Need Help: Finding a HD Media Player and AV Receiver for my 42" Full Plasma TV

[snorkel4u]

Hi there all A/V enthusiaists.

Need your help and expertise here.

Firstly a lil intro and then the questions. I used to be a computer H/W geek during my college days, used to remain glued to Chip magazines before they were

named to Digit and then I got a Job

Not much has changed since.

I was inclined more to Audio and Audio gadgets during the last few years but now I want some expertise from you guys in the A/V section.

I recently purchased a 42" Panasonic Full HD 1080p Plasma TV. The TV itself has Vierra Cast and Vierra Link features so I can connect a Lan Cable in the

Ethernet port provided at the rear and this cable then goes to the Wi-Fi router..... This helps me use some inbuilt applications in the TV such as youtube,

Picasa, FlickR, Weather etc etc.

For a few days after buying the TV I used to copy the 700 MB DVD Rip downloads (that I earlier used to watch on my 17" laptop) on a Pen Drive, connect it to

the USB port in my TV and Watch them directly. Now the quality was decent. Not exceptionally good.

This was till, when a friend of mine forced me to buy a HDMI cable, and helped me download a BRip/ 1080p version of Transformers and Avatar.

When played via the laptop the video was mind blowing, although at times the video was still a little jittery, but not a lot.

The Hardware/ Software I already have is
- 42" Panasonic Full HD Plasma TV
- HDMI Cable
- Core 2 Duo Laptops
- BOSE Companion series 2 speakers (currently hooked to composite out from the TV)
- BOSE SoundDock used to play my iPhone and seldomly used as an Audio Out from my Laptop for gaming.
- Airtel IP Connection with 512 Kbps speed.
- 3.5" 1 TB Internal Seagate BaraCuda HDD 7200 RPM used with a USB Docking station for internal hard Drives.
- 2.5" 1 TB USB powered Seagate Go-Flex Hard Drive, purchased recently.


Now comes my main requirement.

After going through the plethora of information on this forum, I have decided to make my Home Theater using you Guru's expertise.

- Firstly, I want to buy a HD Media Player (WD TV Live Plus/ Hub or Seagate or Xtreamer or PlayOn HD or something that you guys suggest?)

Now my biggest question - I have read the reviews of close to 5-6 HD Media Players and I am a bit confused with the concept of HD Players v/s Video Upscaling to HD Video.

Q: Do all these famous Full HD Video Media Players in the market upscale the Video quality as well?

I mean to ask, when I play a 4 GB .MKV or ISO file, I am sure of getting a Blue Ray like Video quality. But when I play a 700 MB/ 1000 MB DVD Rip how would be the quality?

Would it be just like playing it directly off a USB Pen Drive using the TV?
Or else would it be upscaled and the quality be improved?

Please help me out on this one as I am terribly confused with this aspect? Are they any other HD Media Players with Video Upscaling , in the market as well?

Once this is sorted I need your advice in making up my mind to buy such a HD Player which fits my requirement.
I download a lot of movies using torrents. So the HD Player should be able to download the torrents in itself as well. May be it saves in the connected

external Go Flex hard Drive (in that case the drive also remains on, at all times),
- Else I buy a HD Player with inbuilt Hard Drive which saves the movies in itself.
- Else I buy a HD Player in which, I fit the 3.5" 1 TB Seagate SATA HDD that I already own.

Other than that, the HD Player should be able to play most file formats and have the best possible Audio Outs.

Again. I am not aware, which one is Better? HDMI Out or Optical/ SPDIF?

Further, I need suggestions for a decent, home theater receiver system with speakers for a good Audio Video HT experience.

Phew.....

Thats a lot of typing for a first post. But I can go on...... Just too eager to get the inputs from you guys.

So Hemant, Dheeraj, Phantom, NetFreak... and all the other genius' out there. Please help me out

Thanks in Advance.

 

[RetinalNV]

Guess your other query regarding upscaling was answered here :

Your TV (assuming it is an HD or HD ready) already has a upscaler built in, so I think the question should read

Will it (media player) do a better upscaling than the TV's built in function if you play it from your PC or USB on TV itself ?

