I have an attic room where I watch TV and I decided to take the plunge and buy myself an entry level home theatre setup. I gave myself a budget of only $1500 so I knew I wasn't going to get much but it would be an upgrade from my 11 year old (200 pound) 36inch Magnovox and 2 channel stereo system. After undergoing the high pressure tactics at a couple of the big box electronic chains (not to mention their endless hype about Monster cables) I ended up at WalMart (not my favorite store) and after reading a few "expert" reviews and consumer reviews I purchased a Philips 47PFL3603D/F7, and bought the Philips HTS3565D/37 home theatre in a box. Next I went to Target where they had the Philips BDP7200 BluRay player on sale. Total cost including extended waranty: $1600. So how does all of this low end discount store equipment perform? After enjoying it for a month I can say that it is decent for the money. Certainly nothing exceptional but it is much better than what I had.


I am quite ignorant when it comes to electronics and I feared setting up this stuff would be a nightmare but Philips made the system fairly idiot proof. I'm certain it dosen't compare to the incredible things I see on this sight, but for the price paid it is fine. The TV required an enormous amount of tweaking to get right. Out of the box the thing was so bright it was blinding. The "Settings Assistant" was fairly useless and it took a while to get an acceptable picture. I used the THX calibration included on DVD's and then adjusted a bit more from there. Turning off most of the "Image Enhancing" features really helped.


The Home Theatre system exceeded my expectations and does a more than adequate job for this small space. I had to position the front speakers a little farther from the TV than is usual because the room is strangely shaped and when the speakers where beside the TV the sound bounced off the ceiling and created an unpleasent effect. The FM stations sound quite nice, the HDMI DVD player does a mostly good job, depending on the DVD itself and the Ipod dock is a nice extra. The BluRay player is a bit slow and clunky and is not BD Live compliant (although I had no intention of using BD Live so that was okay).


I know this isn't a very glamorous setup but I think this kind of inexpensive setup fills a need in the market and allows those of us on very limited budgets and without the space for a dedicated home theatre room to have a fairly reasonable home theatre experience. I am anxious to see how long this system lasts before breaking down. I hope to get at least 5 years of use from it. If anyone here has any advice or comments about this sort of low budget setup I would love to hear it.

Your room looks very nice and comfortable - I couldn't see any game room games but you may have been referencing a game system for play on the TV.

So far as bargain budget goes we have you beat as we were able to score a Panasonic 720p projector at a close out store for $600 and a Da-lite fixed wall screen for $50 at the same place so we achieved a Theater in the Home experience for $650. We already had a modest Onkyo 5:1 surround and I'm maybe in the minority believing that sound is a nice accessory and necessary without question but true Theater at home (where people go "wow this is just like being at the movies!!) is about 90% visual and big screen dependent.

If you can ever afford the upgrade from television to theater it looks like you have a wall to the right of the television that might be perfect for at least an 80 inch wide screen that would deliver you a nice "theater" experience image of over 90 inch diagonal.

This same close out store sold us a 56 inch 1080p tv for a grand which was an incredible bargain - this little store is a real gem - my bride has to keep me away from it most of the time as I would probably spend us out of house and home buying stuff we really don't need (of course, I felt like the PJ, screen and TV were necessities!! ) - LOL!!

Nice looking room you have there - best of luck with it!

Cool room! Looks like a great place to watch a flick and nap..nice job.