Home Theater

Your television is the heart of your home theater. It doesn't make much sense to have the latest HD or Blu-Ray DVD player, 10 speaker surround sound, when you only have a little 19 inch CRT television.

For the best viewing, you'll want a big-screen TV. You can get large CRT screens, but if you want something that doesn't take a team of people to move, you'll want a flat panel TV. Flat panels come in two flavors, Plasma and LCD.

With plasma TVs, you get what you pay for. There will be a difference in quality between a $799 48" plasma TV, and one costing $2000. The quality and contrast will be noticeably better on the more expensive TV. Plasma screens generally have a higher contrast ratio, and a faster response time than LCDs. A plasma TV also has a wider effective viewing angle than LCDs. The downsides to plasma are that they run hotter than an LCD screen, and they are subject to "burn-in.

LCD TVs are usually somewhat less expensive than a plasma screen. An LCD screen is immune to burn-in, and they run cooler than a plasma TV. Some LCD screens have a slower response time, however, which can cause blurring with fast action.

Whichever TV you choose, you'll want to make sure that you have enough space. You'll want at least a food on either side of the TV for cooling, and a sufficient distance from the TV to the seating.

Some flat panels do not come with a TV tuner, so you'll need to buy one separately.

The DVD player is another important component of the home theater. The DVD player, as you know, is what plays your DVDs. You may want an older DVD player, or you may want a new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player.

There is currently a format war, much like the old Beta/VHS war, between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

For right now, you can stick with the old standard DVD, you can choose a Blu-Ray player, an HD-DVD player, or go with a universal DVD player, which will play any format.

When you go to the theater, you don't just hear the sounds of the movie from the front of the theater. You hear it from the sides and the back as well.

A surround sound system allows you to hear these sounds from all sides in your own home. A typical system consists of a center speaker in the front, left and right speakers in the front and back of the room, and a subwoofer. Some systems have more channels, and some have fewer, but the 5 channel + subwoofer, is typical.

In most cases, adding surround sound is as simple as plugging the speakers in, and placing them in their proper positions.