Kiwimeat’s Kitchen

I recently had my Fujitsu Plasma screen and source devices ISF calibrated by Avical Australia. It took approximately 2 hours and cost a three figure sum.

So was it worth it?

YES! A resounding “Yes!” actually. All other family members noticed the improved picture quality and the richer colours, and brilliant contrast that was now consistent across all sources. I’m very happy with it.

I learnt a lot observing and discussing with the engineer doing the calibration. It was interesting to see that the final configuration was quite significantly different to my own settings!

One of the issues that came up was that despite the advances in thin panel technology fewer (not more panels) have advanced configuration options that can really assist in getting the best out of the panels. The engineers’ personal view was that in the current market Pioneer (Professional or Kuro) were best for plasma and the Sony X series for LCD and pretty much the rest should be left alone. Fortunately my now venerable (in flat panel terms) Fujitsu 50″ was the last of the models with advanced calibration options.

Much like the purchase of a sound meter and a good hour with a how-to that were a revelation on the audio side, I have found that the display calibration has really improved the quality of my HT experience, and I can highly recommend it for those who have made a substantial investment in HT environment.

One consideration is that you need to have all your source devices available and cabled up to your final specification as changing devices or even connectivity types will impact on the display calibration.

Mixing Gigabit network kit - especially “consumer” grade (aka cheap) - with Fast Ethernet (or wireless) devices such as Media Centre extenders can be bad news. At least it is for my setup.

Symptoms are that playback on the Linksys DMA2100 extender is either flawed (jerky, pixalated, audio drop outs) or completely unusable. The network optimisation report will show the link as being unsuitable for HD if not nothing at all.

Microsoft have a KB article which which describes a workaround. Either drop the Media Centre network card speed to 100Mbs or implement Flow Control RX on the host Media Centre. Linksys actually include an errata card in the box with this KB article linked.

Unfortunately applying the RX setting to the Flow Control on my Media Centre with it’s integrated Intel gigabit port caused the receive speed to die making networking and updating content on the Media Centre a royal pain. Likewise the gigabit NIC wan’t happy being forced to 100Mbs.

My solution. Disable the onboard gigabit network card in the Media Centre and install an old 3Com 3C905TX PCI Fast Ethernet Card. Hey presto, the DMA2100 is happy, and I can at least copy content to the Media Centre at reasonable speed.

All for lack of a $1 or less gigabit port in the Linksys Media Extender!

Moral of this tale - You get what you pay for!

Well I finally got round to organising to replace the faulty HDMI cable in my wall between the AVR and my wall-mounted TV.

Assisted by my friendly Hi-Fi guy we took the Plasma TV off it’s hooks and inspected the faulty cable. Try and we might we couldn’t get the existing cable to budge (in hindsight this should have caused alarm bells to ring).

We then tried to pull the replacement Kordz Evolution S 10m HDMI cable through the conduit using the pull wires. Disaster struck when we were about 90% of the way through. The pull-wires stuck and an attempt to pull it further caused the pull-wires to detach from the HDMI cable. Bugger!

It appears that the final turn in the conduit is too sharp and it prevent cables proceeding. So I’m back to running the HDMI cable in front of the feature wall and my in wall conduit is of no use.

I’m now awaiting the assistance of a custom installer who specialises in this sort of activity.

My Linksys DMA2100 was delivered a week ago and I’ve set it up in the master bedroom. It’s primary function will be to remove the need for my dearly beloved to move from the very comfortable bed and fight for a timeslot in the Home Theatre room to watch recored HDTV or DVDs.

Setup was straight-forward and relatively painless. I found that the component connection looked a little soft into the Samsung 32″ LCD in our bedroom. However, changing over to HDMI gave a better picture.
As per the addendum note in the box, I did have to amend the Flow Control setting on the NIC in my Media Centre to RX in order to get sufficient quality for HD TV. I’m using the wired Ethernet option (wired each room with CAT6 when I had the HT built).

Watching Live HDTV, Recorded TV and using the Guide is just like Vista Media Centre. My wife is happy with the functionality.

For watching movies XVid worked and you can get DivX working - go here.
Also I have found that DVD VOB’s do play.
It’s just that you don’t have access to the DVD menu options but if you are like me and used DVDShrink to merge the 1GB (or less) VOB files into a single file using English soundtrack only then you can simply play that. I’ve also added a shortcut in the folder to each movie and this can be used to launch the movie.

Only one downside/bad experience so far. Two day into ownership on the Sunday the DMA2100 hung for a couple of hours and nothing seemed to work to reset it. Even using the rear-reset button, then suddenly it came good. Very frustrating but it has not reoccurred.

A Very Belated Happy New Year.