And at this price point do we really expect this to give good results ?

Further, I need suggestions for a decent, home theater receiver system with speakers for a good Audio Video HT experience.

Phew.....

Start with a budget, entry level offerings are HTiB

From my hunting(strictly budget) I have found by far the Onkyo 3300 is a forum favourite. Priced between 23-25k it gives you a very capable AVR with 'decent' speakers, HDMI and the 5.1 experience.

a 50k budget will help you configure individual components of a decent spec.

 

[NetFreak]

I mean to ask, when I play a 4 GB .MKV or ISO file, I am sure of getting a Blue Ray like Video quality. But when I play a 700 MB/ 1000 MB DVD Rip how would be the quality?

These files are nothing like Blu Ray. To put things perspective, Blu Ray video + audio is 25+ GB.

Would it be just like playing it directly off a USB Pen Drive using the TV?
Or else would it be upscaled and the quality be improved?

There would be not be any significant improvement in quality.

Again. I am not aware, which one is Better? HDMI Out or Optical/ SPDIF?

HDMI is better. It can carry video and audio both, and can carry HD audio which Optical cant.

Regarding HT, what is your budget?

 

[snorkel4u]

- Thanks NetFreak, I was able to talk to waveking and he explained me the technicalities and the Audio difference in playing a Blue Ray ISO (.m2ts) format, almost 35Gigs a movie via a laptop versus a HD Media Player.

- So he also agreed with what you wrote above. There won't be much difference/ improvement in quality.

- Thanks, so I will need to buy one more HDMI cable to connect my Laptop/ Media Player to the AVR and the existing HDMI cable can be used to connect the AVR to the TV.

Coming to the budget question, Netfreak, this is what I worked out. I guess a Lac Rs is a decent (initial/ Entry level) investment for setting up a Home Theater. This is how I am breaking up the cost.

- Plasma 42" Full HD TV (already bought) 60000/-
- HDD 1 TB Seagate (already bought) 5500/-
- Onkyo HT 3300(B) 23000 - 25000/-
- Cabling 2000/-

- This leaves me with just about an exact amount (9500/-) to buy a HD media Player, of which the possible contenders are
- WD TV Live Plus, (6500)
- eXtreamer, (not sure)
- A.C.Ryan PlayOn HD (9500)

Waveking advised me that if initially I don't have a lot of .mkvs and BD rips to play, there's not much sense in buying a HD Media Player rightaway (unless of course I wanna use it for downloading the torrents instead of my Laptop).

As per him, I can go ahead with the HTiB purchase and then eventually invest in the HD Player later on.

How does this idea sound to you Netfreak?

Also, I am planning to visit a few Onkyo Dealers for a demo of the HTiB. I haven't even heard it once till now.

Will post my feedback here then.

 

[NetFreak]

Onkyo 3300 is a decent system to begin with.

Are you planning to visit US or Far East is near future? You can get a MUCH better AVE then the one that comes with Onkyo 3300, for this budget.

Do audition this HTIB system (its approx 55 W per channel) and an AVR + Speaker system @ 80 -100 Watts per channel.

 

[snorkel4u]

@ NetFreak,
Hmmm nope, I don't think I will be going to the US anytime soon.

However I may be making a Trip to the UK/ Edinburgh (to be precise) and Singapore soon.
Do you think I can get better deals there?

And also the warranty bothers me a bit. Does Onkyo 3300 in Foreign countries come with International Warranty?

 

[RetinalNV]

- This leaves me with just about an exact amount (9500/-) to buy a HD media Player, of which the possible contenders are
- WD TV Live Plus, (6500)
- eXtreamer, (not sure)
- A.C.Ryan PlayOn HD (9500)

Based on Netfreak's other posts I finally evaluated the need for an additional media player if one can get a device such as the Samsung BD c5500

It's sleek, its fast, has a reasonably easy interface and at 10500/- you get the full functionality of a media player (+NTFS support) as well as Blu Ray for the future.

This setup is for my folks, so minimum devices offering maximum future-proofing at a budget.

