Quick Mancave Update

I'm going to be on the road for the next 2 weeks so I wanted to post a quick update on my progress. I just got in the Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver. I did a test this morning with all speakers connected and audio over coax from my Denon 2930CI player. The test was a resounding success! I didn't do any setting of delays or levels. I spun a few CDs and tried both 2-channel and 5-channel listening modes. The DTS:Neo6 Music sounded pretty good. I may experiment more with the different DSP surround modes once everything is in place in the new room. Onkyo's menu and setup routine is much easier than Denon's. The manual is also better by a large factor. It only took me a few minutes to setup bi-amping and assign the digital input. Onkyo's remote is also far better than the weird unit that comes with the Denon 3806. Eventually though, I'll be running everything in the mancave with a Harmony 890.

I also pre-ordered the Samsung BD-UP5000 from Crutchfield. I heard just last night that one person received a ship notice from Crutchfield on this player so I expect mine soon. All information I have so far confirms that it will output 1080p/24 on both HDDVD and BluRay. It also bitstreams all the new lossless audio codecs for decoding by an appropriate receiver. In my case, the Onkyo fills that task. If you want, it will decode all lossless formats and output them over HDMI or analog if you have an older receiver or processor.

I've been following a thread on AVS about the new Panasonic commercial plasma, the 50" PF10UK. This set will accept 1080p/24 and display it at a 48hz refresh rate. What this means is judder-free images from HD and BluRay discs encoded at 1080p/24. When I add the Lumagen video processor, I'll be able to do this with standard DVDs as well. I'll input 1080i/60 and have the Lumagen do inverse-telecine deinterlacing for 1080p/24 output.

Things are coming along quite nicely and I expect to have some more pictures to post soon. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!