Meh, I’ve got the flu (before my employer had a chance to organise this year’s flu vacination!) and after 3 days off work I’ve still suffering but at the green flem stage. Ugg.

Well January is done. The good news is that I only worked 9 days of the month – the bad news is that I was only paid for 9 days.

Christmas was good but over too quickly. Fortunately I only had 3 days of work before we went on holiday for two weeks.

We had an excellent time in Thailand. Bangkok is pretty much everyone has ever said and the traffic is legendary for good reason. The temples were fantastic and my wife and daughter enjoyed the shopping. The second week was spent in Krabi at the fantastic Pakasai Resort where we lazed by the pool except for 2 day trips out. I was very reluctant to return….but we did as the start of the school year beckoned.

So what of the High Definition Wars?

Obviously whilst I was away on holiday there were some significant developments in the Hi-Def “War”. The biggest was Warner dropping their format neutral stance and going Blu-Ray only. The news prompted many inside and outside of the industry to declare BDA the winner and HD-DVD dead. But wait…………..HD-DVD isn’t dead…yet.

As a result on the Warner decision, and after a period of shocked insensibility by the HD-DVD Forum and Toshiba, prices were slashed starting in the US and then Europe. Finally here in Australia we got the price cuts too and whilst too early to tell whether it is merely a “dead-cat bounce” HD-DVD players have apparently outsold BD players (including the PS3) 2-to-1 last week here in Oz.

I now have an Toshiba HD-XE1 player and it is indeed a very fine piece of machinery. It has the special region free firmware to enable it to play all regions of SD-DVD’s thanks to the ingenuity of a fellow forum member here in Australia. It has the excellent Silicon Optix/HQV Reon Video Processor which does wonders with SD-DVD processing.

I’ve ordered 20 or so more HD-DVD titles to do my “bit” for the struggle.

Onto February when we all perspire in the final, humid sweatbox that is the tail-end of summer and such lunacy as the start of the Super 14 Rugby Season will be upon us. For some reason the fact that whilst Rugby Union is traditionally a winter sport it is now played in late Summer/Autumn in Australia has yet to penetrate the heads of the manufacturers of rugby attire. So if someone sees me at Suncorp stadium without a rugby top it’s only temporary until it cools down and I can were a rugby top without melting.

Oh….HD-DVD still isn’t dead yet. Perhaps someone could answer me this?

I don’t understand why a lot of the so called “geek” community have decided to endorse the standard that has mandatory region coding (admittedly not an issue for the majority of American’s who struggle with their own geography let alone the rest of the globe), and mandatory DRM with the prospect of even more onerous checks in the future using BD+.

It’s getting closer to Christmas…and also to release of the Linksys Media Extenders for Vista. Unfortunately none are available before Xmas which is a shame as I wanted to give one to my wife for her birthday (2 days after Christmas).

The product pages for the Linksys DMA2100 and DMA2200 are now up on the Linksys site and I’ve downloaded the manual.

Another product that caught my eye was the NAS200 an entry level Network Attached Storage Device.

• Ethernet connected network storage with two available SATA hard drive bays
• Add even more storage with twoUSB 2.0 ports for hard drive or flash USB storage devices
• Securely share files locally orthrough the Internet (FTP, HTTP)
• Built-in media server for streamingto PC or UPnP AV digital media adapter

It’s generally available sub $200 from computer shops and all you need to add is hard disks.

I’ve been after a simple NAS to install on the network for general media sharing, and backup duties. This may well fill the bill.

I was dashing too and fro yesterday (something to do with ‘Xmas), and arrive back home to discover son waiting to lodge a service ticket for the HT.

The screen had gone all hazing and then green. Fortunately son had just shut down HT and waited for me to return.

Quick diagnostics established that video from the AVR to the Display was not working. It is fed by a 10m HDMI cable which runs through conduit in the wall.
Some quick HDMI cable swapping (always powering all devices off between changes) established that the DVD player to the Display worked fine using a short HDMI cable but when trying the same combo with the in wall HDMI cable a green screen resulted.

A quick visit to Living Sound and the loan of a 10 metre Kordz Evolution S HDMI cable and I’ve well and truly proven that the in-wall cable is at fault. Bugger…not the easiest thing to replace.
(BTW try borrowing a couple hundred dollars of cable from your local box shifter, not to mention a sub and a HD-DVD player whilst waiting for yours to arrive)

So sometime during the recent frenetic activity in and around my HT during the last few weeks, the in-wall HDMI cable had been pulled/plugged/twisted one too many times.

So a new addition to the list of Holiday activities is to dismount the Plasma and pull the replacement HDMI cable through the approximate 8 metres of conduit (2 spare pull wires available). Not exactly what I had in mind for the festive season.

