Home Theater Mega Thread

[Street Pharmacist]

Looking for advice.

Bought a house with a room perfect for a theater set up. There are built ins around a very large area to fit a big tv. I put a 120" retractable screen in front instead and installed a decent projector. With the PS4 I had the sound going to a decent sound bar with optical, but my new PS5 only has HDMI out. It was already a problem as I have a cable box hooked up as well so I needed an HDMI switch which meant projector sound for cable Erich doesn't really work. The area is already run with cable for two ceiling speakers and two rear speakers

For my birthday last year my wife bought me an Onkyo 7.2 receiver. Of course, that now necessitates spending $$$ on speakers. See, I don't care at all about sound other than the projector speakers ain't cutting it. I love the utility of the receiver (multiple inputs, native Chromecast, little/no lag for video games), but I don't really want to buy a bunch of speakers.

Are there cheap speaker sets out there? Is there a soundbar receiver that would do something similar?

[DoubleK]

Receiver to a decent soundbar sounds like a decent interim answer.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Receiver to a decent soundbar sounds like a decent interim answer.

My receiver only has l/r speakers wire inputs so no way to do that that I can figure out

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

My receiver only has l/r speakers wire inputs so no way to do that that I can figure out

I’m pretty certain I have 4 bookshelf speakers sitting around from my last house. I think they are Polk, I used them as surrounds for both setups and they worked great. You can have them on the cheap as I use all Sonos now and won’t be reusing them.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

I’m pretty certain I have 4 bookshelf speakers sitting around from my last house. I think they are Polk, I used them as surrounds for both setups and they worked great. You can have them on the cheap as I use all Sonos now and won’t be reusing them.

I'm in Salmon Arm so that'll be difficult

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I'm in Salmon Arm so that'll be difficult

Meet in Banff!

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Looking for advice.

Bought a house with a room perfect for a theater set up. There are built ins around a very large area to fit a big tv. I put a 120" retractable screen in front instead and installed a decent projector. With the PS4 I had the sound going to a decent sound bar with optical, but my new PS5 only has HDMI out. It was already a problem as I have a cable box hooked up as well so I needed an HDMI switch which meant projector sound for cable Erich doesn't really work. The area is already run with cable for two ceiling speakers and two rear speakers

For my birthday last year my wife bought me an Onkyo 7.2 receiver. Of course, that now necessitates spending $$$ on speakers. See, I don't care at all about sound other than the projector speakers ain't cutting it. I love the utility of the receiver (multiple inputs, native Chromecast, little/no lag for video games), but I don't really want to buy a bunch of speakers.

Are there cheap speaker sets out there? Is there a soundbar receiver that would do something similar?

Wanna make a project out of it?

https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...uild+Guide.pdf

This dude is BC Based and should be able to help you out with a lot of the 3D printing etc.

[photon]

I have a friend with MS so he can't do things like use a remote anymore. Watching TV is one of his main activities, and he used to watch movies (has quite a large collection) but he doesn't anymore just because the care facility he's in the staff don't really know how to deal with the various remotes and in the past after he watched a movie he'd be left without the TV until I or someone could go over and get things back and running.

I had to replace his TV as the old one was getting weird artifacts, and was a bit worried as it kept defaulting to the smart TV menu after powering on when I wanted to just default to HDMI1.. otherwise any time the power went out he'd be stuck looking at the menu! I finally found an option for it but was worried for a bit.

Anyway back to the movies. I got a small HDMI switch with a remote but even that seems to be too hard for the staff, and he doesn't understand the stuff well enough either to just tell them what button to push on which remote. So he doesn't use it.

I've tried to convince him to try a FireTV with an IR setup so he could control everything by voice, but he hasn't wanted to and to be honest the MS has him slurring his speech quite a bit so not sure it would even work. Plus the newer cable boxes don't even work on IR anymore so if he ever had to get the cable box replaced he'd be hooped.

What I really want is a way that putting in a blu-ray and hitting play results in a movie on the TV, and then ejecting the disc results in the cable TV coming back. Probably not possible? I guess 2nd best would be some kind of auto HDMI switch that would switch to the blu-ray when it powers on and then switches back when it powers off? Not sure if that works that way.

Or is there a soundbar that might do something like that?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by photon

I have a friend with MS so he can't do things like use a remote anymore. Watching TV is one of his main activities, and he used to watch movies (has quite a large collection) but he doesn't anymore just because the care facility he's in the staff don't really know how to deal with the various remotes and in the past after he watched a movie he'd be left without the TV until I or someone could go over and get things back and running.

I had to replace his TV as the old one was getting weird artifacts, and was a bit worried as it kept defaulting to the smart TV menu after powering on when I wanted to just default to HDMI1.. otherwise any time the power went out he'd be stuck looking at the menu! I finally found an option for it but was worried for a bit.

Anyway back to the movies. I got a small HDMI switch with a remote but even that seems to be too hard for the staff, and he doesn't understand the stuff well enough either to just tell them what button to push on which remote. So he doesn't use it.

I've tried to convince him to try a FireTV with an IR setup so he could control everything by voice, but he hasn't wanted to and to be honest the MS has him slurring his speech quite a bit so not sure it would even work. Plus the newer cable boxes don't even work on IR anymore so if he ever had to get the cable box replaced he'd be hooped.

What I really want is a way that putting in a blu-ray and hitting play results in a movie on the TV, and then ejecting the disc results in the cable TV coming back. Probably not possible? I guess 2nd best would be some kind of auto HDMI switch that would switch to the blu-ray when it powers on and then switches back when it powers off? Not sure if that works that way.

