Our Electronic Entertainment

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This thread is where we can show off our gadgets, toys & games and tell us what you plan to get next. Whether it be your new computer, sound system or a TV, post a picture and whether you recommend it or not.

I recently bought my first TV and first console; a 40" Sony Bravia LCD and an Xbox 360 Elite. I have a laptop which is now mainly used for browsing/music/work and it’s not good enough for games, so after a few days of research I decided to go with the above instead of upgrading the computer. Needless to say I’m not getting a lot of sleep on the weekends.

So, what do you guys have? (AngryVader, thanks for the thread idea).

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Recently bought a 32" Vizio LCD and an XBOX 360 Pro.

So far as I can tell the TV is good…the picture is nice for the price when compared to others.

Needless to say, the 360 is priceless. As for the games I have that I can recommend…Bioshock is friggin sweet…and also Gears of War. My next game purchase will probably either be Army of Two or Assasin’s Creed. (anyone have/or played these…how are they?)

When my economic stimulus check arrives, I’ve been putting some serious thought into buying a Nintendo Wii.

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[quote]stealth2918 wrote:
Recently bought a 32" Vizio LCD and an XBOX 360 Pro.

So far as I can tell the TV is good…the picture is nice for the price when compared to others.

Needless to say, the 360 is priceless. As for the games I have that I can recommend…Bioshock is friggin sweet…and also Gears of War. My next game purchase will probably either be Army of Two or Assasin’s Creed. (anyone have/or played these…how are they?)

When my economic stimulus check arrives, I’ve been putting some serious thought into buying a Nintendo Wii.[/quote]

I haven’t played Assassin’s Creed, but there are vids on Youtube of the product launch demos and it looks freaking awesome! You should go watch them.

DB

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I’ve got Assassin’s Creed, but have only played the intro part before I got sucked back into GTA IV and Project Gotham Racing 4 (which are also both excellent games). I am getting Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 at the end of the week.

I’m thinking of a 5.1 system to go with this at some stage - has anyone got any recommendations?

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Assassin’s Creed was not one of my top picks. Very complex movement and button/timing schemes. Call of Duty 4 (Bitchin’)GTA4 (still getting into it) Gears (all time favorite) Bioshock (Cool.)

I heard Army of Two gets old fast but I haven’t played it yet.

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Army of Two isn’t anything special, the movement scheme is really hard to get used to, and I never really got the whole aggro/cover thing.

Assassin’s Creed was fun for a couple days until you realize it’s the same exact thing over and over again. A couple of my friends found it entertaining but I sold it before I even finished it.

Speaking of the XBox though, mine has been in storage since new years, I need some motivation to dig it out and play it, and I’m also a week or two away from ordering a brand new Macbook Pro, maybe get into some computer games (while trying to avoid the crack aka MMO’s)

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Entertainment Room:
50inch Panasonic 1080p Plasma
Marantz Receiver
5.1 Boston Acoustic Surrond Sound
PS3 for movies and games

Bedroom:
40inch Samsung LCD
PS3 for movies/games (its the cheapest HD movie player)

I have both of those games and they will both be traded in when i buy Haze of MGS4. Both suck.

Top Games:
GTA4
COD
GT5:Prologue
Nhl08

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[quote]gsxtacy wrote:
Entertainment Room:
50inch Panasonic 1080p Plasma
Marantz Receiver
5.1 Boston Acoustic Surrond Sound
PS3 for movies and games

Bedroom:
40inch Samsung LCD
PS3 for movies/games (its the cheapest HD movie player)

I have both of those games and they will both be traded in when i buy Haze of MGS4. Both suck.

Top Games:
GTA4
COD
GT5:Prologue
Nhl08[/quote]

Damn, that sounds impressive.

I’m hoping that Microsoft comes out with a Bluray addon for the 360, otherwise I’ll be tempted to get a PS3 too.

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[quote]rsg wrote:
gsxtacy wrote:
Entertainment Room:
50inch Panasonic 1080p Plasma
Marantz Receiver
5.1 Boston Acoustic Surrond Sound
PS3 for movies and games

Bedroom:
40inch Samsung LCD
PS3 for movies/games (its the cheapest HD movie player)

I have both of those games and they will both be traded in when i buy Haze of MGS4. Both suck.

