Movies for Surround Sound
May 14, 2006
Posted by Laura Curtis at May 14, 2006 02:38 AM
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My husband's been working on getting our living room set up as a home theater and we're close to being finished. (Photo below the fold.) I've been working so much overtime since Katrina that I think he's trying to lure me out of the office. So for Mother's Day, he and my daughter gave me a Kenwood home theater sound system with six 150 Watt speakers and a huge bass to make the neighbors mad. So the critical question is, aside from Top Gun, what are the best movies for surround sound?
Posted by Laura Curtis at May 14, 2006 02:38 AM
The trackback entry for this page is : http://www.inthehat.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1318
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Comments
| # May 14th, 2006 2:57 AM JimK |
| believe it or not...the 1998 Godzilla movie is *amazing*. The chase scene through the city is *still* what I use to demo my system for people. |
| # May 14th, 2006 9:53 AM Laura |
| Jim, did you buy your screen or make it? And if you made it, what kind of screen paint did you use? |
| # May 14th, 2006 5:09 PM james |
i watch about 4 movies per year. seriously. my attention span tops out at about 40 mins.  |
| # May 15th, 2006 12:01 AM Daddy |
| Any number of music DVD'S oughta do it, I would think...AC/DC "Family Jewels", Iron Maiden "Visions of the Beast", Judas Priest "Live Vengeance 82"....
...my mouth's watering. Sorry. I have a feeling once you listen to your new system, you'll wonder how you ever got by with just two speakers. |
| # May 15th, 2006 4:06 PM jsnisu |
| "Any Given Sunday" was pretty good on my surround sound. |
| # May 15th, 2006 6:14 PM countertop |
| Any Given Sunday is great.
So is Black Hawk Down. I'd also get Braveheart and Band of Brothers. One of my all time favorite movies in surround sound, believe it or not, is Crocodile Dundee, though that may be because its the first film I ever listened to in Surround Sound back in the 80s when my dad the audiophile first started putting together his system, though it still rocks (there is a helicopter flying overhead in one scene thats amazing as are the cricket and outback sounds). And ditto on Live Vengance |
| # May 15th, 2006 8:31 PM Laura |
| I'm adding them to the queue. Thank God for Netflix. Even though the Blockbusters near my house finally reopened about two weeks ago, I kind of like having them delivered. Until those come in we're re-watching the extended versions of LOTR, and of course the music is awesome but no "surround sound" type of effects like in Top Gun where the sound of the jet circles the room.
Daddy, I haven't listed to Iron Maiden in 20 years. Although every once in a while I still do crank up Motley Crue, just for nostalgia's sake.  |
| # May 15th, 2006 8:59 PM james |
| of course, no home theater system is complete without a DVP642. this thing plays pretty much any file format (dvd, avi, divx, xvid, mpg, etc) on almost any media (cd, cdr, cdrw, dvd+-rw). this dvd player is the coolest thing since the invention of the personal computer itself.
so, if you wanted to, ahem, *backup* your dvd collection by downloading copies of movies & tv shows that you already own via somewhere like isohunt, you could burn 5 divx movies (or roughly 12 hour long tv shows) to a single dvd. pop that in to the dvp642 and you're set for the next 10 hours. |
| # May 15th, 2006 10:33 PM Laura |
| Looks great but doesn't have coax output, unfortunately. I'm going to have to buy a new TV, but I'm stalling. |
| # May 15th, 2006 10:42 PM james |
| sure it does - the back of mine has a "digital coaxial," whatever that is. ;-) (i honestly have no idea what it is, only that it's not what you're looking for.) can't you hook it up thru the rca inputs on your vcr? |
| # May 16th, 2006 1:28 AM Laura |
| I rely on the opinions of the man of the house for that stuff - we've got to get our money's worth out of that electrical/electronic engineering degree somehow. I'm pretty sure that "coax output" was what he said but I might be wrong. In any event, he says it will only work with the projector, not the TV, which is old.
So, we'll upgrade the TV first, then get the DVP642... I have about a zillion VHS that I need to figure out how to get onto DVD, so we'll really need a player that will play anything once that's done. |
| # May 16th, 2006 6:17 AM TheUnabrewer |
| Sort of like Jim's suggestion...Independence Day sucked, but the sound is great. |
| # May 16th, 2006 9:44 AM 1touchmovie |
| Master and Commander has a fantastic sound track. The opening scenes have some great foley effects that really show the subtleties of a great surround system, then it progresses to a battle scene with all the high impact cannon fire anyone could wish for.
A coax output with respect to digital audio looks like an RCA composite video connection. It's usually yellow. It sounds like you're looking for a coax output for RF, like you'd find on the back of a VCR. With an RF coax output the picture and sound is modulated on a TV channel, usually 3 or 4. This is the lowest quality audio and video on the video food chain. Component video (uses 3 RCA style cables with red, green and blue connectors)is the highest consumer grade, analog video format. |
| # May 16th, 2006 9:50 AM 1touchmovie |
| One more thing. Try moving your left and right speakers away from the side walls a little bit. You'll get a problem known as "comb flitering", charactarised by very uneven frequency response with your speakers that close to the side walls.
You can add some (2" or so)acoustic absorbsion material on the side wall immediately adjacent to the speaker if it is impossible to relocate the speakers. |
| # May 16th, 2006 7:25 PM Laura |
| Unabrewer, I can't believe you don't like Independence Day. I LOVE that movie.
1touch, thanks for all the tips. We're just getting started with the home theater so the info will be very helpful. All the movies that were suggested, I'm adding to my Netflix queue. Thanks, everybody. |
| # May 16th, 2006 10:12 PM james |
| i've seen independence day about a kajillion times. well, the first half, anyway - i used to fall asleep to it every night. for YEARS. fine flick. (the first half, anyway. ;) |
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