Fullscreen HTML5Med Res (??MB)HTML4

Introducing Just imagine it: two tonnes of rhino is charging straight at you, the ground beneath you trembling violently. Somehow you survive the onslaught but you can still hear him, menacingly, just behind you. Or maybe you’re right alongside the Concorde as it screams down the runway, struggling to take off. But you’re not just watching or just listening. You’re feeling the thrust of those mighty Rolls Royce engines. No, you’re not on safari in the wilds of Africa. You’re not even in New York, let alone the middle of JFK International. You’re relaxing in the comfort of your own home. And you’re experiencing Home Theatre! FEATURE BY LOUIS CHALLIS October 1999  37 Pioneer's Advanced Home Theatre setup includes the SDT50W1 16:9 50-inch TV, VSA-E06/VSX-D906S remote controlled 5-channel home theatre amplifier; DVL-919E DVD/VCD/LD/CD deck, F204 synthsizer Tuner, CTw606DR double casstte deck, PD-F957 CD Carousel. . . plus SHF10, main speakers and S-W200 powered subwoofer. H ome Theatre? What is it? What does it mean? This is far removed from watching a rented VHS movie It means you can have the excitement of on your small-screen TV set. This is Home Theatre! action movies in your own home, complete So what do you have to buy to get started and what with magnificent surround sound and large screen, might you have to spend to get a fully blown home high definition picture and best of all, you can have it theatre system? Do you have to spend a fortune to anytime, night or day, as often as you want... start or can you work your way up to it? Why is it that new film releases create so much exTo get the low-down on this story, we’ll hand over to citement at your local cinema? Louis Challis*... Mostly it is the big screen with its much larger than life images which gives the story such impact. That lunging crocodile is so much more terrifying when it is much larger than life on that big screen. Combine the visual impact with a full range multi-channel audio system that surrounds you with sound and you have an experience which is well worth paying ten or fifteen dollars – you just can’t get the same impact by renting the same movie from your local video store! Or at least, you couldn’t until very recently. Now you can! But is that really true? A full blown cinema in your own home with large screen and full range sound? Yep. Take that movie everyone knows well: “Jurassic Park”. In that first scene the puddles of Onkyo's DC-S717 water tremble when the Tyrannosaurus Rex is DVD/CD/Video CD on the move. With Home Theatre, you can feel player (top) and TXthat tremor right through your seat. It’s not loud DS747 Dolby Digital but you can feel it. receiver is a complete home theatre system Or take an action movie such as “True Lies” control centre with where you have the sights and sounds of helaround 730W from 5.1 channels . Some idea of the input/ icopters and jet-fighters coming from every output complexity of modern home theatre equipment can be direction; you can have the same realism as gained from the rear panel of the TX-DS939 receiver above. in your local big-screen cinema. 38  Silicon Chip Feature by Louis Challis  At the end of 1998, I was in the USA and one of the shops I visited had more than 3000 DVD (Digital Video Disc) titles on its shelves. With that sheer volume of software available, it’s not hard to see why the Americans have has embraced home theatre in a big way. In Australia, things have been moving a lot more slowly but now they are accelerating rapidly. . . At this point, relatively few readers will have experienced the aural and visual excitement that quality home theatre can provide. It can be just as good as your first visit to a surround-sound cinema featuring one of the action-packed blockbuster movies. Now while a home theatre setup might not give quite the same visual impact as your local cinema’s wide screen, it can probably do a much more impressive job as far as the sound reproduction is concerned. With quality multi-channel sound reproduction, the sound system will more than make up for the difference in screen size. And if your budget can stretch to a video projection set-up or large plasma screen you can have the best of both worlds: a large dramatic screen and an really impressive sound system. Jamo's 2B system with DCM-10B controller with remote, DCM-5 and DCM-6 front speakers, DCM-4 centre speaker and DCM-8 subwoofer. Software & hardware Ultimately, the quality of your home theatre system is of little interest if you don’t have appropriate software. While there are thousands of movies available for sale or hire for VHS VCRs, that’s a second-best option. DVD, Digital Video Disc, is the way to go as the picture quality is far better than from even the best domestic VCR. Currently, there are over 300 DVD movie titles available for sale or hire in Australia. By Christmas that figure will be more than 1000 and building fast. As far as DVD players are concerned, the world has been divided into six different zones, for marketing, copyright and distribution reasons. North America is Zone 1, while Australia, New Zealand and Oceania are Zone 4. Replay of most software is deliberately restricted to players for that intended zone and so Zone 1 software will not normally play on a Zone 4 player. In order to gain access to a wider range of DVD titles, some people have gone as far as to obtain a Zone 1 player (or have even obtained a player specially modified to play multi-region discs) and then have imported Zone 1 discs but there is trap in this approach. A Zone 1 disc played on a Zone 1 (or multi-region) DVD player will