Moral of the story is to treat your cables but especially the HDMI ones well.

Upgraditis is a common affliction, especially in the technological age, and for some time I have been battling the symptoms on the home theatre front.

It’s been there for a while nagging away at my conscious. Initially I was looking to improve low frequency performance especially for music and thence began a search for a musical sub woofer. Then it was all compounded by my jumping off the fence regarding HiDef movies.

Anyway, with a bit of help from an excellent deal from my local dealer (certainly sounds like an addiction!) I may have been cured…well in remission at least.
Hi-Fi Additions

• Yamaha RX-V3800Bi AVR - replaces RX-V2600B
• REL R205 Sub Bass System -replaces Energy XL8 sub
• Toshiba HD-XE1 - replaces Denon 2930 for SD-DVD and HD-EP10 for HD-DVD
• Oppo 980HD for DVD/CD/SACD Playback (can carry SACD over HDMI as DSD) - replaces Denon 2930 for SACD/CD duties

Currently only the RX-V3800 is installed (and currently uncalibrated). The rest is on order with the Oppo coming from the US as the Australian supplier is out of stock and waiting for the new 983HD before ordering more.
Home Theatre PC

• Replaced original X1300 video card with a X2600PRO with Heat Pipe = near silence from HTPC!
• Added Pioneer BDC-S02
• Installed Slysoft AnyDVD HD and Upgraded the bundled Pioneer PowerDVD to the full PowerDVD Ultra.

As a result I now have region free (and AACS & HDCP free) Blu-Ray playback.
The only downside at the moment is that I have to use optical to feed the audio to my AVR and this results in the Hi-Def audio track being down-converted to Dolby Digital. The solution is to use the multi-channel analog outs into my AVR’s multi-channel analog in. Unfortunately these are currently occupied by the analog outs from my Denon 2930 for SACD support but once the Oppo 980HD arrives they will be freed up and I will be able to get PCM out to my AVR.

Damn, a whole month without posting.

Work was very busy (we had our annual DR test) and now we’re all in the vortex that is Pre-Christmas. The annual endurance test of shopping (not to mention trying to find a parking space before the shopping), present lists, cards, wrapping, postage (a big ticket item for us due to the number of relatives in the UK) with a bit of socialising thrown in. We’ve got my daughter’s Primary School Graduation, Work Social Club Xmas visit to Wet N’ Wild Water World, my new nephew’s naming day, plus a couple of work events.

No.1 Daughter has decided upon an Apple Ipod Classic for her main, combined Xmas & Birthday present with anything else as cold, hard cash. Of course in addition to the purchase cost is the almost mandatory accessorisation that needs to accompany it (dock, case, radio option). No 1. Son has presented a list almost exclusively computer games for PS2, Nintendo DS Lite & PC.

My wife’s list give me plenty of options to fulfill. My list is fairly scant but mainly books with few movies and the last two seasons of West Wing that I don’t have (S6 & S7).

Early Xmas gift is likely to include a Japanese PS3 for Region A Blu-Ray playback and a couple of Blu-Ray movies.

Anyway good luck to all those about to enter the Xmas vortex and hopefully emerge on the other side.

Picked up my HD-EP10 this afternoon.

Bonus #1 The free-in-the-box movie was “Chronicles of Riddick” Which actually the one I wanted (there is normally 1 of about 4 movies in the box).
Bonus #2 Was a special firmware CD from a DTV Forum user was in the Postbox . More on this in a minute.

It took a while to get kids sorted, help my son clear a path through the Lego to the Hi-Fi rack and do the usual shuffling, sorting and cable management.
There is only a single HDMI cable running to my Yamaha RX-V2600B AVR with both video and audio over the one cable.

Even at 1080i (limit of my Fujitsu 50″ Plasma) the image quality on Chronicles of Riddick is fantastic. I know it is reputed to be a good transfer but even so I am extremely happy. Can’t wait for the other movies to land.

The wife was vaguely impressed, kids more so, and the wife then enquired as to the price and actually seemed quite impressed by the price cut and bonus DVD’s.

A bit later I got a chance to run the firmware update from the CD sent to me, and now my new HD-EP10 is no longer region locked for SD-DVD’s (with the exception of RCE encoded disks which will likely take another update to resolve).

It’s one of the weird things about the HD-DVD players available round the globe that whilst the HD-DVD format is deliberately not region locked, HD-DVD players still enforce SD-DVD region locking. Fortunately here in Australia, our competition watchdog has ruled against region locking and with the efforts of some wonderful forum members we have region free SD-DVD playback (excluding RCE encoded disks - mostly Fox) for the Australian versions of the HD-XE1 and HD-EP10.

I’ve since processed my $100 cashback redemption and 4 bonus HD-DVD’s online too.