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Author Topic: Using Cinema processors @ Home Dean Kollet Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 591 From: Florida State University Registered: Jul 2003 posted 01-10-2005 10:37 AM                     Albeit eccentric and ridiculous, how would this actually sound. Say I had a HUGE family room in a house and I wanted to waste a ton of money and have a CP200 or CP650 to run my CDs and movies...would it be a pain in the ass to do and sound like ass or the opposite? It would look cool and cost way too much, but I'm just curious.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-10-2005 11:13 AM                     I don't think you would get any better performance than you would with a typical Dolby Digital home receiver. CDs only have two channels for stereo, so there's really no point in pumping it through a system to get "fake surround." Then again, I'm not really an expert, but I'm smart enough not to blow $$$ on a cinema processor to play CDs. Maybe if I was a pop star I could justify rediculous expenses. =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 01-10-2005 11:36 AM                     Unless you were planning to run 35mm films at home, these processors would not do anything but look impressive. Sound wise, good quality consumer equipment would sound better at less cost.  |  IP: Logged Dean Kollet Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 591 From: Florida State University Registered: Jul 2003 posted 01-10-2005 01:16 PM                     I should clarify...it would be for running 35mm and CDs and also DVD-Audio and stuff like that. I mean a big room too, like one that would benefit highly from equalization. I don't think I would have the funds ever to do this, just wondering.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-10-2005 02:40 PM                     ..yep, save your money and use the better home 5.1+ stereo units that you can find at "Best Buy" "Ultimate Electronics" "Circuit City", et.al. for the DVD audio/video thing. But, if you're gonna to get crazy with 35mm presentations, you can cut corners with BACP SR-D digital readers and PanaStereo processors - a bit less money for the same quality.  |  IP: Logged Chris Trainor Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Greenville, RI, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2005 02:59 PM                        That's what I run at home for my 'home cinema'. I have a CP200 and a Sony SDDS box, but that's mainly for 35mm. I do run a DVD player into the CP200 (and some satellite receivers) for a cheapo LCD projector on occassion as well.. but for regular DVD/TV watching I have a 32" HDTV in my living room with a Yamaha RX-V650 home theater processor/receiver. All depends on what your planning on doing. If your gonna run film, you need a film processor... but running home theater stuff thru it is a pain in many cases. Tho some of the newer boxes by Dolby, Smart, Ultrastereo, etc make it easier to hook up multichannel non-film type things. Tho you'll need in most cases an external DTS or AC3 processor for your DVD Player to feed into the cinema processor. If your not planning on running film much, then I"d just go for a consumer setup. Most decent consumer setups have inputs for each channel (not just left/right) so in theory you could buy a nice consumer system if your mostly watching TV/DVD's and then run a lower cost or older cinema processor into that for watching 35mm. --chris [ 01-10-2005, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Brad Miller ]  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 01-10-2005 03:08 PM                     If you are going to be running 35mm at home, then a theater processor is the way to go. While you can run analog Dolby Stereo (A/SR) through a consumer pro-logic unit, you will not get the benifit of noise reduction, and as a result less than full dynamic range. On the other hand, DVD (and VHS) Dolby Pro-Logic is not encoded with Dolby Noise Reduction, so you need to make sure that you obtain a theatre processor that will allow you to process the SVA stereo without Dolby noise reduction. It is my understanding that consumer Dolby Digital and Theatre Dolby Digital uses different coding schemes (experts, correct me if I am wrong), so you would not be able to decode DVD Dolby Digital with a theater unit. Same for DTS.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-10-2005 03:37 PM                        They do use different standards, but the CP650 understands the consumer type if you have the EX module which also houses external digital media capabilities. A lot of consumer receivers/amplifiers look cool too.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2005 03:51 PM                        Or you can just get a DVD player with a built-in decoder and separate outputs for each channel. Connect it to the format 10 input on the processor and voila. Obviously, this won't work if you already have a DA20 or something for the film setup. Something like the CP650 would be ideal for a mixed film/video setup because of the wide array of formats that it understands without having to be customized. For music listening, don't bother. For amusement value, I tried this with my CP65, but the sound quality was noticeably worse than with a standard consumer-grade stereo receiver, and most processors don't have enough inputs to accommodate a typical home stereo (have you ever seen a phono input on a Dolby processor, for example?).  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-10-2005 04:07 PM                        Yes. The CP500 and the CP650 have them.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 01-10-2005 04:14 PM                  The problem with using a commercial cinema processor is that ya can't decode the DVD/LD/Video sound without having the expensive DMA8 Digital Media Adapter or the CP-650 for the video format sound decoding. In my livingroom "theatre", I used a CP-500 and DTS-6D for 35mm feeding into a modified Pioneer VSX-09TX 6-channel A/V Receiver. This receiver is a 5x 100watt/channel + sub out to a remote Power Amp. A Dolby & DTS processing receiver with Optical/AC3RF/PCM/etc digital inputs and THX processing and certification. Since it had no 6-channel direct inputs, and since I ***cannot*** stand NOT to modify anything, I added the discrete 6-channel inputs for the cinema system. While "pricey" if bought new, they go for about $600-700 on eBay. I'm sure there are newer models available that already have discrete 6-channel inputs; I'm totally happy with the 09.  |  IP: Logged Chris Trainor Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Greenville, RI, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2005 04:17 PM                        Phono? What's Phono? Actually the CP200 has 3 nonsync inputs which is fairly useful. I have one going to a computer for mp3 playback and the other 2 going to commercial satellite equipment. The sound is pretty good, tho I would like to figure out a better way to get them routed thru the matrix... or maybe just left/right instead of that funky blend they do to center/surround. One thing I do rig up for the mp3's is before sending the signal into the CP200 it goes thru a cheapo EQ that has some psychoacoustic type 'enhancers' which help compensate for the EQ settings in the CP200 which are tailored for film playback and not music. --Chris  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 01-10-2005 04:18 PM                  Chris, "Phono" is for cool people. You know, those of us that like vinyl... Ummm, to listen to, not wear. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Chris Trainor Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Greenville, RI, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2005 04:24 PM                        Heh, yes yes, I know. I got one of those things around here somewhere... havn't used it in ages. Just havn't found a reason to play my Girls Girls Girls album lately. As for the expensive digital sound adapter, I just use a consumer off the shelf decoder and feed that in. Or you can take Scott's advice and get a DVD player that has the full set of outputs on the back. I personally like my external decoder because you can set which mode you want it to playback in, plus it's got a few inputs on it so it serves as a switch between my DVD player and my Roku Media Player for sound. --Chris  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-10-2005 04:30 PM                        Or you use the new USL JSD-80 which does analog 35mm, external digital and there is an optional module for AES/EBU and AC3 bit streams.  |  IP: Logged

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