Intensify Your Home Theater Experience With HDTV
Home theater is entertainment at home with a bit of excitement
thrown in. It is basically a combination of video and audio
equipment set up in your home in such a way that you feel you
are actually sitting in a movie theater as opposed to in your
own living room or family room. Contrary to popular belief, home
theater does not have to run you into scores of big bucks.
Instead it can be whatever you want to make it. A home theater
can consist of as simple or as elaborate a system as you prefer.
For example a 32-inch television set coupled with a DVD player
and/or a HiFi VCR with a stereo and speakers can equal a home
theater experience. Make it whatever you wish.
HDTV programming is gaining strength all of the time, in the
form of broadcast, cable and satellite service. Home theater can
intensify tremendously with HDTV. For example the audio that is
part and parcel of HDTV video comes in surround sound. What this
does is it takes complete advantage of the surround sound
receiver of HDTV broadcasting.
Although a DVD (which stands for digital versatile disc) is not
available in a high-resolution format, it displays what is known
as a progressive scan signal. It is a progressive scan which
makes the DVD player work to its optimum best. The majority of
DVD players have the ability to give off progressive scanning
and it is this function that gives the movie watcher an image
that is clear, smooth and greatly resembles the quality of a
film seen in a movie theater.
As well more and more DVD players in today's electronics world
have the capability of HD-up scaling. This up scaling takes high
definition capacities of HD-compatible televisions to greater
heights. In addition, DVD continues towards greater
advancements. Blu-ray and HD-DVD are both forms of high
definition DVD that are up and coming elements of HDTV. All of
the benefits that HDTV has so richly to offer when it comes to
details seen in visual images could go well beyond what the
present technology of DVDs are, in particular in regards to
projections on large screens.
In order to set up your own home theater to receive HDTV
signals, you must first determine what particular sources are
available in your area. HDTV can be obtained from three
different sources. The first and most commonly accessible source
is over-the-air (otherwise known as terrestrial) broadcasts that
can be received by way of an aerial (or rooftop) antenna. In
order to make use of this source of HDTV signals for your home
theater you must live within a sixty-mile radius of the nearest
transmitter and your property must have an unobstructed view for
the signals to clearly come through.
HDTV signals can also be transmitted by satellite. This is the
second most widely used source. Presently there are only two
networks by way of satellite that broadcast HDTV. These are
DirecTV and Dish Network. DirecTV offers the channels HBO,
Showtime and HDNET, while Dish Network offers the Discovery
channel, HBO, Showtime, a 24-hour pay-per-view channel, an HD
demo channel and the national feed of CBS HD.
Cable is the third source of HDTV for home theater. Not all
cable systems carry HDTV broadcasting as it varies from place to
place. Keep in mind an important point, and that is that a
"digital cable system" has no association whatsoever with DTV
transmitted by way of cable. Digital cable is basically just
regular cable that is digitally transmitted but with a multitude
of other channels. The closest thing this could compare to is
digital satellite. If you want to go this route it is important
that you get in touch with your local cable company to find out
if it is even possible to do so.
An HDTV tuner will be necessary for your home theater in order
to do a variety of functions including grabbing, decoding and
converting HDTV signals into a format that a television can
recognize. An honest to goodness high-definition television has
a tuner that is already built into the console of the set but
this is not very common, as the technology for tuners has moved
along swiftly and reduced in price much quicker than the
technology for displays. The best thing to invest in is an HD
monitor (which is a display minus an HDTV tuner) that can, if
you like, be combined with a tuner any time you care to do so.