921 for a high end home theater ???

[ken]

We are building a first class home theater for an old customer of mine, installing new HDTV unit, high end sound, theater seating with fireplace and accent lighting and the rest. My question is should I put him into a 921 or another HDTV receiver? He already has whole house DISH and sound so the new receiver will just be for the home theater. Does the 921 have DVR fees and will the remote have codes for a harman/kardon 7.1 A/V receiver ( we are also looking into a possible touch screen remote system ) The new HDTV has 1 built-in HDTV tuner and 1 analog tuner. BTW, does anyone have ideas for a $600-$800 touch screen that will work with the above equipment? This is the kind of guy that will pay $40,000.00 for a home theater but gets pissed when he has to pay for things like a $5/mo DVR fee.

 

[Mainstreet]

We are building a first class home theater for an old customer of mine, installing new HDTV unit, high end sound, theater seating with fireplace and accent lighting and the rest. My question is should I put him into a 921 or another HDTV receiver? He already has whole house DISH and sound so the new receiver will just be for the home theater. Does the 921 have DVR fees and will the remote have codes for a harman/kardon 7.1 A/V receiver ( we are also looking into a possible touch screen remote system ) The new HDTV has 1 built-in HDTV tuner and 1 analog tuner. BTW, does anyone have ideas for a $600-$800 touch screen that will work with the above equipment? This is the kind of guy that will pay $40,000.00 for a home theater but gets pissed when he has to pay for things like a $5/mo DVR fee.

The 921 does have a VOD fee. There is no fee if he subscribes to the America's Everything Pack. He would also need to sub to the $9.99 HD Pack for most of the HD channels (you probably already knew that).

 

[bytre]

BTW, does anyone have ideas for a $600-$800 touch screen that will work with the above equipment?

Check out remotecentral.com. Loads of remote info there.

 

[K R Kimmel]

I'll second the suggestion of looking at RomoteCentral for info on remote controls. For a touchscreen remote in the $600-$800 range I recomend the Philips Proto Pro NG (model # TSU-7000). It has a 16-bit color LCD touchscreen as well as 17 programable hard buttons. It will control almost any device that supports an IR remote control. Mine is programmed to control 5 TVs, 3 satellite receivers, 2 DVD players, a CD changer, LaserDisc player, A/V receiver, a HTPC and several lights with 87% of it's memory still free for programming additional devices.

 

[jcd4878]

BTW, does anyone have ideas for a $600-$800 touch screen that will work with the above equipment?

I recommend the Phillips Pronto Pro. Fully programmable touchscreen in color. It's like $620. I use it to control everything in my home theater setup, including the HTPC I have. It takes a bit of up front setup, but once you done all that, it's slick and easy to use. I haven't programmed the 921 codes yet, but this remote will support controlling the 921 either by downloading the codes from the net, or by using the learning function with a 721 remote. The remote that is packaged with the 921 (for some stupid ass reason!) will not transmit 921 IR codes and only RF codes. The 921 however does have a IR receive eye though. Turns out the 721 platinum remote is exactly the same as the 921 remote minus one button you don't need (Green R button), except the 721 remote transmits IR codes.

-Jerry

 

[ken]

I have been looking at the Pronto 7000 for this since I have used the 1st gen Prontos. Does anyone know if the 921 codes are in the 7000 ? Also, since the 921 downconverts HDTV to SD do the line outs work all of the time in case we want to hook it to a modulator, or will we loose the signal when the 921 is feeding HDTV to the main monitor.

 

[K R Kimmel]

Ken,

The 921 will accept the IR remote codes from any dish network receiver except for the original dishplayer (models 7100, 7200). I have a Pronto TSU-7000 .pcf available with complete codesets available for receiver addresses 1, 2 and 3 available. PM me if you are interested.

As for your second question. No the SD outputs (composite and S-video) on the 921 are not active when the receiver is sending a HD signal on its component or DVI outputs.

Kent

 

[ken]

Thanks Kent, I wil contact you if the customer goes with the Pronto. BTW, do you just keep the HD active all the time since the 921 upconverts the SD or do you switch back & forth. It seem that it would be so much easier just to leave it in HD for everything.

 

[K R Kimmel]

I just got the 921 so I haven't settled in to a pattern yet. I need to compare the PQ of the 921 upconvert vs letting the Faroudja chipset in my tv do the upconvert. I'll probably still do most of my SD viewing off of my 721 though.

