Kiwimeat’s Kitchen

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.

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.

In light of my recent decision to purchase an HD-DVD player I have been reading and posting in the relevant sub-forums on a couple of my regular haunts.

Some of the stuff that goes on would scare many sane people away, possibly for good. Some of the fanboism exceeds acceptable bounds. Not only do you get verbatim spouting of press releases, and name calling and worse, it even causes some otherwise rational members (based on their other posts) to take temporary leave of their senses and even losing their cool.

What makes people do this? Last time I looked it was simply two competing formats for Hi-Def movies. At this time neither party can land a knockout blow and it looks like both will be around for a while. I imagine sometime after Xmas I’ll get a Blu-Ray player of some sort and then start having to educate the family about which machine to put the disks into.

Oh and my HD-DVD is due in at dealer tomorrow (Friday) and my order of HD-DVD’s from the US have most recently “Departed FexEx Location, Memphis, TN”.

Well with my HD-DVD player just days away, I just placed my first order on DVD Pacific (Amazon’s shipping prices were UGG!) for the following:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey - Special Edition (Special Edition)
• 300 (DVD & HD DVD Combo)
• Hot Fuzz (DVD & HD DVD Combo)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
• Last Starfighter, The
• Serenity
• TMNT (DVD & HD DVD Combo)
• Transformers: 2 Disc Special Edition (2PC, Special Edition)

Due to impatience I ordered Air Courier (FedEx) delivery which should take 2-4 days and despite this it was still cheaper than Amazon’s standard shipping.

As HD-DVD is not region coded I am able to take advantage of better availability & prices for HD-DVD content from around the world.

Well after procrastinating for eons about whether to join the high definition wars, I’ve signed up to the HD equivalent of the Rebel Alliance - HD-DVD.
Sometime this week my new Toshiba HD-EP10 1080p HD-DVD player will arrive at my hi-fi dealer.

The recent price cuts from both camps have dropped the price of players down to what I regard as reasonable and the high Aussie dollar against the US dollar makes purchases of HD-DVD movies (region free by design) from the US a mightily attractive option.In addition Toshiba is offering a $100 rebate of the HD-E1 and HD-EP10 models as well as free HD-DVD’s by redemption. Depending on the model purchased you get 3,4 or 5 of the following HD-DVD titles - Superman Returns, Troy, Batman Begins, V For Vendetta, Perfect Storm, Syriana, Polar Express, Ant Bully.

Now my going HD-DVD doesn’t mean I won’t at some point get a Blu-Ray player, especially as the PS3 has a $700 version, but for the moment I’ll content myself with my with HD-DVD goodness.

Of course, it goes without saying that I will be ordering the current No 1 Best Selling HD-DVD and one of the reasons for the Blu-Ray Empire experiencing a setback - Paramount’s defection to the HD-DVD camp bringing with it Transformers!