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Posts Tagged ‘home theater’

If you are thinking about setting up a home theater system, then there are three basic pieces of equipment to consider. They are the screen, the speakers and the player. Two of these components are directly related to the size of the room in which you will be sitting and where you will be seated.

All DVD players over a certain price are fairly good and you ought to listen to a couple to make up your mind. The same with speakers, although how many you will need is dependent on the dimensions of the room. The screen is more important and that is what I want to talk about here.

It will not really be of very much help to you to just go into a department store which stocks fifty or sixty television sets all in a line. You may find that you have a preference for one screen’s colour display over another, but the colours are controllable anyway by brightness, contrast and colour mix. You need to view the screen as it will be seen in your home theater.

In order to do this, I always advise getting a pen, paper, preferably graph paper, and a rule. Draw in the proportions of the room to the largest scale that the sheet of paper allows, maybe one inch for two feet or there abouts. Then draw a line to represent the screen against whichever wall you choose and finally add a few squares for the seating. Now measure the space between them and write that figure down, because it is very important.

Using our scale above, if the gap on paper between the screen and the seating is five inches, the distance in the room will be ten feet and ten feet is 120 inches. A good rule of thumb, when trying to work out screen size is the same one used for paintings, which is that the ideal viewing distance of a picture is between three and five times its diagonal measurement. Therefore, in our illustration, the ideal screen size should be between 40 and 24 inches. However, many experts put a minimum screen size for a home theater at 28 inches.

That may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you, because a lot of people think that the answer is the bigger the better. However, primed with this information, now go to the TV store and look at the TV’s again. You will find that if you get up too close to some sorts of screen the picture becomes rather poor, particularly with conventional television screens. Plasma and HDTV allow you to get a little closer without losing quality.

Another consideration is your age, or at least, the quality of your eyesight. Would you rather watch the film with your glasses on or off? Off for me, so I would tend towards the higher end of our scale or maybe even go above it. My eyes are not going to get any better, but I can always put my glasses on when the time comes that I cannot see my screen properly any longer. However, I want to put that time off for a while yet, so I would go for a 48 inch screen in this example for my home theater. Plasma, if I could afford it.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Home Theater Screens. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site.

Home theaters are very popular in the West now for many reasons, but partly due to the recession. However, I predict that after the downturn is over, home theaters will take off like a rocket. In my opinion, this is because, the recession has forced people to examine their spending, which normally means cutting back. Going out, eating out and movies are all in the front line of these cuts. However, the slump is upsetting and people have to get some enjoyment from somewhere.

In the medium to long term, it is cheaper to build a home theater for a family than take them to a proper movie theater every week. Taking a family of four to the movies costs $50-$100, whereas a decent home theater might cost $1,000. It does not take long to recoup those costs. And it saves you the hassle of travelling there and back, the din and mobile phones during the film and high prices for candy and snacks.

OK, maybe people at the moment are buying cheap packages of home theaters, but one of the first things they will replace when they get a bit of money again will be the speakers, I bet. Evidently, you need a good quality, large screen, but after that, it is the sound and the bulwark to good sound is usually poor speakers.

The most important consideration in the design of your home theater is the dimensions of your room. If the room is small, you will not require so many speakers. Perhaps three speakers will be enough, if the room is small. However, if you only need three speakers and a sub-woofer, get good ones.

If you have a bigger room however, the basic three home theater speakers may not be enough. You may need to put up to six speakers and a sub-woofer around the room. The position of these speakers is up to you and can depend on the shape or and size of the room anyway, but typical layouts are:

3.1 system: one speaker to the left of the screen, one to the right and one underneath it. You can put the sub-woofer on top of the central speaker or at the back of the room. Try it and see.

5.1 system: as 3.1, but with two speakers at the back of the room too.

6.1 system: as 5.1, but with another speaker between the rear speakers, as in the front.