produce an NTSC (American) standard video signal whereas a Zone 4 disc played on a Zone 4 DVD player will produce a PAL video signal. This presents no problems if your TV set, video monitor or projection set can handle both NTSC and PAL signals. But if you have an older PAL-only TV set, an NTSC video signal will probably not be viewable or if it is, you may see it only in black and white. This is not quite the effect you are seeking... All this partly explains why DVD Zone 4 software has been slow to become available in Australia. Such DVD discs have to go through the complete mastering process before they can be mass-produced and there has been quite a steep learning curve in Australia to make this possible. S The B&W Nautilus 800 series from Convoy International includes this HTM2 speaker with the special tweeter which is a feature of the Nautilus range. The shape of things to come - except they're already here. Philips FLATTV is a full-function plasma screen TV set which hangs like a picture on the wall, just 11cm deep. ctober 1999  39 OOCTOBER By the way, there are some DVD players which will play an NTSC disc on a PAL TV at full resolution by doing an internal NTSC/PAL conversion (Samsung's DVD907, for example). The picture standard of DVD will immediately change your attitude to your faithful VCR. In brief, once you’ve seen DVD programs you won’t want to go back to VCR tapes. Not only has the quality of the video signal been enhanced by DVD (with its 625 line PAL format), but more significantly, most pre-recorded DVDs offer 5.1 channels of audio supplemented by the option of 2-channel composite audio. Before we go any further, what do we mean by ‘5.1 audio channels’? Five of the nominal six audio channels on any Dolby Digital system are the front left, right and centre channels and the rear left and right channels. The sixth channel is the ‘sub-woofer’ channel which covers a very limited range of frequencies between 10Hz and about 150Hz. Because its effective bandwidth is only about one-tenth that of the other five channels, it was initially described as being the ‘point-one’ (0.1) channel, and that name stuck. Three types of DVD players are currently being sold in Australia. In the first category are the DVD ROM players that come with the latest generation of Pentium and PowerMac computers, or are available as an add-on. The peripheral hardware integrated into or supplied with these computers generally limit the number of audio channels to two. However, there are some nifty sound systems being marketed which provide a surround sound field which is impressive nonetheless. Ultimately though, a computer-based DVD player cannot match the performance of a multi-channel DVD player with its dedicated 5.1 channels of sound. The second type are the more basic and less expensive units, currently the most widely sold DVD players. These provide two direct composite audio channel outputs (Left and Right) that are suitable for feeding directly into your * Introducing Louis Challis SILICON CHIP is delighted to announce that the renowned audio consultant and hifi reviewer Louis Challis has joined our editorial team. As well as being an eminent audio consultant who has worked on projects as diverse as Australia’s Parliament House, the Pedestrian Crossing System for the Blind and the FA18 Fighter test booth, Louis Challis has a long record as a hifi reviewer, starting with “Australian Hifi” magazine in the late 1970s and continuing with “Electronics Today International” and “Electronics Australia”. Now Louis is writing for SILICON CHIP – you'll see his authoritative and interesting hi fi articles in the magazine from time to time. 40  Silicon Chip existing 2-channel stereo hi-fi or TV system. All basic DVD players also incorporate a supplementary digital MPEG Audio/PCM output socket. Provided you have a separate Dolby Digital/Pro Logic Processor, then you can utilise the full 5.1 channels of encoded audio output on your DVD. Should you choose to buy a basic DVD player, you’ll need a 5-channel amplifier with integral Dolby Digital decoder or a Dolby Digital decoder to provide those 5.1 channels of sound. Alternatively, you could buy a DVD player that incorporates its own Dolby Digital decoder. This will provide the six (5.1) audio channels outputs to be fed to the associated amplifiers and loudspeakers. The third type are the DVD players incorporating the full Dolby Digital decoding circuitry. These typically cost approximately $400 to $500 more than their more basic counterparts. However, if you look closely at the specifications for these costlier units, you will generally find that they provide more features and slightly better performance. Ultimately, the choice between the three options will be dictated more by financial considerations than by published specifications. If it’s home theatre you want, then you are ultimately restricted to the last two options. Home theatre amplification The cost of DVD players is invariably less than that of a good 5-channel amplifier. Most good 5-channel amplifiers have power outputs between 60 and 120W in the three (front) main channels, and the same or lesser power output capability in the rear channels. Most of these amplifiers incorporate an AM/FM tuner, various digital sound processing options, plus Dolby ProLogic and other decoding options such as DTS. Of course many readers already own a reasonably large stereo amplifier rated between 60 and 200W and will want to use that in their home theatre system. Some manufacturers, notably Yamaha with its DSP-E492, have recognised the need, and are marketing a three channel amplifier to supplement