This article is purely to show what I use to review movies. As you should know I review both the movie and the production of the movie, this includes the video quality, audio quality and the extras. In order to review the audio and visual side of a DVD you need at least half decent equipment to watch and listen to it. While my small cinema may not be as professional as Phil's but it's still substantial for the viewing of movies. I bought this equipment on a budget, but for what they cost it gives extremely good value. I do own other systems, my bedroom system includes a super-hi fi, which I'll write and cover later on.

DVD Player:
The DVD player is a LG DVD-4950 this was on offer at Richer Sounds (richersounds.com) for £200, about £50 off the normal price. This DVD player has a built in set of Dolby Digital and DTS decoders, although I never use them because the receiver tackles this area. With the DVD player you get twin scart sockets (one in one out) RGB and S-Video compatible. I can't use Component outputs on the TV. The player has a set of two digital outputs (Coaxial and Optical), the unit comes compatible with CD-R and CD-RW. You can use MP3 encoded music too, and you can also encode a Pro Logic track in CD-R/RWs too. The player was bought based on a group test in What Hi Fi magazine, in the group test were players from manufacturers like Pioneer, Sony, and Toshiba, the LG won. It is well made despite its light weight. The player gives a very good picture performance, it mixes lots of neat features like Zoom, Resume and a Multi Region hack. I'm pretty satisfied with it, it has a powerful sound quality and is pretty fine with movies. The zoom function can show up the picure artefacts of some DVD's like the blurred pixels in the MPEG2 compression. I use the image of the player around the site (logo).

Receiver:
This Kenwood KRF-V5050 receiver was also bought at Richer Sounds (richersounds.com), except it was on the after christmas sales, and I got it for £180, from the £300 original asking price. What Hi Fi didn't like the build quality but raved about its sound quality. When I first unpacked it, there was something wrong, the unit is soft and poorly made, however it's not there to take any impacts, so it'll do. As for the sound, they were right, it is powerful with a 5X 100W RMS output. The RDS tuner is also pretty good, with a 40 preset memory, and the ability to show head lines and RDS such texts. For this sort of money, build quality isn't exactly critical. Although I'd rather have gone for the £200 Denon if it were in the store at the time (it is now). It has a full list of features like a DTS and Dolby Digital decoders, there is a separate 5.1 input, and the digital inputs are two optical and one coaxial. It has around six stereo inputs, and there are video inputs but are pretty poor composite ones. I feel that the power of the amps inside are very good, the speakers are often giving about as much as they can, although distortion is clean right up to 90%.

Video Cassette Recorder:
The VHS recorder, is a Sanyo VHS-876 this is qute a good buy, I bought on the looks of the unit and its features along with the price, at £200. It features Nicam stereo decoding, Stereo outputs, PDS VideoPlus+, Tape Library, and Auto Tracking. It is a good player and recorder, the PDS system works excellently but it doesn't skip adverts. The picture quality is decent, though it can be a little blurred, with a resolution of 240 lines, on a big TV you may notice the lines. I can't find an image of it yet though.

Television:
The TV is a 32" Widescreen, Flatscreen, VEGA Trinitron -- Sony KV-32FX20 one, yep a TV that I chose on the amount of features on it. The unit comes with a boxed in stand, I like this better because cables are concealed. The TV is around two years old from its release date, we got one about 9 months ago. It was about £800, reduced from £1300. It has a good line up of features like two scart sockets (one S-Video one RGB), on the front is S-video DIN composite and stereo inputs and a headphone socket. Picture quality is great, the sharpness of DVDs comes across brilliantly from the Trinitron screen. Even with DVD the resolution can be a little noticeable, as in some 16:9 movies the screen shows the actual 720 lines that make up the image. Sound is also quite good, the Nicam decoders are good enough to use with the receiver.

Speakers:
I use Mission 701 speakers (bought for £80) for the front at a separation of 2.3m, in alignment with the centre speaker. The two fronts are very powerful with the full 100W output of the reciever, bass is deep since they are used near an alcove. The centre speaker is a Mission M7C1 a very thin and elagant looking centre speaker, it produces enough depth and punch for the centre dialogue. The rear speakers are Pioneer bookshelf speakers the same size as the fronts, execpt they have a midrange unit. These have enough power too, they can produce equal bass and make the whole experience much better than using small speakers.

Connections and Cables
I use Cambridge Audio cables for the Scart connections (one from the VCR to TV, one to the DVD player to the TV). I use Gale speaker cable for the speaker wiring. I use Vianco phono leads and a JVC oxygen free phono lead from the cd player. I have the receiver use all the speakers as a "large" setting.