7.1 system: as 6.1, but with two speakers central rear, slightly apart. You can move the existing rear speakers a little to the sides too.

This set-up requires a lot of wires as you can envisage. Now, you could staple the wires to the skirting board, but you should only do that after you are dead certain that you have the speakers in the right places. Or you could hang the speakers on the walls. However, although that sounds good for music, it does not always sound good for a movie.

The best option is wireless speakers. Wireless speakers can be moved around to suit the number of people watching the film or moved out for cleaning or redecorating purposes. You do not want to bash your nice, new, expensive speakers with the vacuum cleaner, do you?

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with wireless home theater systems. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

Do you love going to the movie theater and get lost in the realism that their superior sound systems create? If you do, then I bet you are also one of those people who dislikes going there, only to have a potentially fantastic evening ruined by irresponsible people talking through the film or letting their cell phones ring.

I used to love the movie theater, but that was in the days when people respected the rights of others to listen to a movie in silence. There were no crying babies, ringing mobile phones or noisy youths in cinemas and if they got in they were soon kicked out if there was any row.

Nowadays, cinema managers seem to take the easy route of letting these people spoil it for others. As a result, more and more quiet people are staying at home and the cinemas are becoming even noisier. If you are one of the stay-at-homes, but miss the cinema, why not recreate one in your home?

Build yourself a home movie theater with surround sound. You will never regret installing surround sound in your home, because you will be able to play your favourite films, the TV and your music through it. The difference between surround sound and stereo or even quadraphonics is breath-taking.

Different people have different desires, expectations, funds and even hearing ability, so it is tricky to suggest a system to a mass audience, but there are strategies for going about the purchase of your own home theater system. A lot of people buy a kit home theater. This is OK, if funds are limited, but you will want to upgrade the screen and the speakers before very long. If you just want to put a home theater in a small spare bedroom and do it quickly and easily, then this method is for you.

If, however, you want a bit more, then you might prefer to get a bigger screen and make do with the speakers that came with the kit. These can easily be upgraded later. If you want to get everything part by part, you will need a screen, speakers and DVD player. If you would like to play games too, replace the DVD player with an Xbox.

But back to the speakers, whether you are upgrading or putting your own system together, the tactics I suggest hold true. Write down the dimensions of your room or better still do a little plan of it to scale. Take this around the shops and malls and try to listen to a few set-ups in a room similar to your own. This could be difficult, but you might be lucky.

Decide whether you need a 3.1; 4.1; 5.1; 6.1 or even 7.1 set of compatible surround sound speakers. Basically, it all depends on the size of your room, but the shop assistant will be able to demonstrate and advise you. As a guideline, a 5.1 surround sound set will be sufficient for most rooms. The figures stand for normal speakers and sub-woofers: ie 5.1 means five normal speakers and one sub-woofer.

The arrangement of the speakers depends on the size and shape of the room and on your personal preference, but the standard layout would be: one speaker the far left and far right of the screen and one beneath it with two more speakers a little apart from each other at the rear of the audience. The sub-woofer can go at the front or the rear.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with wireless home theater systems. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

Shoppers in this new millennium are much more knowledgeable about electronic goods than people were at any time earlier. The older generation of today grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s when everyone in the West had a television set and a stereo. Previous generations were not so fortunate for financial and technological reasons. Therefore, most shoppers nowadays have no compunctions about going shopping for complex electronic equipment like a home theater.

It is in the shoppers’ best interest to research and comprehend about the components that go into making up a good home theater. It is not particularly exacting and many if not all of the components involved have been around for at least a few years now. Consider what goes into a home theater:

a screen – can be a television screen, a canvas screen for a projector or a modern plasma or LCD screen. Forget about the modern varieties of screen, they are still fundamentally TV screens and they have been around for 80 years or so. Same with a projector.

a player – a DVD player is just an improved CD player and they have been out for 20-30 years. You have possibly had one for most of that time. (You can add another dimension to your home theater here by switching an Xbox for the DVD player, but games machines are not new).

speakers – they are nothing new either. Speakers have been about as long as the television set.

