3D @ Home

[andre3k]

My Plasma seems like it's on its last legs, and my Bluray is very selective about what it chooses to play. Has anyone on here done or experienced the 3D Home Cinema thing?

I'm thinking it would mean a new TV, Sky Box??, Bluray Player and prob Amp as well. Any thoughts on whether it's worth it?

[adsgreen]

Nope. It's still pretty dodgy IMO.

What's the budget?

[adsgreen]

My personal favourite is this beastie
http://m.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/UN55ES8000FXZA

[Timster]

I think Shagga's the man when it comes to new telly's !

[ShaneyB]

I think Shagga's the man when it comes to new telly's !

Why thank you Timmy.

Hi Andre,
Yes it's worth it! What set up do you have now??
I had a classic and fantastic Plasma PDP with Panny DVDR & Yamaha Amp which I absolutely loved but wanted to upgrade to 3D. Took the plunge a month or so ago and went for a Samsung 46" D7000 (preferred the glass bezel to the metal of the D8000), Denon amp, Denon 3D Blu-Ray, Apple TV and absolutely love it. I thought my old plasma picture was fantastically crisp & sharp but it's not a touch on the Samsung. Admittedly technology has moved on in leaps & bounds and IMHO it shows. I've always been a Panasonic plasma fan and had them for the last 10 years and I've always been apprehensive about going LED due to alleged motion blur/picture judder etc but I can't fault it really. The HD picture out of the box was brilliant and when I first got it I just had it hooked via HDMI to Sky HD 1TB and games consoles. DK can vouch for the HD when F1 was on - it's fantastic. I then had an installer come in and set up the AMP & blu-ray and wall mount the 46" screen. I love it!
3D images are phenomenal. I love the footie in 3D and obviously you have the movies. Animated films are faultless and my son loves them. My only gripe is there isn't enough films/3D channels out there at the moment but the LED HD is worth it alone and the 3D is a bonus. Just make sure you get good quality HDMI cables that can cope with 3D as the picture/sound as is only as good as the cables!! Don't get ripped off at places like Sevenoaks/Richer Sounds for those. Also make sure your AMP is Network ready for future proofing.

My kit including install was around £2.5k and that was using my existing sub, front/centre speakers and in-ceiling rears. Cables can cost a fortune but a decent installer (I can give you my fella's details depending on where you live) will save you loads buying through him.

Last thing to consider is glasses. My friend has the Panasonic P50GT30 plasma which I was considering but to me it still looked dated. Great kit but didn't look anywhere near as sexy as the Samsung and the glasses are bulky and £90.00 a pair (I think). The Samsung glasses are super light and only £19.95 a pair so (almost) throw away.

If you're local you're welcome to drop in & have a butchers but I wouldn't hesitate in taking the plunge.

Good lunck and let me know if you need any further info.

[Timster]

Careful if you do go around to Shagga's however....... make sure he's not got his shorts on !

[HYFR]

Shagga's new telly had a mental good HD picture when i saw it !

[andre3k]

I think Shagga's the man when it comes to new telly's !

Why thank you Timmy.

Hi Andre,
Yes it's worth it! What set up do you have now??
I had a classic and fantastic Plasma PDP with Panny DVDR & Yamaha Amp which I absolutely loved but wanted to upgrade to 3D. Took the plunge a month or so ago and went for a Samsung 46" D7000 (preferred the glass bezel to the metal of the D8000), Denon amp, Denon 3D Blu-Ray, Apple TV and absolutely love it. I thought my old plasma picture was fantastically crisp & sharp but it's not a touch on the Samsung. Admittedly technology has moved on in leaps & bounds and IMHO it shows. I've always been a Panasonic plasma fan and had them for the last 10 years and I've always been apprehensive about going LED due to alleged motion blur/picture judder etc but I can't fault it really. The HD picture out of the box was brilliant and when I first got it I just had it hooked via HDMI to Sky HD 1TB and games consoles. DK can vouch for the HD when F1 was on - it's fantastic. I then had an installer come in and set up the AMP & blu-ray and wall mount the 46" screen. I love it!
3D images are phenomenal. I love the footie in 3D and obviously you have the movies. Animated films are faultless and my son loves them. My only gripe is there isn't enough films/3D channels out there at the moment but the LED HD is worth it alone and the 3D is a bonus. Just make sure you get good quality HDMI cables that can cope with 3D as the picture/sound as is only as good as the cables!! Don't get ripped off at places like Sevenoaks/Richer Sounds for those. Also make sure your AMP is Network ready for future proofing.

