Sunday afternoon came the gift I... well, gave myself!
With Wifey's blessings and her excitement to enjoy the gift with me when it was installed in our living room. Integrated with our Sharp Aquos 37 Inch LCD TV, the gift I am talking about is our new Pioneer HTP-33 DVR Home Theater System! Sweet!
Replacing our 5 year old Philips LX3500D HTS which has long spoiled our movie-watching pleasures with unexpected skips and stops, and most irritably, locks and plays only one region code DVD which I had collected to date from overseas.
Like any newer DVD players, it is multi-coded so now we can play any disk format and all region codes 1 to 6 without worrying of compatibility issues.
The good thing about this new Pioneer HTS is its all-in-one deck - amplifier, radio tuner, MP3 player, DVD player and recorder in high definition without the clutter of stacking other sound system equipment on the TV console.
With a 160G hard-disk drive to enable TV programs recordings, among other things like DVDs duplications... ahem, for non-copyrighted materials of course!
Coupled with my recent DVD rental subscription to HollywoodClicks.com, the first movie played was World Trade Centre starring Nicholas Cage. Touching story yet with lots of CGI or computer generated graphics and blasting sounds to show off this HTS mighty prowess.
The 5.1 surround speakers is another great thing. Instead of having a pair placed behind the sofa and wires laid under the carpet, the rear speakers need only be placed outwardly in front , along with the other centre and left and right speakers.
To achieve this surround sound, Pioneer makes use of a MCACC microphone that one has to place where one normally sits to calibrate sounds coming from each of the 5 speakers and sub-woofer, then regulates sound levels and delays from the speakers.
No more wires across the living room!
Wifey was so happy with the system's performance that she has requested online to prioritize her own movie titles to watch on it... all 20-odd DVDs of her favourite drama serials... a Korean invasion of sorts. Yikes!
She is preparing herself to enjoy the drama marathon of the Korean kind... a lovely-dovey style with the typical "boy-meets-girl, but their love is forbidden... I know how the story is going to end" drama. Volumes and volumes of it.
Fortunately though, she is going to watch it while I am at work. Phew!
As for me, Sci-Fi and action movies with lots of CGI and explosions... planetary obliterations, devastations or natural catastrophe that totally blows-the-mind kind of movies for the cool special effects.
HollywoodClicks and with a few more free channels offered by Starhub CableTV launched since mid June, we are set to be couch-potatoes on stay-home weekends!
Consider this a father's day cum birthday gift for me!
Happy Special Present DAy!! I fear it all sounds a little technical for me.....but I guess that's what you chaps like eh??!!!
ReplyDeleteHappy Fathers Day Imran. You and my son in-law would get on just fine as he is totally into the techno stuff. He has a job working at Best Buy here in Canada. He is in the computer programming department. He loves the teckie stuff. He is known as the geek squad. He does not look like it but he has that label. Good for wifey for choosing her movies. Gotta be fair Imran. A way to a girls heart is sitting through a sappy movie. Has she yet seen the Holiday? I mentioned it on my post awhile back. I loved it. Maybe she saw it and did not?? And I must wish a you a happy birthday. When is it? Have a great rest of the week buddy.
ReplyDeletewell that's the thing - if you wanna get something done properly, you should do it yourself... including buying yourself the "perfect" gifts"
ReplyDeleteCheers mate, I'm sure you totally deserved it!
Wow, you must be enjoying yourself!
ReplyDeleteHappy Father's Day and Happy Birthday Imran!
ReplyDeletemp