So you see, there is nothing in that package which you should feel awkward about buying. Fair enough, you will be buying state of the art examples of what I listed above, but they are fundamentally the same. You attach them all together with their special plugs and wires and then plug them into the mains. Switch on and it will work.

So the next issue is: do you buy a package or do you buy the elements and build your own home theater? The answer to that question really depends on your level of competency. A package is easy and may work out less expensive too, but will it have the flexibility that you want? If you have a standard sized and standard shaped room, then I am convinced that you will be able to buy a package that will suit you. If you think that the speakers are sub-requirement, you could always sell them on and upgrade after a while.

if you want to be certain of getting precisely what you want, I think that most people will have to buy the elements separately: that is screen, player and speakers.

The size of the screen depends on the size of the room and how close you are sitting to it: a distance of between three times and five times the diagonal of the screen is about right. However, some people like to be dominated by the screen and others do not want to wear their glasses, so it is up to personal preference.

The DVD player is a matter of individual preference too. They are all much of a muchness, but some people favour Sanyo while others favour Philips. If you want gaming capability too, use an Xbox instead of an regular DVD player.

Most rooms will require at least a 5.1 surround sound speaker set. These ought to be bought as one package to make certain that they are all well-matched. That is five normal speakers and a sub-woofer.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home theater speaker placement. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

A home theater requires a sizable investment of money, thought and installation, particularly if you have a high quality home theater. Therefore, it is a shame that so may people just connect all the pieces in a room without giving any thought to what other things they should be doing to improve it. Unless you hire a professional adviser, you might not achieve the full potential of your home cinema system. However, it is not necessary to hire an adviser, if you just pay attention to a few common blunders made by a lot of home theater owners

The lighting in any cinema is very important, as I am sure you already know. Why is it then that many people do not treat it as important in their own home cinema? You never see external light – sun light – in a specialized movie theater and you should not want any in yours either. Hang heavy curtains over every window in the room and let them extend beyond the window with a good border.

Heavy curtains will not only keep external light out, but they will also dampen street sounds, something else you never hear in a real movie theater. If you have neighbours close by, it will also help to preclude them from being bothered by your loud films or music.

Do not try to save money by buying poor quality speakers. Do not mix and try to match speakers either, unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you need five speakers and a sub-woofer, but can only afford three and the sub-woofer, buy speakers from a well-known brand that you know you can get hold of again.

Do not buy end of line speakers, as you will find upgrading hard. The best tactic for the novice is to get a 5.1 surround sound set of speakers. Then, if at some point in the future you want to upgrade, you can quite easily, either by buying more or exchanging the lot in one go. One thing is for certain, a lot of the magic of going to the theater these days lies in the surround sound and you need to reproduce it at home.

It is not rocket science to put a home theater together whether it comes in kit form or not. However, if you do not feel comfortable setting it up, you would be better off having it done for you. Clearly, it is up to you how you go about this, but you could ask a relative or friend or neighbour or hire someone from the shop where you got it. My speculation is though that any reasonably competent eighteen year old has already seen one set up before and can do it for you.

Your movie theater, if it came in a kit, will or should have detailed instructions for you to follow. Please read the manual before you start plugging things into each other. Read the manual and inspect the parts until you are well acquainted with the installation procedure and the recommended positioning of the equipment.

Make sure that the voltage is adjusted correctly before you plug it into the mains. Most equipment is made abroad for sale to many countries, so they often have some sort of selector for the voltage. Get it wrong and you could blow a part of the equipment, probably the amplifier, the DVD player or the screen. that could mean replacement of the module or poor reproduction of sound or picture.

It is not hard to get the installation of your home theater right, but you do have to pay some attention to detail, if you want to get the best out of it.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with home theater speaker placement. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.