Or is there a soundbar that might do something like that?

Could you pre-record sound clips on a device that could one or two button say a command? Fire TV's are cheap. You could get one and tinker with it at home to get it to a certain point before bringing it it over and setting it up for your buddy?

ie:

"Alexa, play bluray"
"Alexa, open Netflix and play TV series?"

And then I wonder if you can set a routine to have the TV start playing something on a daily basis.

This way he has something watch (even if on repeat) and can change it to something different once you figure out if there is an option to do it remotely or figure out how to get him to do it himself. Then you don't have to rely on staff.

One sorta possible way is that you set up a child monitor camera and then you can speak through it to do the voice command. Perhaps also an ability to pivot the camera (ie: 360 camera) to make sure that it worked? It'll be on a slight delay, but perhaps it'll be a potential option once you've figured out voice commands?

There's also stuff like this:

https://abilitymagazine.com/new-feat...th-their-eyes/

Apparently Ignite TV has an accessible web remote. I don't know if that means you can control things remotely (pardon the pun) or if it's the accessibility remote you can control with your eyes like the link above.

Good luck.

[Fuzz]

It's too bad the Logitec remotes aren't sold or supported anymore. My Harmony 650 would have been perfect for him. It has buttons like "watch movie" and "watch TV". From a computer you program in all the actions, and it works pretty much flawlessly. I had looked on Amazon awhile ago and found another brand that did similar and had bluetooth, but don't recall what it was.

[Fuzz]

Oh ya, Sofabaton


https://www.amazon.ca/SofaBaton-Univ...ef_=ast_sto_dp

[photon]

The pre-recorded clips might be more trouble than it's worth but that might not be needed, we could have a cheat sheet for the staff to say stuff if it ends up not being able to understand him. But as you say I might just need to get one and play with it for a while and then get it running at his place and show him it can be trusted.

Yeah the harmony remotes were nice, I even got him one once but he never let me set it up lol.. very averse to change . That Sofabaton looks interesting.

Thanks guys!

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by photon

I have a friend with MS so he can't do things like use a remote anymore. Watching TV is one of his main activities, and he used to watch movies (has quite a large collection) but he doesn't anymore just because the care facility he's in the staff don't really know how to deal with the various remotes and in the past after he watched a movie he'd be left without the TV until I or someone could go over and get things back and running.

I had to replace his TV as the old one was getting weird artifacts, and was a bit worried as it kept defaulting to the smart TV menu after powering on when I wanted to just default to HDMI1.. otherwise any time the power went out he'd be stuck looking at the menu! I finally found an option for it but was worried for a bit.

Anyway back to the movies. I got a small HDMI switch with a remote but even that seems to be too hard for the staff, and he doesn't understand the stuff well enough either to just tell them what button to push on which remote. So he doesn't use it.

I've tried to convince him to try a FireTV with an IR setup so he could control everything by voice, but he hasn't wanted to and to be honest the MS has him slurring his speech quite a bit so not sure it would even work. Plus the newer cable boxes don't even work on IR anymore so if he ever had to get the cable box replaced he'd be hooped.

What I really want is a way that putting in a blu-ray and hitting play results in a movie on the TV, and then ejecting the disc results in the cable TV coming back. Probably not possible? I guess 2nd best would be some kind of auto HDMI switch that would switch to the blu-ray when it powers on and then switches back when it powers off? Not sure if that works that way.

Or is there a soundbar that might do something like that?

Re switching devices, if HDMI-CEC is activated on newer devices, with compliant cables, things “should” turn on and off and switch back and forth as you use bluray, media player, etc.

[Mr. Bo-dangles]

..

[Mr. Bo-dangles]

Looking for some help as this is my first home theatre set-up of my life!

I'm finally getting around to completing the set-up in the basement of the house we bought a few years ago, and have settled on (and purchased) my receiver, bookshelf speakers, and center main for my 7.1 set-up. The other four rears / surrounds are built-in ceiling speakers.

When it comes to the wiring that was done when the previous homeowner finished the basement, it is all tested and good, but I'm confused by this banana jack binding post plate that they used. Is it supposed to come with an indication of what goes where?

After looking for similar plates online, this is the one that I have, except the coumns are reversed. My best guess would be:

Spoiler!

Left Column

- Left Center Surround
- Right Center Surround
- Left Rear Surround
- Right Rear Surround

Right Column
- Front Left
- Center
- Front Right
- Subwoofer

Is there a way I can actually figure this by trial and error?

Thanks in advance...

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bo-dangles

Looking for some help as this is my first home theatre set-up of my life!

I'm finally getting around to completing the set-up in the basement of the house we bought a few years ago, and have settled on (and purchased) my receiver, bookshelf speakers, and center main for my 7.1 set-up. The other four rears / surrounds are built-in ceiling speakers.

When it comes to the wiring that was done when the previous homeowner finished the basement, it is all tested and good, but I'm confused by this banana jack binding post plate that they used. Is it supposed to come with an indication of what goes where?

After looking for similar plates online, this is the one that I have, except the coumns are reversed. My best guess would be:

Spoiler!

Left Column

- Left Center Surround
- Right Center Surround
- Left Rear Surround
- Right Rear Surround

Right Column
- Front Left
- Center
- Front Right
- Subwoofer

Is there a way I can actually figure this by trial and error?

Thanks in advance...

I have those as well. I just ran a speaker wire from one of my receivers R or L channels to the wall plate set it to AM/FM and moved it from pair to pair, marking which speaker the sound came from. Depending on your receivers tuning program, when it runs through the tone tests, it may confirm polarity is correct as well. My Denon picked up one of the channels wires were crossed