Top Games:
GTA4
COD
GT5:Prologue
Nhl08

Damn, that sounds impressive.

I’m hoping that Microsoft comes out with a Bluray addon for the 360, otherwise I’ll be tempted to get a PS3 too.[/quote]

Id recommend the ps3 regardless because of the firmware updates which constantly add updates for the blu-ray playback and other codecs.

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[quote]rsg wrote:
This thread is where we can show off our gadgets, toys & games and tell us what you plan to get next. Whether it be your new computer, sound system or a TV, post a picture and whether you recommend it or not.

I recently bought my first TV and first console; a 40" Sony Bravia LCD and an Xbox 360 Elite. I have a laptop which is now mainly used for browsing/music/work and it’s not good enough for games, so after a few days of research I decided to go with the above instead of upgrading the computer. Needless to say I’m not getting a lot of sleep on the weekends.

So, what do you guys have? (AngryVader, thanks for the thread idea).

[/quote]

hehe…no problem. When I get home, I’ll snap some pictures and share mine as well.

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This guy has very good reviews of Army of Two, Assasin’s Creed, and several others.

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I Have a 46" Samsung Aquos with a Bose CineMate Digital Home Theater system with kicks ass. Also have XBOX 360 and just got Rainbow 6. #2 and GTA IV. Awesome games and Samsung makes one hell of an LCD.

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[quote]gsxtacy wrote:
rsg wrote:
gsxtacy wrote:
Entertainment Room:
50inch Panasonic 1080p Plasma
Marantz Receiver
5.1 Boston Acoustic Surrond Sound
PS3 for movies and games

Bedroom:
40inch Samsung LCD
PS3 for movies/games (its the cheapest HD movie player)

I have both of those games and they will both be traded in when i buy Haze of MGS4. Both suck.

Top Games:
GTA4
COD
GT5:Prologue
Nhl08

Damn, that sounds impressive.

I’m hoping that Microsoft comes out with a Bluray addon for the 360, otherwise I’ll be tempted to get a PS3 too.

Id recommend the ps3 regardless because of the firmware updates which constantly add updates for the blu-ray playback and other codecs.
[/quote]

I second the PS3 recommendation. I had been debating getting one for a while, but I do not regret the purchase.

The auto-firmware updates are great too. A few weeks ago, I turn my PS3 on, it tells me there’s a new update and downloads it and upgraded the Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray 2.0. I believe the PS3 is one of the few Blu-Ray models out there that’s currently 2.0 compliant.

I still most of my gaming on the 360 though.

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This isn’t a very good picture, but here’s my setup:

55" Sony
XBOX 360
PS3
HD-DVD
Wii
Denon Receiver

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[quote]rsg wrote:
I’ve got Assassin’s Creed, but have only played the intro part before I got sucked back into GTA IV and Project Gotham Racing 4 (which are also both excellent games). I am getting Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 at the end of the week.

I’m thinking of a 5.1 system to go with this at some stage - has anyone got any recommendations?[/quote]

I’ve always been a big Denon fan. They tend to have a very ‘warm’ sound and many say that their receivers outperform their watts per channel rating. Mine was kind of pain in the ass to setup though. It’s a few years old, so I’m not sure if the newer ones are more user friendly.

I use mine with a nice set of Polk speakers I bought a few years ago. It’s a 6.1 system, so it sounds really great when I’m watching a movie that has a DTS audio track.

The only downside is that I live in a townhome, so I usually can’t turn my system up very loud. My neighbors are generally cool, but they’ve mentioned they can really hear it through the walls depending on the movie I’m watching.

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[quote]AngryVader wrote:
rsg wrote:
I’ve got Assassin’s Creed, but have only played the intro part before I got sucked back into GTA IV and Project Gotham Racing 4 (which are also both excellent games). I am getting Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 at the end of the week.

I’m thinking of a 5.1 system to go with this at some stage - has anyone got any recommendations?

I’ve always been a big Denon fan. They tend to have a very ‘warm’ sound and many say that their receivers outperform their watts per channel rating. Mine was kind of pain in the ass to setup though. It’s a few years old, so I’m not sure if the newer ones are more user friendly.

I use mine with a nice set of Polk speakers I bought a few years ago. It’s a 6.1 system, so it sounds really great when I’m watching a movie that has a DTS audio track.

