'm understanding everything. So, I thought I'd just ask my questions my way and see if I can get help.
Last time I did a home set up, folks on this site were really helpful. So, thanks in advance for your help. And, I apologize for having so many questions (and being longwinded). Any thoughts you have on any of these will be appreciated. In other words, please don't be frightened by the number of questions--I'll take responses to any that I can get and be appreciative for those.
My Situation
I am not quite a newbie, but I nonetheless pretty much am clueless. I had a basement set up at my last house, but my wife and I just moved and we are having the basement redone. (Not starting from scratch, as the basement currently is finished, but we are having a fair amount of work done.) So, I am trying to figure out how to do the home theater again. Not sure I got it 100 percent right last time. Since virtually all wires will be in-wall, I want to be sure I get everything right.
My Equipment
Panasonic 50" plasma: 50PX50U
AVR: Pioneer VSX-72TXV
Gaming/DVD: PS3
Axiom Audio Speakers (5.1): EP350 Subwoofer
VP150 Center
M60ti Towers
QS8 Surrounds
I have HDMI from the PS3 to the AVR and from the AVR to the TV.
I have component for video from the cable box (Comcast cable) to the AVR, and optical audio from the box to the AVR. Not sure whether to run the cable signal from the AVR to the TV using HDMI or component (more on that later).
The Basement
Here is my thinking on the room. I made a lovely powerpoint picture, and imported it into Word, but I can't figure out how to post it. So, I'll try to describe the room. Not sure all of it is necessary . . . .
Basically, the basement is divided into two sides. One side is about 22 feet long, and 14.5 feet wide. The other side is about 20 feet long and also is 14.5 wide. The two sides are divided by a wall (14.5 foot, obviously), with an opening of about 5 feet in it. The opening will be just that, an opening (i.e., no doors between the two sides).
The home entertainment stuff will be in the side of the room that is 20 feet long and 14.5 feet wide. That room is not a perfect rectangle. Basically, I will have the TV on a wall that is about 15 feet long, and divided by a fireplace (the TV will be over the fireplace. I plan on having the couch on the wall facing the TV, and another chair in the room. Not a whole lot of flexibility on the wall the TV is going on, etc., as there are factors beyond just perfect hometheater to consider.
My Questions
(1) I am planning on getting a 30' HDMI cable for the connection between the DVR and the TV (as noted, the HDMI will be behind the wall). I am not 100 percent sure about the actual length of the run, but this will give me some flexibility to get the chord and make last second decisions on where things go.
(a) Is there a particular brand and type of HDMI cable I should look at? I currently have monoprice HDMI cables that work fine, but they are quite short. In looking at the Bluejeans site I could not tell whether there is something more to the question than just getting a 30' cable from monoprice.
(b) Do I need to be concerned about the 30' length causing problems?
(c) Should I get 1.3 instead of 1.1?
(2) I think my speaker wire for the back speakers could be about 31' when all is said and done. I was going to get 12 gauge, as the price difference between 12 and 14 seems de minimis, and again I'd like to err on the side of caution. I used 12 gauge in my last basement, but I don't recall the length of the runs.
(a) Again, any particular brand have any particular benefits (bluejean vs. monoprice)?
(b) Within the brands, any particular type I should get (there seems to be some differences in the wires)?
(3) Any particular cord safest/best for the sub? Length of the run will depend on where I put the AVR, so it could be quite short or pretty long. At my last house I had problems with hum. I think I used just a basic RCA cord and ended up adding some thing to the end (that the nice folks at Axiom recommended) that helped with the hum problem.
(4) I was going to put my back speakers on the stands Axiom sells for them? Any advantage or disadvantage to that? (Part of the reason I may do it is because our new house is a rowhouse, so we share a wall. They are old houses (100 years old), so we are not talking about paper walls or anything, but I want to err on the side of not being an irritant.)
(5) Based on the description of the room above: How far should the couch be from the tv (as noted, 50" plasma). In other words, should I not have it against the wall, or do I need the full distance to be adequately far from the TV.
(6) My DVD player broke in the move. It was a Sony 400 disk changer. In reading up on things, I came to learn that the PS3 is actually a good bluedisk player. (I did not own any bluedisks until Saturday, when I figured I would check things out. Nice picture with the BD.) Sounds like it may be o.k. on the SD disks as well. When I watched an SD disk on the PS3 yesterday (the first time doing that), it seemed comparable to the Sony I had. The questions I have are these:
(a) I was going to replace the Sony disk changer with one of the new Oppo SD players. Will the Oppo players have a noticeable improvement in PQ and SQ relative to the PS3?
(b) If so, with my setup, which of the Oppos would you suggest? I am not a real audio- or videophile, but do like quality on both fronts.
(7) This one drove me nuts. My recollection at my last house is that when I watched HD channels the screen was not blackboxed. Until yesterday, since we'd moved, HD channels were blackboxed. Yesterday, after talking to my friends at Comcast cable, I realized the cable box was set for 480p (I think it was 480p). The Comcast folks couldn't actually figure the problem out (they just had me check to be sure it was set to 16:9, and it was), and didn't know what 480p was, so I decided to see if I could change it to 1080i. I did, and the screen is no longer blackboxed. The question I have is whether that is the best way to go, or should I set it to a lower output and let the TV (AVR) do the scaling? The picture is nice the way it is set, but for some reason when things are moving there is something weird in the picture.
(8) As I've been playing with all this stuff (at least I think as I've been playing with it), a new problem appears to have resulted. It's possible I just never noticed before, but I don't think so. Basically, on the TV there are "lines" of sorts that are running through the picture. "Lines" is not a great description, as it's more like a narrow band of fog horizontally across the TV). The narrow band starts at the bottom of the TV and makes its way to the top of the TV. It then seems to recycle and start at the bottom again. It is barely noticeable at times (e.g., when the screen is bright), but it is pretty annoying at times. It does not seem to happen with the blueray or standard disks from the PS3, just from the cable box. I've tried three different sets of cables (all from the cable company) from the cable box to the AVR, and none help. I've also tried different HDMI cords from the AVR to the TV. Again, no help. When I change the input on the TV to component the problem seems to disappear (though I am not yet certain if it disappears completely). So, now I have both HDMI and component running from the AVR to the TV, and use the HDMI input when using the PS3 and component when watching cable.
(a) Is it really necessary to use component from the AVR to the TV when it is component from the cable box to the AVR? (I don't recall having it like that at the last house).
(b) If not, any thoughts on why I may be having the problem?
(9 Finally, I didn't have wall plates installed at the last house.
(a) Any disadvantage to using them?
(b) How do they work? In other words, does the contractor have the speaker wire connected to the plates inside the wall, and then I can just use banana plugs and run a short wire from the plate to the speaker?
