Hello from sunny Southampton England

[Bigtone]

Hello from sunny Southampton England,
My name is Tony, soon to be 48 years of age and has been a HiFi nut since my schooldays! It is indeed time that I introduced myself as I have to admit to lurking around here for some time, and a few other forums, but rarely do I post anything.
My first proper system was a mixture of homemade and bought in components and consisted of an AR77XB turntable with Ortofon VMS 20E cartridge feeding a Crimson preamp and mono block power amps driving a pair of SMC Super Saturn’s. It was a great system and Christine and I spent many hours listening to vinyl. The “cinema “part at that time consisted of a 14 inch Philips colour television!
I have over the years built many amplifiers, and pre amplifiers, tuners and even a pair of Elektor PL301’s. I wonder how many people had a set of those. These monsters had about a hundred weight of sand inside them to deaden the box and were based on the same drivers as the original Kef 105! My current long term amplifier project is a pair of Nelson Pass A75 mono blocks with a modified output stage running some up to date FETs in the output stage. These are to be the basis for my second (or is that Third) system purely for Vinyl. I intend to build everything except the deck for this project.
My current home cinema setup is as follows:-
Tag McLaren DVD32R DVD player
Tag McLaren AV32R DP Processor
Tag McLaren 5X100R Power Amplifier
Pioneer 868 DVD player for the SACD DVD Audio discs
SKY HD Satellite receiver
KEF Reference 105.3 left and right front speakers
KEF Reference 2.2 for the rears
KEF Centre channel speaker
Cables are a mixture of Chord (speaker) and QED (interconnects)
Stands by BASE and Target Audio
Home assembled HTPC
Pioneer PDP434 HDE Plasma display which has just been replaced with a PDP LX508D
Philips Pronto programmable remote control
This is all in a dedicated room with its own dedicated power feed, a Ben Duncan clean mains distribution board with radial fed mains supplies and lightning protection with its own “quiet earth”.
The room is an extension over our garage which is a complete story in itself as the footings for it went 11 foot deep!
For my other hobbies I have been know to ride in places like Moab (Utah) and the Alps (in Europe) on a mountain bike which is a Turner for all you American friends out there. I also like classic cars and own a 1966 289GT Convertible Mustang GT which has been with me almost as long as the “wife” some 28 years! We also like to travel and have covered many parts of the USA.
My first question is as the Tag DVD player has an analogue output (RGB) which is the best way of converting this to 1080P for the new display. There are several options open to me but need some advice on the best way to go!
First replace the Tag altogether, I am reluctant to do this as it is an excellent CD player.
Second fit a PSM module, if I can find one and maybe even the Tag Scalar.
Third option to use a video converter / scalar, again there are several models to choose from but which one will do the Tag justice.
Buy another DVD player such as the Arcam DV139 which is a good do it all player / upscaler.
Blue Ray/ HD DVD is not an option as yet as I feel there is still time for things to settle down and dual format players are due to be released by the end of this year, so I may buy a computer drive and software and try it from the HTPC for the time being.
Well I think I have ranted on enough for my first post!
BR Bigtone

[mechman]

Welcome to the Shack Tony!

mech

[Mike P.]

Hi Tony, and welcome to the Shack. From what I've read on Tag Mclaren, the PSM module will give you DVI and the Tag scaler will output 1080i. Do you know if these modules are still available?

[Sonnie]

Hello Tony and welcome to the Shack!

Sounds like a pretty good project and we look forward to some pics...

[Anthony]

Might I commend you on an excellent name!

Welcome to the shack.

--Anthony

[nova]

Welcome Tony, lurkers are fine, but we're glad you decided to start posting.
Sounds like some nice equipment you have. I'm with you on the classic cars, (even though it appears you're a Ford guy me?, I have a '68 Chevy II SS, and like you have had it much longer than I've had the wife I've had mine about 24 years ,.....hmmmm in fact I've also had my '87 Turbo Regal longer than my wife....????