Home Entertainment At Its Best--Your Private Home Theater
You LOVE watching movies, but don't always have the time to
roundup the family and journey to the local theater, or can
afford to shell out the money for the cost of the tickets and
the criminally priced greasy popcorn. So, you often resort to
renting videos from your local store, but watching them on your
27" TV just doesn't quite have the same impact. Not only is the
picture quality awful, the sound is even worse through those 4"
speakers in your TV set. You've been hearing a lot about "Home
Theater", and both your neighbor and your brother-in-law have
the huge, new, big screen TVs, powerful surround receivers, and
gargantuan speakers to shake the entire house. The kids are
begging for a similar system, but your spouse is saying "no" to
remodeling the front room for a wall full of techno gadgets. So,
how do you keep everyone happy?
Perhaps the answer lies in a home theater system. Whether you
are considering a home theater-in-a-box for $200, or are adding
a entire room to house your $25,000 state-of-the-art equipment,
there are hundreds of options and choices in the design and
construction of your ultimate home cinema.
Home theater design has reached record levels of stylishness and
complexity. Having a private theater used to mean you were
either a wealthy celebrity, CEO of Paramount Pictures, or
president of the United States. Today, however, with the
advanced audio-visual technology (think DVD players, powerful
new speakers, and digital high-definition projectors) nearly
everyone can afford a stylish home entertainment environment
that can rival your local movie theater.
The term "home theater" refers to any combination of audio and
visual equipment in your home that attempts to duplicate or
surpass the sights and sounds of the movie theater experience.
This definition can vary widely, however. On the high end, you
can have a custom designed (and built) home theater that costs
thousands of dollars--complete with high end video projector,
state-of-the-art DVD player(s), separate amplifiers for each
channel, dozens of in-ceiling speakers and some subwoofers that
can shake the paint off your neighbor's garage.
In reality, home theater in most households does not consist of
major room re-modeling, expensive custom installations, or a lot
of money. It can be as simple as a 27 inch TV, a basic DVD
player, inexpensive stereo receiver and a set of modest
speakers. You can have a home theater in just about any room of
the house, a small apartment, office or even a dorm room. The
options are nearly endless and the choices are yours!
Any home theater starts with a fantastic television screen.
Screen size is no longer the only choice you have to make. You
now have the option of standard tube televisions, flat-screen
plasma displays, rear-projection televisions, in addition to the
high-end front projector systems and pull-down wall screens. To
add to the confusion, each of these types of screens is
available in standard quality or the new high-definition format.
The second, and some would say most important piece of
equipment, is the sound system. If you are truly looking to
recreate the movie sound in your home, surround sound is your
best bet. It is a recording technique that, when paired with a
speaker system, puts the viewer in the center of the action with
sounds that move front to back, and side to side. It is not
about louder sound, rather, it is about sound that envelops the
listener and provides directionality to off-screen sound effects.
A media player is another component to your system, and most
people today choose DVD as their preferred format. When
connected to a receiver and speakers, or when connected to a
home theater system, most DVD players can play audio CDs. If you
plan to use your DVD player to play CDs on a regular basis, you
may want to consider a multidisc player over a single disc model.
Other necessities and accessories range from speaker choices,
lighting controls, auto-retracting curtain (to conceal the
screen), and certainly comfortable seating. Seating choices,
like everything else, vary widely. Your biggest decision in this
area is whether you want your home theater to look like a "home"
or a "theater." If you want the miniature theater look, you can
get stadium type seating that closely resembles your local
theater. For a more "homey" look, you may wish to go with more
traditional armchairs.