Calibration, calibration, calibration ...

To me, no point of owning a Ferrari if the car did not get a proper engine tuning. Same goes to HT, without a proper calibration (colour & sound) you will not able to maximize the full potential of your system. Recently I bought a colorimeter from Amazon. X-Rite i1 is a small and compact colorimeter, very affordable for a beginner like me. The setup is very simple, just attach the meter to the tripod and point the sensor to the projector or TV screen and hook up the meter's USB cable to the Notebook or PC. You need a proper software to interpret the data from the meter. I am using ColorHCFR software. More details about Greyscale and Colour Calibration can be found here.

Hardwares needed:

• Colorimeter
• Notebook or PC
• Tripod
  

Software needed:

• ColorHCFR or other calibration softwares
• Video test patterns
  

Click here on my previous sharing about sound calibration.

















Greyscale Calibration results:

• Top - after calibration
• Bottom - before calibration

My humble Home Theater/Hi Fi setup

After painstaking effort and moolah (i.e. $$$), here is my current HT and Hi Fi setup. This is where me and my family spend the good quality time together at home. My kids simply love to watch the high definition animations like Bolt, Kungfu Panda, Monster Inc. , Ice Age, Ratatouille, Up, Wall-E etc on the big screen, again and again and again. Kids just don't get bored on something that they like. The DIY acoustic panels really help to enhance the cinema and Hi Fi experience. The next DIY projects are Class A stereo amplifier and DAC. Trust me, the audiophile journey never end here ...

HT setup:

• Optoma HD-65 720p projector
• DIY 90" matte white projector screen
• DIY acoustic panels
• Marantz SR6003 receiver
• Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu Ray player
• Xtreamer HD media player with 2x1TB Dlink NAS
  
• Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 LCR speakers
• Mordaunt Short 902i surround speakers
• Velodyne CHT-12Q subwoofer with Auralex GRAMMA Isolation Riser
  

Hi Fi setup:

• Marantz CD5001 CDP
• Marantz PM4001 Integrated Amplifier
• DIY silver plated RCA interconnect
• Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 speakers
• Chord SilverPlus speaker cables
  

New toys coming, yahoooooo

Pre-ordered my Xtreamer mid of July 09 but only received on early Sept 09 instead the promised date of early Aug 09. The worst online purchase experience. Cost me Euro 119.00, inclusive DHL door-to-door shipment. I also got the free USB Wireless N adapter (costs Euro 20.00).

A quick glance on the specification,
Connectivity
o WIFI
o UPnP SSDP
o UPnP AV
o NTFS

Web services
o Video : YouTube, Picasa, Yahoo Video, CNN, NBC Today, CBS Face the Nation and more
o Audio : Live365 Radio, iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, BBC Podcast, CNN News , Indiefeed, Jamendo
o Photo : Picasaweb
o RSS feed : Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Xchange, MSNBC News and more

Media files supported
* Video containers:
o MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
o MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
o MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
o VOB
o AVI, ASF, WMV
o Matroska (MKV)
o AVC HD
o MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
o FLV - Flash Video
* Video codecs:
o XVID SD/HD
o MPEG-1
o MPEG-2
+ MP@HL
o MPEG-4.2
+ ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
o WMV9
+ MP@HL
o H.264
+ BP@L3
+ MP@L4.0
+ HP@L4.0
+ HP@L4.1
o VC-1
+ MP@HL
+ AP@L3
* Audio containers:
o AAC, M4A
o MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
o WAV
o WMA
o FLAC
o OGG
* Audio codecs:
o Dolby Digital
o DTS (DTS DownMix Supported)
o WMA, WMA Pro
o AAC
o MP1, MP2, MP3
o LPCM
o FLAC
o Vorbis
* Audio pass through : DTS, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus
* Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, HD JPEG
* Other formats: ISO, IFO, FLV, RM, RA, RAM
* Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA, IDX
* Streaming formats : RTSP, FLV

Chipset
* Realtek 128X (Special Edition)

Memory
* 256MB DDR SDRAM, 32MB Flash

Audio/Video outputs
* HDMI v1.3a (up to 1080p)
* Composite Video
* Stereo Analog Audio
* S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio

Interface
* 1x USB 2.0 slave
* 2x USB 2.0 host
* Internal SATA

Network
* Ethernet 10/100
* WIFI USB Antenna 802.11n (optional)

Power
* 12V DC, 3A

Dimension
* Width 10.5"(180mm) x Depth 1.25" (32mm) x Height 2.25" (82mm)
* Weight 2.2 lbs (1Kg)


Unboxing Xtreamer's package.


















