[jqp]

Part 1: Introduction and initial setup.

My friend, a woman, bought a Panasonic TH-42PX80U Plasma 720p display, and followed my example and bought a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player. I helped her set it up and we watched the Blu-Ray 5 disk set of Blade Runner (the Final Cut version).

We did this after setting up the TV with itsw stand. I had ordered a 12ft HDMI 1.3 cable from monocable, and we connected the PS3 to the TV using this.

She set up her SD satellite on the TV, and it looked pretty good! Not a lot of fuzzy grainy pictures as I had been concerened about. In fact, an animated show we like called Home Movies on the Cartoon Network looked amazingly HD. This is something I have discovered [rant] about HD and Blu-Ray reviews. Animated movies should never be cited as Blu-Ray demo material. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Animation should always look flawless in HD. Any details the animators want to add, like lighting and colors will look great on just about any format. You can really push the envelope for 1080p if you want to, but when you do, it does not compare to a good transfer of a film, a film made with a movie camera and real sets, lighting, and actors. Do you think Cher has a great voice based on the digital alteration you hear on her latest records?

This TV is very nice, and I could recommend it for a future bedroom TV/kids room TV. Meanwhile it is very nice for the living room, where you may have some SD content and DVD upscaled or not. Also it looks great with Blu-Ray content. I will see later how it looks with Dish HD content.

The TV accepts 480i/p, 720p, 1080i/p input and displays it at 720p in most cases I believe. It does some kind of processing obviously to do all this but I will have to read up on it.

PS3 output is spectacular, because Sony did the graphics legwork for the user interface and because the video output is good quality. LittleBigPlanet looks amazing but probably does at 480i/p.

Blade Runner looks amazing on the screen. Is it better than upconverted DVD? Not sure if or how much better it is yet. But the bottom line is this is a very acceptable Blu-Ray solution.

Last night she purchased an A/V receiver and I gave her mu old JBL speakers which were sitting for several years.





Part 2: Turning it into a basic HT system.

The Sony STRDG520 is a low end HD A/V receiver.
Benefits:
2 optical digital inputs (for PS3 and Satelite HD receiver)
5x100W for a 5.1 HT setup
and thats about it...oh yeah it is a tuner and also allows a digital coaxial input.
I has 2 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output, but of course no sound is processed by thed "HDMI" inputs, I guess they could be called DVI inputs in HDMI clothing.


...to be continued later

[jqp]

The TVs speakers are not much, so I gave her my old JBL LXE770s for the mains. I think these came from Circuit City about 13 years ago. They will need more than 24 guage speaker wire from the dollar store    I was hoping the speakers would still work and they did. They need to be raised to the level of the TV as they are currently sitting on the floor.

The 42" TV barely fits in an armoir designed for a 32" CRT, but it works and it looks great.

Satellite HD - for $10 more she was able to get upgraded to satelite HD, amazing. They brought a new dish, and new Receiver/DVR, spent 5 hours getting the best signal and aquiring the channels.

Unfortunately it is basic HD, so there are only about 5 actual HD channels    These are local channels anyway so this seems to be quite the rip-off! The channels look amazing though, sharp with very sharp vibrant color. I think they must adjust the HD cameras for 'vibrant' mode.

[GHM]

Is she getting any over the air digital channels locally? They can look stunning as well. All it takes is a digital antenna, she can have the satellite company add the extra tuner box to integrate it into her other satellite channels guide ...if necessary.