Final Setup is : Panasonic 42x20 / Onkyo 3300 HT / Samsung BD c5500

 

[snorkel4u]

Update - I made a quick trip to Onkyo Wonderland in MGF metropoliton Mall @ Gurgaon today. They have a decent setup for demo-ing the Onkyo systems. The typical Blueray player is plugged with a coax cable to the splitter which then links up all the other AVRs in the room.

The AVR is then plugged to a Projector.

I didnt get a chance to take my laptop/ mkvs with me so he played a BD of King Kong (the empire state scene to be precise) and just to give me a perspective he also played me a DVD Rip of Spiderman 2, the train fight sequence.

I think he wanted to impress me with the surround speakers to the max. I was impressed The bass had a nice thump, slightly boomy.

Asked him to switch off the Audessey EQ, which he said he did, but it continued to display on the panel. But yes, the booming had reduced.
He also had a docking station for the iPhone, which I used to connect my Iphone and check out the Audio performance as well.

I liked the Audio output as well. My MP3s were encoded at a higher bitrate 320 kbps. May be that made the difference. He was playing them in the Neo6-digital preset I guess.

Now the price - He quoted me 27K with Installation and 1 HDMI cable and 1 CoaX cable.
And 26K without any cables and no installation.....

Hmmm......

 

[NetFreak]

However I may be making a Trip to the UK/ Edinburgh (to be precise) and Singapore soon.
Do you think I can get better deals there?

In that case, I would suggest you drop Onkyo 3300.

You can get a Yamaha 467 for around 12k in Singapore / US. This is a 100W System. Since cost is less than 25k, no duties either if brought in as baggage.

Spend another 25k on speakers in India. You will get a MUCH better system then 3300.

I would suggest that you audition this or other AVR + Speaker combination in 100W range.

Over all:

1. If buying from India 3300 is a decent AVR + Speaker system at ~25k
2. If buying from US/Far East, buy AVR for 12 - 18k and get speakers in India for 25k

Now the price - He quoted me 27K with Installation and 1 HDMI cable and 1 CoaX cable.
And 26K without any cables and no installation.....

Something is wrong here. Given this is an HD capable system, you must not use CoaX. CoaX is limited to SD 5.1 audio. HDMI carries HD audio when supplied by a Blu Ray player.

 

[waveking]

Update - I made a quick trip to Onkyo Wonderland in MGF metropoliton Mall @ Gurgaon today. They have a decent setup for demo-ing the Onkyo systems. The typical Blueray player is plugged with a coax cable to the splitter which then links up all the other AVRs in the room.

The AVR is then plugged to a Projector.

I didnt get a chance to take my laptop/ mkvs with me so he played a BD of King Kong (the empire state scene to be precise) and just to give me a perspective he also played me a DVD Rip of Spiderman 2, the train fight sequence.

I think he wanted to impress me with the surround speakers to the max. I was impressed The bass had a nice thump, slightly boomy.

Asked him to switch off the Audessey EQ, which he said he did, but it continued to display on the panel. But yes, the booming had reduced.
He also had a docking station for the iPhone, which I used to connect my Iphone and check out the Audio performance as well.

I liked the Audio output as well. My MP3s were encoded at a higher bitrate 320 kbps. May be that made the difference. He was playing them in the Neo6-digital preset I guess.

Now the price - He quoted me 27K with Installation and 1 HDMI cable and 1 CoaX cable.
And 26K without any cables and no installation.....

Hmmm......

Regarding the price : I got onkyo 3300 for 23.5k which included installation(wall mounting etc.) but no cables. Do not buy the cables that they offer you. They quote very high prices for the cables( like HDMI, Spdif etc). Instead get them from a place like nehru place or ebay.

And it looks like you weren't mighty impressed by the demo. Same was the case with me. But the experience once I got it running in my home was much better than the demo. Now I don't know why that happened!! Maybe their system had gone weary or something. The sound experience was much crisper once it played in my bedroom.
There are some gurgaon 3300 users here on HV forums. (like patanpank etc.) I had talked to them too before deciding the system. Talk to them too before deciding the system.