AV kit & TV streaming boxes - talk to me!
Discussion
Hey Guys -
Have been out of the loop on the tech front for a few years now - but am building a small budget cinema room upstairs, and want to deck it out with some half decent kit.
Still debating whether a projector or a large screen TV will be best
thinking of this for a TV:
or one of these as a projector
its a 4.5m x 4m bit of loftspace - so would guess the seating will be c. 3.5 m from the screen. It will also have blackout blinds.
Have got a 5.1 AV reciever and some surround speakers for the 'bay
thinking of sources - have an old blu-ray player and we have Sky Q with one mini-box - thinking about an apple TV or similar? seems network media players are on their way out, as most stuff is streamed these days....still have an old WD drive with a bunch of ripped movies of varying (poor by modern standards) quality on it - is there a simple 'library' solution available now?
I hate the disparate an multi-subscription nature of the way things are going in this space - you end up paying three times over for a bunch of films you dont really want to watch!
We have: Sky/Prime/Netflix/Displus/Virgin (for the cable only) - so interested in which of these produce/stream content in 5.1 surround for films etc.
any advice on kit, set up, sources or systems gladly recieved!
CHeers y'all!
BERGS
Have been out of the loop on the tech front for a few years now - but am building a small budget cinema room upstairs, and want to deck it out with some half decent kit.
Still debating whether a projector or a large screen TV will be best
thinking of this for a TV:
or one of these as a projector
its a 4.5m x 4m bit of loftspace - so would guess the seating will be c. 3.5 m from the screen. It will also have blackout blinds.
Have got a 5.1 AV reciever and some surround speakers for the 'bay
thinking of sources - have an old blu-ray player and we have Sky Q with one mini-box - thinking about an apple TV or similar? seems network media players are on their way out, as most stuff is streamed these days....still have an old WD drive with a bunch of ripped movies of varying (poor by modern standards) quality on it - is there a simple 'library' solution available now?
I hate the disparate an multi-subscription nature of the way things are going in this space - you end up paying three times over for a bunch of films you dont really want to watch!
We have: Sky/Prime/Netflix/Displus/Virgin (for the cable only) - so interested in which of these produce/stream content in 5.1 surround for films etc.
any advice on kit, set up, sources or systems gladly recieved!
CHeers y'all!
BERGS
If you do go for a TV try and stretch the budget to an OLED, it will be miles better than the one you’ve linked.
I watch almost exclusively Netflix, I think it’s really good value compared to the sky/cable offerings and I would have ditched Virgin but got a no-brainer retention deal so kept it. You can get decent stuff on iplayer etc, unless you watch live sports Sky is pointless and poor value IMO.
Netflix gets you Dolby Vision, 4k HDR and Atmos audio, which is as good as you need. Not sure on Sky but Virgin is way behind in this.
In terms of media players you could get an Amazon fire stick, install kodi and point it at your WD drive. That will scrape the movie info and give you a Netflix like interface.
You didn’t mention a sub, it will make a difference if you haven’t got one.
That’s what I’d do anyway!
I watch almost exclusively Netflix, I think it’s really good value compared to the sky/cable offerings and I would have ditched Virgin but got a no-brainer retention deal so kept it. You can get decent stuff on iplayer etc, unless you watch live sports Sky is pointless and poor value IMO.
Netflix gets you Dolby Vision, 4k HDR and Atmos audio, which is as good as you need. Not sure on Sky but Virgin is way behind in this.
In terms of media players you could get an Amazon fire stick, install kodi and point it at your WD drive. That will scrape the movie info and give you a Netflix like interface.
You didn’t mention a sub, it will make a difference if you haven’t got one.
That’s what I’d do anyway!
matt666 said:
Netflix gets you Dolby Vision, 4k HDR and Atmos audio, which is as good as you need. Not sure on Sky but Virgin is way behind in this.
In terms of media players you could get an Amazon fire stick, install kodi and point it at your WD drive. That will scrape the movie info and give you a Netflix like interface.
This is going to seem a dumb q i'm sure - In terms of media players you could get an Amazon fire stick, install kodi and point it at your WD drive. That will scrape the movie info and give you a Netflix like interface.
but if netflix has 5.1 audio capabilities - how do you get it out of a smart TV to the AV reciever?
Newflix is an app on the LG OLED we have at the moment - is one Sky Q / ROKU box and the like - would these output in 5.1 (if the content is, of course)
Just trying to get my head around what the limitations of a given piece of kit are!!
I do it through HDMI ARC from the TV to the amp. Any newish TV will have ARC. It’s basically a feature that allows things which are directly connected to the TV (or apps internal to the TV) to output sound down the TVs HDMI without having to have a separate connection to the amp.
eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
There's a lot of information about various media streamers & the limitations of each here:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916
matt666 said:
I do it through HDMI ARC from the TV to the amp. Any newish TV will have ARC. It’s basically a feature that allows things which are directly connected to the TV (or apps internal to the TV) to output sound down the TVs HDMI without having to have a separate connection to the amp.
eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
That also relies on the AVR being HDMI ARC capable - otherwise it needs to be done via optical out and many TV's only support 2.0 stereo not 5.1 DD/DTS (the latter two is the highest codec optical is capable of)eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
matt666 said:
I do it through HDMI ARC from the TV to the amp. Any newish TV will have ARC. It’s basically a feature that allows things which are directly connected to the TV (or apps internal to the TV) to output sound down the TVs HDMI without having to have a separate connection to the amp.
eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
super naive Q - as i'm having some issues hooking everything up: eARC is the latest standard which allows transport of uncompressed audio. You don’t need to worry too much about that for Netflix as the Atmos they use is compressed and will go over normal ARC
- is the ARC a two way connection? i.e does it take the TV audioback to the Amp & feed the TV with connected devices into the AV reciever?
or do you still need to hook up the Amp output?
cant really get my head around how it works...
TV is B6 LG OLED about three years old
Amp is this Yamaha Aventage
got an optical SPDIF cable from amazon today - will see if that works...
stevoknevo said:
That also relies on the AVR being HDMI ARC capable - otherwise it needs to be done via optical out and many TV's only support 2.0 stereo not 5.1 DD/DTS (the latter two is the highest codec optical is capable of)
You can buy an ARC converter for about £65 off Amazon if your receiver is too old. Haven't used one personally but saying it's a possibility and means you can do without the messy optical out connection.BERGS2 said:
super naive Q - as i'm having some issues hooking everything up:
- is the ARC a two way connection? i.e does it take the TV audioback to the Amp & feed the TV with connected devices into the AV reciever?
or do you still need to hook up the Amp output?
cant really get my head around how it works...
TV is B6 LG OLED about three years old
Amp is this Yamaha Aventage
got an optical SPDIF cable from amazon today - will see if that works...
Yep, you’ve got the concept behind ARC correct. Decent explanation here - https://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-audio-return-channe...- is the ARC a two way connection? i.e does it take the TV audioback to the Amp & feed the TV with connected devices into the AV reciever?
or do you still need to hook up the Amp output?
cant really get my head around how it works...
TV is B6 LG OLED about three years old
Amp is this Yamaha Aventage
got an optical SPDIF cable from amazon today - will see if that works...
Both your TV and amp support it, just use the HDMI port labelled ARC on both devices, you might need to select the correct sound output in the settings and you should be good to go.
It’s designed so you don’t need the SPDIF cable. Optical isn’t as good as HDMI anyway, less bandwidth and not able to pass through high res audio
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