Carl's Home Theater Guide

I made this page as a buying guide add-on for my movie reviews site. I hope it will be informative, especially the type of television to purchase guide. There are big decisions to make when you're starting a home theater and I hope to help you ease the stress of that process. They are important decisions because you don't want to waste your money and I'd hate to see that happen to you.

Here's a brief overview of what's on each page of this site:

Flat Panel Televisions: A comparison between the two types of flat-panel tv available. Plasma and LCD are both amazing technologies but they both have strengths and weaknesses. I include links to purchase several models at the bottom of the page.

CRT and Projection: Like above these each have strengths and weaknesses. They are usually much cheaper than the flat-panel types but take up much more room and don't offer the vivid pictures of their counterparts.

DVD players: This page tells of some of the features you should be looking for when purchasing a DVD player. It is as important that you shop wisely when choosing one of these devices as any other home entertainment purchase.

Speakers and Sound Systems: I point out some of the benefits of having dolby digital for your listening pleasure. Why have everything else if you're going to go soft when you go for the sound? This is one of the most important pieces to a great home entertainment system.

Types of Televisions for use in a Home Theater

CRT and Rear-Projection televisions are considered the cheaper alternative in entertainment these days. They still hold their own despite the fact that the image clarity isn't as great as that of flat-panel televisions.

CRT, aka Cathode Ray Tube

televisions are the type you probably had as a kid. They're big in the back and have curved screens. Computer monitors that are not flat are also CRT. They're a pretty old technology so it's not that important to say just how they work but I'll give a brief explanation: The bulbous shape of the CRT television is due to the large vacuum chamber in which resides an electron beam. This beam scans the tube very, very quickly and lights up tiny phosphors to create the image you see.

Therein lies the problem for choosing a CRT television for your home entertainment system: size! The bigger it gets width and height-wise it also has to get longer. These can produce great images but the size factor becomes a problem and most manufacturers don't bother making very large models of this type of television.

Rear-Projection

televisions are a lot different from their CRT brothers. It's a lot like a movie theater in reverse. The concept of how they function is similar but this type uses a magnifying lense to project the image onto the larger screen. This type of television is a good deal smaller (depth wise) than a CRT due to this technlology. They come in two flavors: LCD and DLP. DLP is the newest form of rear-projection television and will probably be your best bet.

One of the greatest advantage of this type of television is size. This type can come in screens larger than LCD or Plasma for a much cheaper cost. Unfortunately they're not infallible. It can be hard to view a projection screen from the side. They don't boast the excellent viewing angle of flat panel tvs. Their fixed resolution means that images must be scaled to fit the screen. Another problem is that up close you can see the individual pixels on the screen. Another problem is that the pixels on the screen may burn out causing you to lose a part of your screen real estate.

If you have plenty of room and don't want a huge TV you should probably go with a CRT television. They're old and reliable. I have one that's over 20 years old and it still works. If you want the most screen real estate possible go with the DLP rear-projection. I still prefer plasma as you don't have the screen-door effect of the rear-projection television. At any rate whatever decision you make you should go with an HD integrated set. The world is moving on to Hi-def and you should go with it. I heard that most entertainment companies are busting ass to get more HD available to the public. It won't be long before it's the mainstay of the entertainment industry.

There are now a couple types of flat-panel television available to shoppers in this day and age. I'll now detail the differences between the two types along with their benefits/disadvantages.

Plasma Televisions

are the most advanced type of video electronic available today and are capable of displaying HDTV and normal television. The Plasma of the screens is actually two types of gas within a very small chamber. When the red, green and blue phosphors the chambers are illuminated in different amounts the screen can display many millions of different colors. Think of mixing the colors of crayons and how the color can change as you add new colors to the mix.

Their most obvious benefit is their thickness. They're very thin, often only a few inches at most. This allows many options for where they are installed in the home. You can naturally place them on a stand like any other TV but the coolest way to do it is mount it on a wall or even hang it from the ceiling!

While early plasma televisions didn't have very long life expectancies the latest models can reliably function for up to 60,000 hours. That amounts to decades of life if you watch even 5 hours each and every day. This really is a rapidly growing technology and by the time you read this the lifespans may have increased substantially.

On the downside most plasma televisions need another device to display tv signals as they are not really televisions. If you have one of these amazing devices you probably already own a dvd player or other such device which can display the signal. This downside turns into a benefit as most models can display images from many sources including computers!

Plasma televisions can suffer from some quirky problems at high altitude - they simply do not perform as well. Also if there are no moving images on a screen for an extended period of time the screen can be burnt-in with that image thus rendering the unit less useful. Fortunately most plasma models have features that automatically prevent this problem.

