Philips 1000-Watt 5.1 DVD Home Theater System with 1080p Upconversion

According to the specs listed in Woot’s description, it has both digital coax and digital optical inputs. So, you can hook up your external player and get surround sound out of it.

A good rule of thumb that I’ve read is that 1/3rd of your home theater budget should be spent on the sound system.

I have one of these, and I love it. I use it daily and haven’t had a single problem with it. The upconvert is great, and the remote controls your ipod from the dock, which is great from across the room. I can’t comment on the reliability of a refurb, but this is a solid system that fills the room with clear sound.

Anyone who has this; Does it work with an iPhone perchance? Any trouble controlling the iPod if you use one with it? I have used a couple docks in the past and they were finicky with how well they connected and were controlled (sequence and timing had to be just right to get the signal to be sent out and though volume worked, navigation did not and the pause was random).

I would not advise some to buy this for a few reasons. First off it is a refurb and chances are it’s going to break on you. Second I know for a fact that if your looking for top quality surround sound your going to want to build your own system. I purchased an almost identical model to this last summer on woot for $99. After a month and a half of working perfectly and having great sound the disc drive just stopped working. It would open up really slow and then not open at all. These refurb parts are just not reliable. Thank god I had got a squaretrade warranty because it was over the Phillips warranty and squaretrade got me my money back quickly. If your looking to use this more like a reciever than I wouldn’t get it either because you might as well build your own system and have all the right plug-ins with a real reciever.

Did you buy the IOGear Powerline Stereo Audio System from Sellout.Woot on 11/23/10 but still haven’t used it?

http://s3.amazonaws.com/wootsaleimages/IOGear_Powerline_Stereo_Audio_System8roThumbnail.jpg

Use this as your powered speakers! I’m going to line all these speakers up on top of my kitchen cabinets then pipe sound to them from my main home theater receiver.
Or you could use your computer. Start playing your iTunes on your computer, plug the IOGear into the speaker port, and listen away.

Why not use that space on top of your cabinets if they don’t go all the way to the ceiling) for something useful?

Attention Woot: I don’t know why the text in this post is so big.
[Mod: Those pesky bullet points do it.]

[]Manual
[
]Quick Start Guide
[*]Leaflet

[*]FIRMWARE UPDATE AVAILABLE that improves the user interface and USB and HDMI compatibility. Read more and download


Question
Why do I get the message ‘Format not supported’ when I connect my unit to the TV using HDMI?
Answer
Upgrade the firmware of your HTS3371D/F7 (or HTS3372D/F7) to version V30 or higher.

If I plug in a stereo source into the back will it play on all the surround sound speakers?
I looked in the manual, it doesn’t say.
I’m assuming it does but I’d like confirmation?

Update:
This has Dolby Digital ProLogic II, which converts stereo into surround sound. I can only assume this means it plays on all speakers. I wish it would play the pure audio but oh well.

So get a 19 inch tv.

You won’t be using those with this Philips system. Look at the additional photo for this deal: http://sale.images.woot.com/Philips_1000-Watt_5_1_DVD_Home_Theater_System4rmDetail.jpg

The audio connectors for this system are not standard component connectors, but a proprietary molded connector that only Philips speakers can connect to.

Of course, you could just cut off the plugs and re-wire the connectors for standard component. I’m pretty sure whatever warranty you have would be voided, though :wink:

So, considering that most of what Woot sells is refurb items, we just shouldn’t shop here at all, right?

Which is exactly why people shop at Woot, because they want to build their own systems rather than buy pre-made systems. Gotcha.

Hm, I bought a similar Philips receiver last year as well from Woot. Refurbed. Still works great today, primarily use it as a receiver. Sure I would have loved to have build my own, if I had the time, the money, the know-how and the energy to do so. I’d also love to build my own car and my own house, since you can’t trust the warranties on those things either and THEY MIGHT EVEN CATCH FIRE ZOMG!

Please don’t post wrong information.

1080i and 1080p are both 1920x1080 pixels. TV size has nothing to do with noticing the difference between 1080i and 1080p. TV size AND viewing distance are the factors in noticing the difference between 480, 720, 1080, 1440, etc. Speed of content (i.e. sports vs evening news) determines whether or not you will notice 1080i vs 1080p.

Walmart is selling this for $177 and all the reviews give it 5 stars. Looks like a great unit for the $$$! I was looking to buy this and saved $50. WOOT!

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11600018&findingMethod=rr

+100!

A well-scripted warning. However, with the iPod dock, this Phillips system promotes the continuation of the lossy format that is MP3. If you’re spending $100 on an audio system though you won’t hear the difference between lossy and lossless. The sound just keeps getting crappier every year.

Can I use my blu-ray player with this unit ?

If you think Bose is high end you’re sadly mistaken. No Bose (or Blose, rather) system or any other home theatre in the box (HTIB) even approaches high end or even mid-range. Blose systems are there for the suckers that go to the big box stores to get “high end” audio and get swept up by the lies about “better sound through research” that their marketing department comes up with to make up for the serious lack of workmanship, quality components, and engineering in their products. In other words, Blose systems are all talk and no walk when compared to legitimate entry level audio.

High end is north of maybe $10,000 to as much as $50,000 or more (that’s just for speakers), and mid range could be said to start at around ($2,500 for just speakers (again, no amp - that’s easily another $1000 for a barely sufficient mid range integrated model). Below that is entry level - and Blose, Logitech, etc. don’t even count as that.

If you’re interested in a true mid level system, I recommend looking for a particular audio store from Grand Rapids, Michigan (they do a lot of web business) and see what they have and recommend. Their cheapest recommended 5.1 speaker set is $750 - and it is worth saving up if you want to hear what a good budget system should sound like.

This is just a piddly little excuse for a surround sound system in comparison. If you’re not expecting much you’ll probably be happy for the price, but it will be a downgrade sonically over even the cheapest of old tower speakers and amps.

Don’t fool yourself with the wattage rating either. 1000 watts is probably obtained by taking the maximum instantaneous (as in not average) peak watts output through one channel (with all the others off) and multiplying it by six (6 x 167W as Woot shows it) to get a wattage rating. The whole system is something more like 100 watts RMS total, all channels driven, for less than 20 watts per channel.

The signal to noise (SNR) ratio of the amp is horrible too. 60 dB is really bad. It could produce annoying white noise when listening to quiet sections of movies or music. Decent amplifiers have an SNR of around 100 dB, which will produce more than 10 times less noise than this.

Like I said if you’re not expecting much - and you aren’t if you’re considering this - you’ll probably be happy. Just don’t look at the numbers too much, because they don’t really mean anything when comparing to other systems.

I just bought one of these for $139 from buy.com. Sound is much better than my old system, and it’s easy to use. Even my wife says so. Yes it works with iPhones. I’ve got a flash drive plugged into the USB port with albums (remember albums?) in folders, so I have the equivalent of playlists. Or I could dump the songs for a playlist into a folder.

Thank you, that is great info!

will i be able to hook it up to my ps3 using its optical in connection and hear what my ps3 outputs?

Hmmmm… It “was” $149 NEW w/ free shipping here - now $169…

I got the refurb of this DVD player and it’s great so far - BUT - Three components here (DVD/Speakers/Dock) and being refurbs, the chances of a problem seem high - with the new going for $25 more, this seems way too high of a price for a 90 day warranty refurb.

Buy the Square Trade if you get it!