$faf|1-Home Cinema Review



$fff                                By Bolty

I'm  not  sure about the exact system specs, as it is my friend's, and I
have  only  seen a couple of films on it.  I am also no hi-fi specialist
so you will have to bear with me if I don't know what I'm talking about.

TV:
Sony. Very, very, very big. But not one of those crappy projection 
screens. Price estimate: £1500-2500

Video:
Panasonic SVHS, probably about £500

Satellite:
1 meter motorised dish with fancy decoder and all channels via pirate 
cards. £500-1000

Laser Disc Player:
Yamaha, automatically swaps sides, but only holds 1 disk. About £1000

Amplifier:
Another Yamaha, with all the Dolby Pro Logic Surround type stuff, 
priced at just over £1000

CD Player:
Didn't really see it, but it probably cost nearly £1000

Speakers:
1  Centre  speaker  containing  one  large 8"-ish woofer and a couple of
smaller  cones.   Main  left  and  right  speakers where housed in floor
standing  columns  about  5 feet high and a foot wide.  Each contained 6
cones  of  varying  sizes.   The  main bass unit was about the size of a
couple  of large tower PCs next to each other.  There were also a couple
of smaller wall mounted rear speakers.  £lots

Connecting Wires:
Eg.  Set of 3 metre long phono to phono cables, as thick as hose pipes,
£100.  Erm, mine were £2.99 from Tandy.

Before  watching  the  main  film of the day, Last Action Hero, we had a
quick  flick  through  the  laser disc collection first and played a few
clips.   First  up  was  T2.   The  music  at  the start of the film was
amazing,  better  and  much  louder  than  any  cinema,  with incredible
rumbling  bass.  There were a few shots of the nuclear waste ground etc,
then  a terminator foot suddenly crashes down in front of the camera.  I
shit  my  sides and threw coke all over the place.  I soon realised that
the  music  had been quiet.  We then watched a couple of extra clips not
on  the  normal  video version, including one where Sarah gets seriously
beaten  up  or  raped  (I can't remember now) at the looney house, which
gives you more sympathy for her.

Next  up  we  watched  a few scenes from Return Of The Jedi, such as the
speeder bikes and the Millennium Falcon flying around inside a Deathstar
or something.

Most  of  the  films  on laser disc are in very wide screen, exactly the
same as the cinema, which also enhances the films.  The telly is so big,
and  you  are  sat  so close that the big black bands don't matter.  The
films  usually  come on 2 double sided discs, the same size as LPs, with
the  little  labels in the middle.  They can be bought from large record
shops  or  specialist dealers for about £50-70.  As they are digital and
non-destructively  compressed the picture quality and sound are perfect.
The  main  disadvantage  is  swapping  discs  half way through the film,
although  you  can  get  players that do this automatically.  On cheaper
players you have to manually turn over the disc too, which would be very
irritating.

The  discs  are  divided  up into "chapters", similar to tracks on a CD.
There  are about 20-50 of these per film, together with a list on the LP
style  sleeve,  which  enable  you to pick out all the decent action/sex
scenes quickly.

The  upcoming  digital  video  standard  should make laser disc obsolete
though.  This will supposedly be the size of a CD, re-recordable, with a
few  gigs of space.  The quality is not quite perfect, but will probably
be  similar  to  JPEG,  where you can't tell the difference.  The format
will also eventually replace CDs on computers.

I  had already seen Last Action Hero on VHS video on a mono 25" telly at
home,  so the difference was incredible.  One problem though through out
the  film  was that the constant, low rumbling bass was nearly making me
feel physically sick.  If you put your hands in front of the pipe on the
bass woofer, the air flow was comparable to that from a hand drier.

I didn't really notice the supposed Dolby Pro Logic stuff, and I was sat
in the centre of the room in the best seat.  Even when a plane flew over
from  left to right, the effect was barely noticable.  This was probably
due to the weedy rear speakers, and all the front speakers being so loud
and close together.

Taking  a  closer  look  at the TV though, the picture isn't really that
good.  The tiny little green red and blue bars you can just about see on
a  normal  telly  were massive.  This was hardly noticable from a normal
viewing distance though.

Having  a  go  with  the  satellite  system  it  suffered  from the same
irritation  as  all  the others I have seen.  It takes 2 or 3 seconds to
lock onto and decode each channel, which makes my favourite past time of
channel  flicking very frustrating, especially when you have 500 to pick
from.   Moving  the  dish  to  point to another satellite is quite quick
though.

When  I  got back home our TV (recently upgraded to stereo) sounded very
quiet and tinny and horrible.

So  to  sum  up,  this  stuff  is pretty amazing, and is fine if you are
extremely  wealthy.   If,  however,  you get obsessed with it and reduce
yourself  to  running  around in a clapped out B-reg Nissan Micra to pay
for  the stuff (like my mate's parents) then you probably have some sort
of problem.

End