My kit including install was around £2.5k and that was using my existing sub, front/centre speakers and in-ceiling rears. Cables can cost a fortune but a decent installer (I can give you my fella's details depending on where you live) will save you loads buying through him.

Last thing to consider is glasses. My friend has the Panasonic P50GT30 plasma which I was considering but to me it still looked dated. Great kit but didn't look anywhere near as sexy as the Samsung and the glasses are bulky and £90.00 a pair (I think). The Samsung glasses are super light and only £19.95 a pair so (almost) throw away.

If you're local you're welcome to drop in & have a butchers but I wouldn't hesitate in taking the plunge.

Good lunck and let me know if you need any further info.

Im in the Midlands so I dont think a visit is doable, but thanks anyway. Ive got an Oppo BDP-83, Pana 42V10B and Sony 2400ES Amp paired up with some B&W 600 series speakers in 5.1 (http://layers-of-beauty.co.uk/jalbum/fu ... 20007.html).

Back to the 3D, I guess Im not sure about the glasses (I didnt actually realise you still need them for 3D viewing). I wear specs already so I don't know how that would all play out.

Some ques for you though: How much of your TV viewing is done in 3D? Are Plasmas still superior to LCD's or are things much more even and finally if I do take the plunge is it worth upgrading the Amp (it handles DTS HD and DolbyHD but have things moved on a little and these are now defunct)?

[ShaneyB]

Don't know how that would work with spec's on. Never thought of it.

I record or watch most 3D films & footie on Sky and have a handful of 3D Blu-rays so we don't watch it too much at the moment. My thoughs were we wanted to upgrade the TV anyway so why not get a 3D ready screen. There will be more content being released all the time so it will only get better in my opinion. Plasma vs LED you could argue about all day long. My friend has the Panny Plasma and when we watched 3D on his it didn't look anywhere near as vivid as mine, they were his comments but this could be down to cabling and set up of course. The HD picture is superb and worth the upgrade alone. I wanted a crisp image combined with asthetics and I still think most of the plasma's out there today look dated which I didn't want. I upgraded my amp/BDP to support 3D, HDMI switching, and for more HDMI ports for consoles etc. and I wanted it all network ready to make streaming video quicker and more consistant.

Get to a good showroom and have a look at both side by side but make sure it's real 3D and not animation. Will you upgrade to 6.1 or better?

[Carbon]

Don't know how that would work with spec's on. Never thought of it.

The Samsung glasses are ok with specs but you wouldnt sit and watch it all the time, after a film I have had enough to be honest, but I dont wear glasses all the time anyway.

I would pick LED over Plasma any day, but its personal preference. I run the 46" 8000 with the Samsung 7.1

[Mr Footlong]

I know quite a bit about this too (well, every time that I brush up my knowledge anyway...)but it is my opinion that while there are some mainstream 3D sets out there that have a very nice/immersive 3D effect, none of them are without their drawbacks currently. You could read the likes of avforums.com until you want to kill yourself but for the active 3D sets in the mainstream market, Samsung are a solid bet with their LED Active 3D range (again, various shortfalls that you should read about when narrowing your choices too but this is the way with pretty well every set that you initially think is perfect until you read and read and read. They get critisized on the forums a bit but I actually felt really comfortable watching 3D on a Passive LG set recently (2011 range). Again, not without issues though.....

Have you been to many/any 3D films where they possibly use ACTIVE glasses and not passive? I am prone to eye strain/mild headaches using the active glasses. For the record I have a Samsung UE55D8000 in the bedroom with a surround setup of course , took the gamble after reading forums to death and I got it at a very good price. The few screen issues drove me potty for the first few weeks but my brain has finally learnt to ignore them and I just sit back and enjoy these days. I get eyestrain on this set too madam doesn't.

As for media centres that I saw mentioned, if you are even vaguely techie-like, nothing beats XBMC in my opinion for overall awesomness I think that DLNA is pretty useless but as a techie that knows how to set up his stuff without being reduced to DLNA, I would say that. Every room in the house except for the bathroom (working on that) has a networked XBMC system in it.

[Mr Footlong]

Don't know how that would work with spec's on. Never thought of it.

The Samsung glasses are ok with specs but you wouldnt sit and watch it all the time, after a film I have had enough to be honest, but I dont wear glasses all the time anyway.

I would pick LED over Plasma any day, but its personal preference. I run the 46" 8000 with the Samsung 7.1

I had to buy a different pair of active Sammy glasses as while the ones that came with the set were OK with glasses fit-wise, they came a bit too far away from the face for madam. The other pair are the non-foldable ones that you can induction loop charge if needed.