Back in late 2003, I had my basement finished,and as part of that effort, I put in a dedicated home theater with a 105” 16x9 screen, an Infocus ScreenPlay 7200 720p DLP projector and 8.1 sound. This setup has worked very well over the years, but it is time for some upgrades. The projector has only 720p resolution (1280x720), and it does not have an HDMI input (DVI and Component video only). It is also a little louder than I would like, although its noise is easily covered up when the receiver volume is turned up. Playing XBOX 360 games on a 105” screen with surround sound is a pretty immersive experience!

I am currently looking for a new 1080P DLP projector with an HDMI input. There are a number of well reviewed units in the $1000-1500 range, and I am still in the research phase on the projector. A very good place to go if you are considering buying any audio or video components is the AVS Forum, which has an incredible amount of useful information (and some interesting arguments)!

I originally had a Yamaha RX-V3300 receiver, which was replaced with a Yamaha RX-V863 receiver back in 2008. This past weekend, I upgraded to a Denon AVR-3311CI receiver, which was on sale. So far, I am very happy with the Denon. It has six HDMI 1.4a inputs and an Ethernet port for Internet connectivity and integration into the home network. One of the first things I did was upgrade the Denon firmware via the Web, which went very smoothly.

I also picked up a new Sony BDP-S770 Blu-ray player that is a replacement for an older Sony BDP-S560 Blu-ray player. There was also an available firmware update for the S770, which installed easily via Wireless-N. The new S770 loads Blu-ray discs significantly faster than the S560 does which is very nice.