Bought a house with home cinema wiring - what gear to buy?

[GHW]

We've just moved into our new house, and the chap before us had a full projector system with 7.1. He's left behind the projector screen, and the projector and speaker wiring is all nicely integrated into the walls. I think it'd be a total shame to ignore them, so I'm wondering how much I'm likely to have to spend on a home cinema system to use it. My budget is modest, so I'm not looking for top of the range kit. Just enough to be watchable would satisfy me

I'm guessing I'll need some kind of AV amp that has switchable HDMI outputs to TV and projector (it's all wired up in the lounge, and I'm not going to want to watch everything on the projector), and audio outputs to drive the speakers. It'll need to display output from Xbox, Freeview HD box and (at some point) a BluRay player. I expect I'll need to spend a wad on a bunch of speakers too. There's no wall mounts, so I reckon floorstanding ones would be best..?

Any ideas/advice would be much appreciated -- I'm a complete AV noob!

[WZC1]

Quite a lot to consider here. How are the speaker cables run? You say they are integrated to the walls but that you would want floorstanding speakers? If you buy new on wall ( satellite speakers ) these tend to be supplied with wall brackets. Floor standing speakers will generally give you a better sound so if you can accomodate them that would be my choice.
How big is the room? Depending on the speakers you like an amp is easy to match. There are several with dual outputs but there are different ways this can be done. Is the TV behind the projector screen and would you use the surround sound with the TV?

Nick

[GHW]

WZC1 said:

Quite a lot to consider here. How are the speaker cables run? You say they are integrated to the walls but that you would want floorstanding speakers? If you buy new on wall ( satellite speakers ) these tend to be supplied with wall brackets. Floor standing speakers will generally give you a better sound so if you can accomodate them that would be my choice.
How big is the room? Depending on the speakers you like an amp is easy to match. There are several with dual outputs but there are different ways this can be done. Is the TV behind the projector screen and would you use the surround sound with the TV?

Nick

The side/rear speaker wiring has banana-plug wall plates at waist height, the rest at low-level behind/below the projector screen. I think I'd be looking at floor standing speakers (that's what the last chap had anyway ).

The TV's *not* in the same corner of the room as the projector screen (it's roughly midway between the rear and side RH speaker points), so I don't think there's any sensible way that I could use the surround sound with the TV.

[GHW]

Definitely DIY. The budget's really only going to stretch to a budget amp and speakers, and maybe a middle-of-the-road projector.

[WZC1]

GHW said:

The side/rear speaker wiring has banana-plug wall plates at waist height, the rest at low-level behind/below the projector screen. I think I'd be looking at floor standing speakers (that's what the last chap had anyway ).

The TV's *not* in the same corner of the room as the projector screen (it's roughly midway between the rear and side RH speaker points), so I don't think there's any sensible way that I could use the surround sound with the TV.

Cool. Have a look at the Yamaha av-amps as they will allow you to output 2 ch sound & picture to the TV as well as decoding the sound /picture to the PJ without any switching. I can't think off the top of my head any other amp that will allow this.

For floor standing speakers there are loads of suggestions. Do you have any style constraints? White, gloss black, small,

Projector wise I would suggest the forthcoming Panasonic PTAT5000 or Sony VPL-HW30.

[GHW]

WZC1 said:

Cool. Have a look at the Yamaha av-amps as they will allow you to output 2 ch sound & picture to the TV as well as decoding the sound /picture to the PJ without any switching. I can't think off the top of my head any other amp that will allow this.

For floor standing speakers there are loads of suggestions. Do you have any style constraints? White, gloss black, small,

Projector wise I would suggest the forthcoming Panasonic PTAT5000 or Sony VPL-HW30.

if a half-decent projector's going to cost me around £3k, I think I'm going to have to save for a lot longer..

[WZC1]

GHW said:

if a half-decent projector's going to cost me around £3k, I think I'm going to have to save for a lot longer..

Cheaper projectors are available.... Right now the two mentioned would be my half decent suggestions though. If you are looking to keep the cost down you could look at the 2D Epson 4400 ( circa £1900) or the outgoing Panasonic PTAE4000 ( circa £1600 ) but I would suggest you try to arrange a demonstration first. Scaling back your 7.1 to 5.1 might help divert some of the budget to the projector.
To get an amp with dual HDMI output you are going to be upwards of £650.

[OldSkoolRS]

You could always have a look in the AVForums classifieds. Fairly soon there will be plenty of used Panasonic AE3000/4000 projectors for sale (last week a '4000 went for £1,050 IIRC). Better yet, look out for a used JVC HD350 for similar money for even better blacks.

You could get a brand new Acer projector for around £600, but as it's DLP they tend to be less flexible with positioning: As you already have a screen and mounting position is limited due to the cable run, you must check before buying if the projector can fill your screen from that distance. Worse still, it may overfill the screen if it's too far back.

Three links that might help:

AV forums classifieds:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-cinema-hi-fi-c...

This is a calculator for most common types of projector to help work out if it will 'fit' your screen:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calcula...


A Projector FAQ (but ignore that Kelvin bloke. ):

http://www.avforums.com/forums/projectors/85326-pr...

Just be aware that the picture from a projector is highly influenced by the room: Not just being able to turn off all the light sources, but also having darker walls/celings helps improve the picture. If the room is a magnolia box with a white ceiling, then I would consider not spending too much on a higher end projector as the room will destroy the image. You can combat the room effect with special screens, but these cost more than the projectors above.

[Jackman72]

GHW,

If you want new these guys are really good http://www.creative-audio.co.uk/ Got all my gear from them. As has been said there are some cracking second hand bargains on AV forums and the guys on there are quite 'precious' about their kit so it will be well looked after. Second hand Cinema kit depreciates like a stone so you can pick up soime serious kit for not a lot of money. Also on AV forums there are loads of photos of other member's kit so plenty of ideas for decorating etc. Best advice, especially with projectors, is to go out and look at some, LCD and DLP, some people are sensitive to 'rainbow effect' with DLP - need to make sure you aren't one of them (and others who will watch regularly)

[scovette]

To help save some money, you can use a receiver with a single HDMI output and get a splitter like this: http://ukhdmi.com/1x2-hdmi-splitter_QQ102948

[page3]

I have the old version of the Optoma HD600X (weirdly called the HD700X!) and it really is excellent. £399 from Amazon.