Home theater is a rapidly growing segment of the home
entertainment field. The term is often used, but you may not
really know what it means. Don't feel bad as there are plenty of
terms and acronyms used in the electronics field that you won't
find anywhere else, and the technical afficianados are the only
ones who seem to be able to keep it all stratight, and sometimes
it's a challenge for them as well.
Basically, a home theater is created when you upgrade the audio
and video components of your television set to the point where
it enhances the viewing experience beyond it's current
capacities. In other words, when you buy a TV set it already has
a means of displaying images and producing sound built right
into it. And although those sound and video elements are much
improved over TV sets from yesteryaer, they still leave much to
be desired when compared with, for instance, movie theater
entertainment. But that is all changing.
You can upgrade the video portion of the television by getting a
HDTV that has a large screen that displays in widescreen format.
HDTV widescreen more closely resembles the viewing format used
in movie theaters, and more and more media and broadcasts will
be shown in widescreen, so if you don't have it, you could be
missing a lot of the action in the film or broadcast that you
should be seeing. Whether you choose an LCD or plasma screen for
your HDTV is a personal choice and depnds on several factors,
but either will produce beautifully rich colors that you can't
help but enjoy as you watch.
The next part to focus on is the audio. You can go as wild or as
conservative as you wish here. A basic system is one with an
audio amplifier hooked up to the audio aoutput of the TV that
amplifies and enriches the sound and delivers it to speakers
outside the TV. You will notice an improvement in the sound with
even the most basic of audio enhancements. However, if you
really want to take it up a notch, you can get
amplifier/receivers that can take full advantage of the HDTV
Dolby surround sound feature and deliver that sound to speakers
that can reproduce the whole audio spectrunm, from the
thundering lows of subwoofers to the highs of tweeters.
The choice is yours to make on how far you take your home
theater experience, and much will probably depend on your
budget. At the high end, the viewing experience rivals that of a
movie theater. At the lower end, you still get a lot better
sound and picture than what you have with the TV alone. And
there is plenty of middle ground to let you emphasize the
components that are most important to you.
About the author:
Jim Johnson writes on many consumer related topics including
HDTV. You can find out more about hdtv<
/a> by visiting our HDTV and Television Review website.
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