Buying a home theater has become a regular occurrence in today's economy of conspicuous consumption. Car DVD players and car audio systems are popular as well. Better technology has blown the options wide open in this industry. Now there is a knock-off for every budget. A home theater these days usually consists of a large high definition television (HDTV), a surround sound speaker system, and some comfy chairs.
Surround sound really makes the home theater feel like a movie theater. The basics of surround sound include having at least two speakers in front of the viewing audience and at least two on the side or rear of the viewers. The audio channel on modern viewing formats feature split audio channels designed to funnel different sounds around to different speakers depending on the sound's onscreen point of origination.
A receiver-type amplifier receives all the sound from various components and plays them as assigned. A receiver will come equipped with audio and video inputs, preamp, a surround-sound decoder, power amps for each speaker and outputs for the television and speakers. The receiver unit picks up the signal from the component (television, DVD player, CD player, etc.). You choose which component's signal you want fed. The receiver then distributes the signal to the chosen component.
There are several different types of surround sound - analog, digital, Dolby, and DTS are the most common. Dolby has several different options in home theater packages - mostly having to do with speaker size and placement. In fact, all of the differences between home theater surround sound options have to do with speaker size and placement.
Televisions with a cathode ray tube are considered direct-view televisions and they have been the standard in the industry for a while. The advent of flat-screen televisions offering LCD (liquid crystalline display) and plasma technologies are overtaking the cathode ray tube in popularity. An LCD screen is a lot like the screen of a laptop. Flat-screen televisions are also lightweight and thin because they don't need projectors or tubes in them.
Projection technologies have enabled an entire generation of very large screens. Rear projection screens can use a variety of technologies including cathode ray tube (CRT), digital light processing (DLP), liquid crystal display (LCD) or liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS). Size, resolution and screen quality are all criteria by which to judge rear projection televisions. Front projection technologies work pretty much the same way rear-projection units work except in front-projection, the projector is not part of the television case.
Besides deciding which surround sound format you want and which television technology best suits your space, you also have to choose between DTV and HDTV. Soon, all television signals will be DTV, but only specialized HDTVs and specific components gain access to the extra resolution offered by HDTV.
There are a lot of things to consider when setting up your own home theater surround sound system. Complete kits can be found for as few as $250 or as much as thousands of dollars.
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