The only downside is that I live in a townhome, so I usually can’t turn my system up very loud. My neighbors are generally cool, but they’ve mentioned they can really hear it through the walls depending on the movie I’m watching.[/quote]

I have a denon for the tv upstairs and a marantz for the downstairs. Most (if not all) new receivers have a form of Audio Sync in which they have a microphone included. You then set the microphone up at different positions aorudnt he room and it does sound tests to calibrate your settings for u.

As for the original post about the 5.1 sound, it really depends on your price range. Polk is good as well as the Boston Acoustic I have. If you give me an idea on price I can help you out further.

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[quote]gsxtacy wrote:
I have a denon for the tv upstairs and a marantz for the downstairs. Most (if not all) new receivers have a form of Audio Sync in which they have a microphone included. You then set the microphone up at different positions aorudnt he room and it does sound tests to calibrate your settings for u.

[/quote]

That’s good to know. I’m thinking about getting a new receiver soon, as I’d like to have something that’s compatible with my Blu-Ray. Not that the optical out is bad or anything, but I’d like to be able to use the HD formats.

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[quote]AngryVader wrote:
gsxtacy wrote:
I have a denon for the tv upstairs and a marantz for the downstairs. Most (if not all) new receivers have a form of Audio Sync in which they have a microphone included. You then set the microphone up at different positions aorudnt he room and it does sound tests to calibrate your settings for u.

That’s good to know. I’m thinking about getting a new receiver soon, as I’d like to have something that’s compatible with my Blu-Ray. Not that the optical out is bad or anything, but I’d like to be able to use the HD formats.[/quote]

I find it makes a huge difference. My friends who come over to watch a movie every now and then comment ont he sound over the visual, which is saying a lot. Just make sure you get a HDMI 1.3 compatable receiver.

Also, if you havent heard of the website monoprice.com, check them out for hdmi cables. Top quality stuff and for a 6ft cable its like 6 or 7 bucks.

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I’m building one of these.

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TV: Samsung ln40a650

Has a problem no one has seen, a bad fan. There’s going to be a case study done on it. Not even samsung has seen the problem or knows the cause. I have to wait a week for service. Looked incredible for the first 8 hours it worked. LOL, BTW, 120hz is overrated. It makes you feel drunk.

Comp: q6600 @ 3.6ghz - liquid cooled (stock: 2.4ghz) (conservative OC), 8 gigs ram, 8800gts g92 512mb, p5k deluxe mobo, 150 gig raptor, 750 gig back up. 24" and 21" LCD monitors (also have 22" 2048x1536 crt & 17" lcd)

Will be using DVI to HDMI cable to run my computer to the tv. Thats the primary use for it, games and movies.

Sound: bose 501s w/ OLD pioneer amp (1970s) and newer sony pre-amp & 10" sub. Sounds good enough for me.

I’m considering getting either a wii or 360. I won’t touch ps3 as there’s not one game that comes to mind that’s worth dropping 400 bucks on a system for. I’m honestly fed up w/ the current consoles. Games are not as fun as they used to be. I still have my genesis/32x/sega cd, saturn, dreamcast and xbox hooked up to my tv. I also have a psp, gameboy (many flavors) and neogeo pocket.

I might reinstall bioshock to see how it looks on a 40", but it looked fine on my 24" all the same. I won’t ever get a console for an FSP other than halo (since it was built for a console) and I basically only play FSP & RTS now.

I won’t be getting blu-ray anytime soon, downloading is so much easier. Waiting till its cheaper. How can the PS3 be 400 w/ all the hardware and the stand alone player costs the same? BS to me.

I have another 9 or 10 computers around the house, about 6 laptops and I believe 2 or 3 buildable desktops although only 1 works other than the main one and i’m selling the other 3 or 4 mobos i have. I think I have about 14 gigs of ddr1 ram before i sold off some of it. Only 10 gigs of usable ddr2 after blowing out 3 stick of good ram.

Wish list:

new computer w/ bloomfield, cpu @ 22nm (waiting for sandy bridge)and whatever else I need to OC it.

wii w/ smash bros or 360 w/ halo 3 or something like that.

UT3, half-life 2(I only have a pirated version), Penumbra (I’ve heard its incredible), DOOM4, star craft 2.

There’s my nerdiness out in the open. I feel better now.