Being the cheap SOB that I am, I connected a 4.1 computer speaker system to my TV in the bedroom and it sounds much better than the TVs speakers. Just plugged it in to the headphone output and voila it works great.

Peter, you described my situation to a tee. I have a theater. I want something unobtrusive in this room, with no wires showing, no electronics other than the TV and sound bar. It's perfect for me in this situation and also an easy way to play music with the Ipod.

Thanks to everyone who's posted here ... my DLP TV is starting to have difficulty (stuck mirrors), so I'm looking for a new flat screen ... if I do this, I'm thinking it makes sense to sell off my big ol' Rocket 750's and go with the OSB1 & just completely free up the floor space.

It doesn't make sense to me but I am have a preference for big speakers all around. So far my Samsung DLP is working well. I recently saw a new 60 inch version which is LED lit and did not like the "soap opera effect". I will go with a big plasma when the DLP fails.

DO I need to watch soap operas to know what that effect is???

I think the problem is that there's interpolation going on. Essentially the TV is creating data based on some algorithm that's describes "what's going on". This is always dangerous. Interpolation is always non-perfect and your eye is really receptive to that. Once the industry starts recording at higher frame rates the video should look more natural than the upsampled, processed gick we're currently living with.

The picture sort of appears like what you see in a stereoscope if you have ever seen one. It is a little like half way to 3D. The lighting in soaps made the scenes appear different than regular TV. It is hard to describe. Go to a showroom and watch for a bit and you will see it. I think it has less to do with interpolation than with the lighting of the TV (LED).

Xenonman et all.

I have to jump in here and comment on the "soap opera effect " that you refer to. It is mostly caused by either noise reduction circuitry or motion smoothing which are in the set up menu of the TV. Scaling usually does not cause this issue

Recently one of my friends set up a new 52 inch Samsung and all of that cicuitry was active as the "default" setting. All TV shows and movies all tended to look like high quality" live" video. What a horror show!. After we bypassed all of it he was stunned at the improvement. With all of that enhancement circuitry turned off movies and TV series looked like what they were supposed to look like- film

So, for anyone that is having this issue, it can be easily addressed by just turning off most of that stuff in the set-up menu.

Peter

The soap opera effect is related to frame rate, and you can see it even on the big screen. Watch 'The Hobbit' at 24fps and it looks like film; watch it in HFR (high frame rate = 48fps) and it looks like video.

I have seen the effect that Xenon is referring to and I am not sure its the frame rate. It was at a Magnolia and they were playing a dvd or blu-ray of one of the King Kong movies and the seen featured a lot of action with dinosaurs. I have also seen it a few times on demo tv's at Costco. The objects on the screen seemed to have very hard edges, seemingly making the larger ones pop to the forefront and giving the overall movie a cheap 3d effect. This was not something I noticed when I watched the Hobbit in the theater in HFR. My sense is that PeterT is right about the TV's setup being the culprit

I saw The Hobbit in both versions and the 48 FPS version did suffer from the effect I am talking about. It does look like high quality video shot with a 8mm camera. The other side of the coin is that the only moviw which has been shot at 48 fps is The Hobbit and the effect shows up on my son's new Samsung on every movie. I think it has to do with the type of lighting, the framerate and the refresh rate all combined.