It seems that more and more these days, people are opting to invest (?) in some sort of home theater arrangement, to watch television shows or DVD movies at least. This way, a family can save quite a bit over movie theater prices, yet still watch content with great quality. Not only that, now you are in control of the show times and what's playing, for busy working families, this convenience is worth so much!
With the array of products available to us these days, including inexpensive surround sound systems, it sure seems the way to go! Right now though, for blue laser technology, if these following prices are any indication, it would appear that only early adopters, or the well heeled, could even toy with the idea of making the leap to a Blu-ray 1080p home theater. But, if you want the bragging rights of the being the first on the block, then you will have to pay the "early adopter fees". Prices will drop quickly of course, once these devices become more mainstream.
Here's an example of one of the first specifically designed blue laser HD HT systems to hit the streets. On June 22, Panasonic announced the availability (Thanks D4rk0n3 for the heads up!) of a next gen home theater setup for Blu-ray discs. The $1299 DMP-BD10 and an accompanying $999.00 SA-XR700 100watt XM satellite ready receiver, plus the $2999.95 SB-TP1000 7.1 speakers. Availability is slated for sometime in September. While sold separately, these products were really designed to work together as a system. Now all you need, if you have any money left, is something to view the HD video upon and Panasonic has that covered as well!
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Here is the rest of the story though. If you want to view 1080p video in all its glory on a big screen, it's being said that a 65 inch display is needed, or your eye cannot pick up the extra detail of all the added pixels. This is something that I am pretty much convinced of myself and the fact that this system has been designed to be used with such a large display, indicates to me that there is some engineering to back me up now as well.
Whereas with an LCD monitor, such as a laptop or PC, this is a bit different. You can set quite close to these (obviously) and since the resolution is much higher per screen size, you can probably see the greater detail. However, a plasma is not designed that way. They are quite large by the time they hit these high resolutions and for this reason, you must set a ways back from them for viewing.
So this is something very important to consider...if you want a 65 inch display, or even a 1080p plasma setup, make sure your house has a room large enough to accommodate such a set and the seating distances that the set will require! Otherwise, you might be disappointed in the end. There are several websites that can be found that will help you to configure your big screen in relation to the screen size and even tell you how high to place a plasma on the wall, for viewing from your couch or chair.
Probably, a distance back 12 feet or more will be required for comfortable viewing with a 65 inch display. The height will also be determined by your eye position when seated on your furniture. Place the screen too high on the wall and you get an ache in the back of your neck. You want your eyes to be about at the middle of your display when you are in viewing position. I actually asked my wife to set on the couch and then used a tape measure to get a height before I attached the screen mounting bracket to the wall. Don't just hang the sucker on the wall any old way, do the research first, it just takes a couple minutes on Google and a bit of simple math. Here's one website that you can plug in a number and it gives the distance back that they recommend. For a 65" display, they cough up a figure of 16.25 feet!
I have a 42" plasma and we set back a good 10 to 12 feet from that and for us, this seems about right. It isn't a 1080p display it's just 720p, but from that distance, it looks darn good to us when watching digital satellite TV or playing back DVDs. Actually, if you visit an electronics store, you'll notice that it's even hard to tell EDTV from 720p from 6 feet! Your eyes would have to be pretty sharp to spot the difference.
I saw a 65 inch Mitsubishi rear projection set on sale at Best Buy, as it was returned by a customer that found this out the hard way. His family room was too small a scale for such a large set. He said he got "carried away" and had to opt for a smaller set for his home. It was not 1080p, it was a 1080i set, but it was just simply too large for his home theater room. This is easy to do when your at a department store and see so many great sets. The urge for most of us guys is to get the biggest damn screen we can afford! Full specs on all the components for the Panasonic devices can be found at DigiTimes, or you can read the press release here at CD Freaks! Discuss HDTV in our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and
HD-DVD Forum .
Source: Various
