May
23
The PS3 has become the Blu-ray player du jour for many and with good reason, it’s highly versatile, relatively easy to use, relatively inexpensive and one of the few profile 2.0 players available, it is not however perfect unto itself. The omission of any inherent ability to be controlled via infra-red makes it difficult to be integrated into home theaters with IR universal remotes, luckily though third party manufacturers have supplied solutions to this problem.
There are several different solutions to use a IR remote with the PS3 but one of the cleanest has to be the IR2BT (IR to Bluetooth) converter. In a nutshell the adapter receives PS2 IR commands (those remotes are still available) and converts them into the PS3’s Bluetooth commands. It really couldn’t get much simpler than that, well that is unless the PS3 already worked with IR. The device sells for $55 and is available direct from the manufacturer.
The other solution, specifically the Nyko “Blu-Wave” infra-red remote uses a IR dongle to receive the Nyko’s remote commands but from what I’ve been able to gather the Nyko remote lacks a few functions available from the PS3 controller, functions that are available with the PS2 IR controller as well. So in essence, if you just want to integrate basic shuttle commands into your universal remote the Nyko may be the way to go, on the other hand if you want 100% functionality with IR source codes, the IR2BT is well worth a look.
May
15
Home Theater in the Garage?
Filed Under Home Theater Construction | 1 Comment
From time to time we’re presented with unusual requests for home theater installations and more often than not the two that present the biggest hurdles are in bonus rooms above garages and or in the garage itself. Bonus rooms are fine for rear projection televisions, plasmas and LCD’s but in many of today’s homes the roof pitch is too steep to allow for a proper front projection screen. The garage on the other hand is workable, but presents its own set of problems.
Garages can indeed be transformed into home theaters but there are three (maybe more) areas that will need to be addressed before the space is suitable for use as a home theater. Keep in mind we’re talking about smaller two car garages not a full blown four to five car garage in newer homes.
First we’ll need to address the heating and air concerns. If like most garages the central air is inadequate, to keep us comfortable for hours at a time we’ll need to bring that up to scratch. This may include adding more air returns and or stand-alone heating and air conditioners.
May
8
Blu-ray Player Recommendations (Part 2)
Filed Under Blu-ray | Leave a Comment
Earlier this year I made a post about which Blu-ray players I would recommend and did so with the caveat that those recommendations would have a shelf life of about a month. Ok so it was two, I was close.
Back in March with the different player profiles just starting to be sorted out and no real profile 2.0 titles available to speak of, I was perfectly comfortable recommending the Panasonic DMP-BD30K. While I still consider it a capable player it’s not the one I would recommend today.
Panasonic’s BD-Live capable DMP-BD50 is where I’d put my money if I were in the market again. The player features Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, HDMI 1.3 with Deep Color and x.v. Color, 1080p/24 playback and 5.1ch analog audio outs.
May
2
If you’re building a dedicated home theater, do yourself a favor and plan on adding a game port or two. What’s that, you’re not a gamer? Take my advice and add them away. Video game consoles are revolutionizing the home theater market and many of the recent converts are folks that would have never described themselves as “gamers”.
The purpose of game-ports is two-fold, first so that the console can easily be transported from room to room and secondly for easier access to settings, controllers, and loading media. I like to place my game ports flush mounted to the face of risers and or at the front of the room in a wall-box.
A game port cabling should consist of a HDMI cable, component cables (for Wii’s and older X-Box’s), a RG-59 for digital audio, and a CAT-6 for future proofing. Don’t worry about the RG-59 being limited to coaxial digital audio only; RadioShack, Amazon, and eBay sell cheap optical to coaxial converters that allow you take an optical digital out and convert it to coaxial.