Welcome to my home theater page..

New pictures.. Television died after 8 months of operation. We were just watching it and it decided to turn itself off. The LED is flashing 6 times. Sears came out and after talking to what i assume was Sony, replaced one of the boards. Unfortunately that didn't fix it or do anything at all so they're coming out again next week to swap another board. Here is the board they swapped and what the t.v. looks like without it's covers:

Update.. On the 3rd visit the tech replaced another board. See picture below. This time it was the correct board. My Sony is back! :)

Taking the HDTV plunge wasn't a decision I took lightly. It's a technology I've been watching for more then a year. Prices continue to plummet and high definition content continues to increase to the point where I felt it was a good time to buy.

This is our current living room (we're renting a 2br townhouse). We're still waiting for the arrival of some furniture so for now it's completely empty and sparse so I'll just have to update this later when it looks better. The left shot shows one end of the room where the Sony 57" HDTV sits. The right shot shows the rear of the room which of course is empty and the rear speakers currently just sit on the floor.

This is a shot of the components. Starting from top to bottom:

  • Toshiba DST-3000 - high definition DirecTV and OTA receiver. This is the piece that receives television signals both through the satellite dish (DirecTV) and roof antenna (OTA).

  • Admiral VHS VCR - an old component of mine seldom used anymore.

  • Sony SAT-W60 - My UltimateTV receiver. This component receives television signals through the satellite dish (DirecTV) but also functions like a Tivo in that we can record shows and pause live TV and all that. This component is not capable of receiving HD broadcasts which is why I have the Toshiba but it's great for recording shows and watching non-HD shows.

  • Technics CD Changer - an old component seldom used anymore.

  • Toshiba SD-1600 DVD player - for watching DVD's of course.

  • Philips FR-975 Receiver - this is my cheapie Dolby DTS 5.1 surround sound receiver. It's what drives my 5 speakers and subwoofer and gives me surround sound.

This is a shot of the VHF and UHF antenna on the roof as well as the Sony oval satellite dish. The lower triangular antenna is the UHF antenna which is hooked up to the Toshiba DST-3000 mentioned above to receive television from the San Francisco transmission tower. The dish has 3 cables coming from it. One is plugged into the Toshiba DST-3000 while the other 2 are plugged into the UltimateTV receiver.

This is a shot of the wiring coming from the roof and going into the townhouse. As you can see, the 4 coaxial cables coming from the roof need to be grounded (in case of lightening) so they first run into a grounding block. Then a new batch of coaxial cables run into the house. In all I had to buy 8 coaxial cables for this setup!