One factor when I purchase A/V equipment is the availability of discrete codes for power and input selection. Combined with the macro capabilities of the Pronto remote it allows me to create a SD button that toggles the 921 into SD mode and switches the TV to its S-Video2 input. I then have a HD button that toggles the 921 back into HD mode and switches the TV to the DVI input.

 

[928gt]

Does anyone know if the 921 codes are in the 7000 ?

You should be able to use the code "SAT/DSS > Echostar > 0802". This code is in my 3000, I would assume it is in the 7000 also. This code has everything you need to control a 921 except for the PIP codes. Someone posted those specific codes in a "ccf" file here, or on DBStalk.

If you can't find them let me know and I will send them to you.

Dave

 

[BobMurdoch]

I would also explain to him that the 921 is EXTREMELY new and is still buggy. But in exchange he will have bragging rights that he is one of the first on his block (and probably his town and county) to have one. If you set up realistic expectations on his part you may have an easier go of it, in case the 921 burps on him and he gets frustrated and calls YOU to bitch and moan.

 

[reedl]

I built the type of home theater in my basement, and just got it finished.

Equipment..
- 92" front projector screen by Stewart
- Sony VPL-HS20 Widescreen 720p projector (Absolutely amazing for $3500)
- Yamaha RX-V1 DD 6.1 with two additional effects channels
- Boston Acoustics Speakers
- Yamaha 1000 watt subwoofer (Boy can that thing pump out bass)

The room is setup as two rows with the back row raised 8" above the front row. I have reclining seats in the front row, and a real comfy couch in the back row. Six little in-wall lights light the floor with soft like so you do not trip. 5 real nice wall sconces that of course are dimmable remotely with X-10

Room is 14' by 18' in dimensions with no outside light at all (completely dark anytime of day/night)

Watching the 921 with HD programming (Basketball on ESPN-HD, Movies on HDNET, and HBOHD, etc.) looks like a window.

Even the DVD's I watch (With a Sony Progressive Scan DVD Player) look incredible. The whole family watched Space Jam last night, and we were all saying after that we will probably never go to a theater again simply because the experience is much better in home.

Reedl

 

[ken]

Thanks to all, please keep the info coming. We won't be finalizing the room for a few more days. Hey X-10/Pronto users, I could use some info from you. My past X-10 experience has not been a good one. I have had a little better luck with the higher end stuff using the same X-10 technolgy.

 

[BarryO]

X-10/Pronto user here. I use the IR-543 IR-to-X-10 converter, available from smarthome.com and lots of other places.

The Pronto works fine, but the X-10 can be frustrating. For those if you not old enough to remember, X-10 is based on very old technology - it was introduced sometime around 1970. As such it is very interference-prone. If you were designing with a "clean slate" today, you could make something much more reliable.

My X-10 works now; the the problems I encountered included:

-- Compact flourescent bulb on one X-10 switch (on/off only, not dimmable), causes switch not to work: too much interference from bulb's electronic ballast. Swapped to incandescent bulb.

-- Two halogen floor lamps caused X-10 in the same room to stop working, if the lamps were switched in to half-bright mode. In-line X-10 filters fixed the problem.

-- Front-load washing machine in adjacent room caused X-10 to stop working, only when the machine was on the fast-spin cycle. Heavy-duty X-10 filter on washing machine plug fixed it.

As I said, my X-10 works great now, but typically one must do some troubleshooting to comensate for the fact that you're working with a power line communications standard that was defined a long, long time ago.

 

[jcd4878]

X-10 is extremely buggy. If you want a higher end, fullproof system for controlling lights by remote, I suggest you look at the Lutron products (http://www.lutron.com/resi)They have excellent control systems controlled by IR, RF, or network. I installed two of their cheaper Spacer line of IR dimmers in my home theater and they rock! They got stuff for every budget. The coolest system they have is the Grafik Eye. Its a scene controller that interfaces to all their remote dimmers so you can setup scene levels across all your dimmers such that you can just select a scene and all the lights dim to the settings you setup. So you can have a full on button, pre-movie/intermission button, full dimm with only accent floor runner lights on low, etc. Very cool stuff and it don't use X-10 so it works all the time!

Here is a link to the Spacer system I am using.
http://www.lutron.com/spacer/Default.htm

-Jerry