With more and more HD movies, it is time to upgrade my Dlink DNS-323 NAS 500Gb hard disk and to protect my precious data, I installed two 1TB hard disks with RAID-1 setup.






I've no regret with the purchase, Xtreamer meets my expectation (except the long waiting period). I'm able to stream my collections from NAS at ground floor direct to the Xtreamer at 1st floor via Aztech 200mbps Homeplug. At first try, I got the stuttering effect on the 1080P movie playback. After done some research, I enabled the NFS on my Xtreamer and NAS and wahlah, problem solved. Now, my kids can enjoy those HD cartoon/animations movies like Bolt, Monster Inc., Ratatouille, Car, Kungfu Panda and Wall E.

Even more, the next firmware update scheduled in Oct 09 will allow the Xtreamer to pass thru the HD sounds, i.e. DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus. Can't wait to see the HD logo appears on my Marantz SR6003 receiver.

Room Acoustic Treatment

After long searching, finally settled down with Roxul MPS400 1" thick insulation material (Density: 80kg/m3). Per pack of 12 sheets (size of 4' x2') cost me around RM100. MPS400 is a non-combustible and firesafe material. My advise don't look for cheap egg crate for acoustic treatment, fire risk is something you should avoid at all cost.

Roxul MPS400




For those DIY hardcore, here is the BOM for making sound trap and the material cost is around RM200. Enough for making 4 triangle traps (17"x17"x24"), 6 rectangle traps (4'x2'), 4 square traps (2'x2') and 1 windows trap (4'x5').

BOM for wooden frames:
2/8" Plywood (4'x8') - 3 pcs
1"x2" Wood (12') - 13 pcs
Wood glue - 2 tubes
Silicon sealer - 1 tube

BOM for fixing:
L hook - 32 pcs
Eye hook - 32 pcs
Wall plugs - 32 pcs
Nails - plenty

BOM for wrapping:
Cloth (60" width) - 9m

My dad has been a great help to me in making the sound traps. He is such a great carpenter and at the age of 71, still got the strength to saw and nail. I must admit that my carpentry skill is no way close to him.

Let's take a close look at the wooden frames with MPS400.







The finished products. Got professional touch, right.

Logitech Harmony 885

Have you ever count the number of remote controls that are scatted around your house? Guess not.

Until recently I setup my home theater room, I was so surprise that I got 6 remote controls in one room, one for aircond, CD player, stereo amplifier, HTIB, PS3 and projector. Imagine in a dark room, finding a right remote control could be a tough job. With a universal remote control, this could be a thing of the past.



On a recent internet surfing, I was stumbled on an advanced remote control, Logitech Harmony 885. Its not only look gorgeous but also feature One Touch Control. This is a cool feature where you can choose an activity for the remote control. E.g. Choose "Watch Movie" will turn on the projector, HTIB and aircond. The remote control buttons are now customized to control the projector, HTIB and aircond. You can even program what to control on the LCD screen. Just push the Power button again, it will automatically turn off the projector, HTIB and aircond. With the user friendly PC software, you can program a number of activity like "Watch TV", "Listen to CD", "Listen to Radio" and etc. Once you choose another activity, the remote control will then customized to the new activity. Cool huh!









More information on Logitech remotes, click here

Home Theatre System

The Projector - Optoma HD-65
The is a small form factor DLP projector, just weight about 2 kg and 259x188x73mm in size. It uses 720p (16:9) DMD display chip from Texas Instrument. The projector typical brightness is 1600 ANSI Lumen with 4000:1 Contrast Ratio.



The Screen - Matte White projector screen
I ordered it from US via Ebay. Believe it or not, the shipping cost from US is about the same as the price of the projector screen, sigh... No choice, cheap and good stuff not easily available in our Bolehland. Then, get a carpenter to fabricate a 90" diagonal (16:9 aspect ratio) wood frame. I personally wrap the screen around the wood frame and fixed it the staple gun. Nice hah!





The Player - Playstation 3
This is the most affordable multipurpose game console and video player (can play Blu Ray, DVD, MP4, AVI etc.). Frankly speaking, I used it most for video than game. To have the best picture quality, I used a HDMI cable to connect the PS3 to Optoma HD-65.


The Picture Quality!
Judge it yourself.