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My feeble home cinema.

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My feeble home cinema.
Ok so it's about time this happened. I've been a poor deprived student for too long so its time for me to take a step closer to my dream home cinema.

I got sky digital installed a few weeks ago and it's coming through a big, if not slightly old tv. Picture quality is good though.

Anyway I have had a pretty nice stereo system sitting in my bedroom getting dusty for ages, so last night I transferred it into the room with sky tv and today I went and bought a scart => phono cable and connected it up to the tv so I now have sourround sound goin down while I'm watching tv Wink

I just ordered a DVD player an hour ago too so that should be here next week.

The only bummer is I've run out of scart sockets so I need to buy an adapter which is about $50.

Oh well, I'm gonna rock the house down Smile
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Dude, isn't SCART supposed to be the UK equivilent to component video? If so, DO NOT downgrade your cable type! You'll lose a hell of a lot of quality. Get a source selector that supports SCART in/out's.

case in point:
I just imported a modified GameCube Digital A/V cable to plug my GameCube into my 19" flat CRT. The progressive scan and color is so unbelievable... I never knew what I was missing. With the standard 3-plug stereo RCA cable, my 25" TV was just full of color bleeding, warped edges, and lacked a general sense of cripsness. Unfortunately only 4 out my 7 games support progressive scan so I have to lug my GCN back to the livingroom to play BloodRayne, Resident Evil, or the oldschool Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
I have no clue about these things.

I have a scart connected from my digital box to the tv so I get digital quality sound/picture. Then I have a scart from the digital box to the stereo system. It all seems pretty good. No problems so far.

Now when I get my dvd I need one more scart socket but both on the digital box are already used so I need the adapter.
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
I can't believe it!

My dvd player has arrived already. It was sitting in the hallway and I didn't even notice until 5 minutes above. My mum must have taken delivery this morning.

Wooo...
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Ok finally got it set up. I'm a bit gutted though because the cabinet I have to house everything is too small and my hi-fi system is split into two parts but the cable connecting both parts is really short so I'm limited as to how I can arrange things.

I also just bought a scart adapter and phono to phono cable and now it looks like I don't even need them. Bah.

The only other annoying thing is that my hi-fi only has one pair of phono sockets so I can either get sky tv through my speakers or the dvd player but I can't leave both plugged in, I have to keep switching them when I want one or the other.

There must be a way around this - maybe an adapter of some sorts?

Last edited by:

Paul: Feb 10, 2003, 6:37 AM
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Go into somewhere like Haldfords, cos they do spliced audio red/white cables. Simply plug one red and one white into the socks on the hi-fi, and you get 2 whites and 2 red plugs at the end of it ... my mate did that on his car sterio, with his sub-woofers Smile

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
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Re: [Andy] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Quote:
Simply plug one red and one white into the socks on the hi-fi, and you get 2 whites and 2 red plugs at the end of it

Ah awesome - thanks Andy. I'll do that tommorrow.

I wonder if Comet will take back my phono to phono cable now I've opened the box Unsure
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
It might be time to spend a little cash on a surround system with multiple inputs... And I mean CHEAP... we're selling a decent 300 watt RCA system for about $150.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Im poor at the moment. If what Andy mentioned works out then everything will be sorted.

I will have sky tv connected to my speakers as well as the dvd. I have the 3 speakers spread out across the room - all thats left is to sort out the organisation so my stereo isn't stuck at the back of the cabinet due to the short cable.

Last edited by:

Paul: Feb 10, 2003, 8:59 AM
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
In Reply To:
It might be time to spend a little cash on a surround system with multiple inputs... And I mean CHEAP... we're selling a decent 300 watt RCA system for about $150.

Remember, me and Paul are in the UK...nothing cheap Frown

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
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Re: [Andy] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Paul,

surely you could afford at the very least, a source selector with scart & audio inputs/outputs? take back whatever adapter you had to start with.

Philip
------------------
Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Actually I have this wrong. I don't think I can do it?

I need the audio sockets in my stereo to split into a scart and another audio socket - they don't sell those do they?

Last edited by:

Paul: Feb 10, 2003, 9:45 AM
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Ok here's a bit of a round up....

Stereo - has red/white audio sockets.
Sky TV box - has two scarts
DVD - Has a scart and red/white audio sockets.

Sooo....

I need a cable with the red/white pins to go into my stereo system but on the other end I need it to split into a scart for the sky tv box but red/white audio connectors for the dvd player ;(

Last edited by:

Paul: Feb 10, 2003, 9:49 AM
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
*Paul dabs his brow*

Phew, the sky box has the audio sockets as well as a scart so it looks like andy's idea will still work.
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Re: [fuzzy thoughts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
I could cry just about now.

I spent 4 1/2 hours converting an mpeg into SVCD format only to find that Nero won't put it onto the CD because the file is too big. Now I have to cut the original mpeg, convert it to SVCD again and burn it.

Pirate

Last edited by:

Paul: Feb 10, 2003, 10:40 AM
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Re: [Paul] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Paul, be careful when moving your stereo components around.

I fried my Pioneer (really nice surround sound) receiver by letting a speaker wire touch the case. The stereo was on (and yes, I knew better) and all it took was a thoughtless second to be out a couple of hundred $$.

I took the case off and looked for a fuse or something, but no luck. I ended up buying another one and kicked myself in the butt a couple of times for good measure. I haven't decided whether to try to have the other one repaired or not. Don't know if it'd be worth it.

Anyhoo... just be careful.
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Re: [Watts] My feeble home cinema. In reply to
Thanks for the warning. I was tinkering with the power on earlier - I knew better too :)