your existing quality stereo amplifier. The Yamaha DSP-E492 amplifier’s single (main) volume potentiometer will then control all six channels. Home theatre speakers If you’ve spent heaps on your DVD player and 5-channel amplifier, then you should be prepared to spend a similar amount of money on your six sets of speakers (ie, for your five conventional channels and your sub-woofer). If you already have a pair of quality stereo speakers, then you can retain them and then buy a quality centre speaker, two good rear speakers and perhaps a self-powered sub-woofer. The most critical speakers in the system are the left and right front main speakers. However, don’t be fooled, the centre speaker similarly plays an extremely important role, and far more so than most people realise. When selecting your centre speaker, its quality (and specifically the balance of its frequency response) should closely match that of the main left and right speakers. If it doesn’t, then speech reproduction can be distinctly odd. Your rear speakers, although normally less important than the front speakers, still have an important role to play in achieving a multi-directional sound field. In other words, don’t be tempted to buy too cheaply here. There are two types of loudspeakers currently being offered for the rear channels: the conventional ‘mono-pole’ speakers, in which the acoustical output is single-sided, and the less conventional ‘dipole’ speakers in which the acoustical output is projected from both the front and rear faces. Dipole speakers are recommended by Lucas THX and when correctly selected and placed, are generally capable of providing a more uniform and diffuse sound field. Sub-woofers Two basic types of powered sub-woofers are available. The first and generally less expensive group have been designed to provide ‘maximum bang’ when reproducing the explosive sounds contained within many action-movie soundtracks. These speakers usually provide a ‘peaky’ frequency response that is most effective over a limited frequency range of 40Hz to 80 or 90Hz. While they can perform reasonably well on movie sound tracks, they are not so good on music. By contrast, better quality (and frequently more expensive) sub-woofers provide a smoother frequency response typically covering from 20 or 25Hz to beyond 110Hz, with a maximum non-linearity of ±3dB across the band. The good point about any subwoofer is that since low frequency sounds are non-directional, the subwoofer can be placed anywhere in your home theatre space. They can be placed out of sight, behind a sofa, even under a table, anywhere you like. Video monitors and projection systems Although we’ve left the subject of screens till last, it is the most exciting aspect of home theatre and the choice is very wide. In the first category of choice are the conventional video monitors which range up to 80cm in conventional 4:3 screens and around 76cm in widescreen (16:9) sets. Funnily enough, because of their wide theatre-aspect ratio, these wide-screen models don’t look as big as equivalent conventional sets. For bigger and better impact though, you can’t go past a projection TV. The picture quality is not as sharp or as bright as conventional picture tube sets but the large screen can give the same ‘larger than life’ impact as the screen in your local cinema. By way of example, the latest Sony VPL-X1000M delivers a dazzling 1100 ANSI lumens of light output and works happily with conventional video, SXGA (1280 x 1024 pixels) and happily up-converts or down-converts the input signals to optimise the SVGA panel’s capabilities. Not everybody wants a projection TV, though and even with 1100 lumens of output, you should still have a darkened room to achieve the optimum visual/optical contrast. The ultimate display? Perhaps the ultimate is “a picture on the wall” without the bulk or complexity of rear projection or even the bulk of a TV set. Such a flat display can be achieved with TFT LCD displays, but in relatively small sizes. That’s not home theatre though, so obviously we have to look further. As I discovered at the Winter CES in Las Vegas, the answer has arrived with at least eight manufacturers offering 42 inch plasma displays. The most exciting plasma display was Pioneer’s magnificent 50 inch display which earned copious ‘oohs!’ and ‘ahhs!’ from the diverse crowd of journalists and marketing personnel attending the show. The advantage of a plasma display is that it can be just hung or placed on the wall, just like a picture. The display is typically 75mm thick and unlike many other large screen systems, can be viewed in a brightly or normally illuminated room. The display is not subject to magnetic distortion and, with appropriate line doubling, offers a picture whose resolution and quality is second to none. As you may appreciate, that sort of performance costs a lot. Don’t lose heart though, as the cost must ultimately drop and my preferred choice (and ultimately yours) will be a plasma display. The developments in home video are truly exciting. The pace of development is accelerating rapidly and we will see a huge range of equipment and software released over the next year or two. At the time of writing, two of the major DVD software distributors in Australia have announced that they intend to simultaneously release the DVD versions of their software with the VHS video tapes to video shops. Given the choice of hiring a DVD instead of a VHS tape, which one would you select? Do you want dazzling pictures, in 4:3 and 16:9 format and with full surround sound? I know which one I would go for . . . SC DVD is the only choice! October 1999  41