Another possible disadvantage is that many of these don't have built-in speaker systems. They're more meant to be a part of a home theater and should be treated as such. If you go for such a wonderful device the extra cost of some great surround sound speakers would be totally worth it. Imagine watching DVDs in widescreen with surround sound. It's almost like being at a movie theater!

LCD Televisions

are more advanced than any CRT type of television and are quite flat as they do not need a thick picture tube to have a large display. They work by a pretty advanced form of technology. The LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Diode. Each screen is actually two pieces of polarized glass with liquid crystals in between. The crystals move as different amounts of electricity are passed through them, thus controlling the intensity of light. This will form colors from white to black. Within the screen there are many thousands of pixels which each contain three smaller pixels of red, blue and green. When these mini-pixels' intensities are changed they produce a color depending on the mixture. This, in combination with the white to black hues creates a picture.

LCD screens are thin much like Plasma televisions and offer many of the same benefits in respect to placement location. These however have longer life-spans but less sharp images. They are quite durable in that when the ability to produce an image is lost at the end of their life span it's most likely just a bulb replacement procedure instead of having to purchase a new set. To make a good thing better, these sets consume far less energy than a comparable-sized CRT television.

Conclusion:

Overall several considerations need to be made when choosing between these two types. Plasma televisions are cheaper in comparable size but offer a significantly lower life span. However, they offer much higher quality images than their LCD cousins. Plasma can render images very quickly while an LCD display may exhibit some lag when displaying fast moving images.

DVD

Choosing a DVD player isn't all that difficult but you should be aware of the different features and limitations of various types. One thing I'm certain of is that DVD players are the new video technology. VHS will fade into nonexistence someday but DVD will be alive and kicking.

If you have a large collection of VHS tapes stored up over the years you will probably desire a DVD/VHS combo so you can enjoy your old collection. There are even DVD-recorder devices now that can easily convert all those old tapes over to the more easily stored (and scratched) DVD format. These players can record programming onto DVD as well, meaning you won't have to use that old clunky VCR to record your favorite programs.

Progressive scan technology ensures high quality images in HDTV video with little or no flickering, which is an important feature so you will surely want to purchase a player with is capability. Many players can even play Mp3 audio files and show images from your camcorder. There are a lot to choose from now but I highly recommend you stick with a name brand like Sony. These brands usually have better warranties and are generally more reliable. Sometimes it's worth it to spend a few extra bucks to ensure that your purchase doesn't burn out in three months. If you go high-end it's worth the extra cash to get the extended warranty in all cases. Why take risks?

The high-end Sony RDR-HX900 DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Disk Recorder has many, many features including the 160gb hdd. This means you can store up to 204 hours of programming. You can then burn what you want to save permenantly to DVD-R discs and keep it forever! You have to click through to see all the features this model has, you can always come back or browse that site if the price is too daunting. Expect to pay hundreds for this model.

This modest model, the Sony DVP-NS50P/S Single DVD Player receives excellent reviews and supports playback of DVDs, Mp3 cds, JPEG (image format) cds and has digital output for Dolby 5.1 surround sound, which makes it a low cost, reliable option for those purchasing a large television who are in need of a sound system. If it supports audio output you can save money on buying a receiver with your sound system. This model is usually available for well under $100.

Home Theater Speaker Setups

Several types of speaker systems are available depending on your budget. Here, I'll focus on Dolby Digital sound which is used on most DVDs out today. All are quite stunning and can complement your home theater. Why go for a huge widescreen television with a DVD player then buy just two front speakers to listen to the movie? Go for the real deal I say. If you simply can't afford to do this just click any of the links at the bottom of this page to go to Amazon.com's huge product catalog of speaker systems.

Old-school Dolby Digital Stereo

In traditional dolby digital stero there were only two sound channels which emitted audio to the left or right. This was quite cool as a passing jet could be heard from the left and gradually would move to the right. It made the experience more realistic.

Now, Dolby Digital 5.1

Now the standard is five speakers positioned to surround the listener. Five speakers, strategically placed surround the listener and emit sound based on where the sound is coming from in a movie. Sounds that are happening all around occur from every speaker but someone speaking would be coming from the appropriate speaker. Quite stunning.

An important thing to note when buying these types of sound systems is that they're recommended for televisions over 27". Another consideration is that you require some device capable of plugging the speakers into! A receiver capable of 5.1 surround is a must. Fortunately most systems come with a receiver. Some even come with a DVD player to minimize the amount of things stacked on top of one another in your home theater system.