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I'm helping a friend to move up to a high end home theater. He saw that there are HDTV sets now available but no HDTV transmissions. I suggested that he get one of the HDTV ready digital rear projection tv's. Specifically the HItachi 53SDX89B. Anyone care to comment on that? The high end's latest features include component video and progressive scanning. I can find only two DVD players that output progressive scan info to the tv and cost less than $1500. One is the Toshiba 5109 and the other is a Denon 3300. Does anyone know of any others? Any opinions about the relative merits of these two? The receiver I'm recommending is the Pioneer vsx26TX. This does everytinng but switch component video and is about 100 w/ch all ch driven and THX rated. The others I'm aware of cost much more or are not thx rated. Anyone care to comment on this system? We havent even started to consider speakers and this is a stretch on the budget. Thanks for any info and help.
Pete J
While your ideas are good, it seems that you are really streching a few items just to say that you have progressive scan DVD. Honestly, progressive scan DVD players are just coming to market, are overly pricey, and none of the versions reaching the market will output DVD-Audio, which is also right around the corner. My advice would be to save the money, buy a really nice reciever that is capable of upgrades (the Denon 3300 IS an excellent unit - that should be the minimum to aim for), a nice display with accurate color decoding and upgradeability to HDTV, and a mid-price DVD player (a Denon 2500 maybe to match the 3300?). Worry about progressive scan when the technology has come down in price in 6 months, and when the second gen players output DVD-Audio as well.If you need to cheap out on speakers, look at the Definitive Technology Pro 80, 100, or even 200 sat/sub systems, or the Energy Encores. These are all effective and cheap options for HT, although they are not my first choice for a mostly music system (no sat/sub system is best for music, IMHO).
Thanks for your tip. I think the Toshiba 5109 is mid priced (one dealer quoted $545). It also offers HDCD decoding. Probably it is not that great a d/a converter but it seemed worth a try. I was looking at reviews of the Denon 3300 and found that some were unhappy because it had no digital outputs and because the speaker terminals were cheap. I think the compromises favor it at the price level. I'm not sure of the reletive problem of having no digital outputs (Denon) or not switching component video (Pioneer). I keep getting steered to higher costs in the receiver area to get all the features, but the next step up is much higher.
The RKR Video Cassini is a PC based set top player which outputs progressive scan, priced from $995,
www.rkrvideo.comNet Tv also have a similar PC based progressive scan player
www.digitaltv.netAlthough PC based these players boot straight to the dvd player interface, avoiding the usual Windows startup screen, so they operate just like a normal player, complete with remote control.
PC architecture also allows them to be easily upgraded.
Checkout the latest issue of Widescreen Review, Issue 34, for more details.
michael w
for sale in the US unless you're talking about a computer DVD-rom. I suggest you double check on those units.Hitachi has never been a significant player in rear projection television. You'd be better off looking at the offerings of Sony, Pioneer, Toshiba and Faroudja.
I thought that I read that the Denon 3300, the Toshiba 5109 and 9100 and the Panasonic H-1000 all had progressive scan outputs in native 480p format that was the best way to view dvds. The reason for choosing the Hitachi was price. All the competitive HDCD ready rear projection TV's were $4500 to $6000 list, but the Hitachi was $3500. From what I read it has a lot of features but the color temperature adjustment was not adaquate to allow a proper rendition of color---things had a blue cast. I am not able to see one here in the boonies so I will have to wait for a trip to a larger city to make a comparison. I am hoping that there are others at this site that may have already done this and can shed some insight as to how much I loose going to Hitachi. Thanks for your advice though. If I find an affordable set by the better makers or if the Hitachi is intolerable, I will change my advice.
OOPS!! The Denon 3300 Is a receiver not a dvd player; it is a progressive component ready type which switches component video.
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