Halo C2 Video Processing

Parasound Halos did offer yet another atypical feature not found in most other Home Theater Controllers; Passive Video Pass-Through. This unique feature allowed video from your sources to be viewed on the Display WITHOUT the Processor being turned on. I found this to be especially useful when I wanted to watch my satellite or DVD without the entire system being blasted throughout the living room. I'm sure you are aware of the times that the kids want to watch a movie, and you're working on something else and don't want them to mess with the processor. Well, now you can have them watch that DVD without even turning the Halos on.

Unfortunately the Halos were not equipped with video up-conversion making the number of connections from sources to the monitor a bit more complex. There are many new receivers hitting the market this year that will offer video up-conversion with 100-MHz bandwidth for transparent video throughput, but when the Halos were designed two years ago, this was not really a common feature. Without this feature, we had to switch inputs on our monitor in order to view different sources which may not be considered as problematic to most users. Our workaround for the On-Screen Menu was to use our projectors picture-in-picture mode. Most monitors sold today have picture-in-picture including the Sony KP-57WV600 which was used in Reference System 2 . We simply selected the "twin" mode on our Monitor and scaled it to the size that provided optimal viewing from our listening location as seen in the pictures below.

Picture-in-Picture controls

The Halos did come with four coaxial and four optical audio digital inputs along with one coaxial and one optical digital audio output. But the Halos did not offer HDMI, DVI, or 1394 IEEE inputs and outputs. It's not that Parasound didn't consider HDMI or DVD connections it's more that they were not commonplace 2+ years ago when the Halos were designed and released. But as you are aware from our 2004 CES Coverage , there are a number of products being released as now, which will have at least one of these connections or a proprietary connection. As for IEEE, again many other products offered this IEEE around the same time as the Halos, however, they did no good. For example, the IEEE is a daisy chain and most products offering this connection type typically only include one IEEE and not two (one in and one out). Without the two IEEEs on the A/V Controller, it is not possible to pass the signal from your source, through your processor to your display without breaking the daisy chain.

I was very surprised when I read through the manual and found that the Halos could also be set up via a Windows based software program which could be downloaded directly from Parasound's website. Using this software allowed us to store our settings remotely on a PC, just in case there was a memory glitch in the Halo, or the wife or daughter messed up my original settings. Connection to the PC was done with ease using a standard RS-232 which is another valuable feature not only for users, but custom installers. This software allowed all setup information to be stored into a Laptop. This way in the event of a catastrophic failure (which usually occurs when customer pushes the wrong button), you're fully armed and operational with all original settings in just one quick download from the PC to the Halos and thereby solving the problem.

This section will not ponder on all the details for setting up the Halos which were covered adequately in the appropriate User Manuals. Instead, we will focus on a few of the highlights regarding the configurability and set up features of the Halos along with our experience with actual operations. To begin with, both Halos offered an On-Screen Menu that was easy to navigate through and configure either by front panel or remote. The C 1 included a 5" front panel display that mimicked the On-Screen Menu. I could imagine this display coming in quite handy when configuring the C 1 in a room with a front projector as it would allow the operator to fully calibrate and configure the C 1 without having the front projector blaring down upon them from behind.

Both Halos offered an extremely useful, much desirable feature which we haven't seen on many other processor/controllers; that being automatic speaker level and distance calibration.