Home Theater Equipment

What Are The Main Components Of A Home Theater System?
By Belinda Teska

Every quality home theater system consists of at least four main components. Let’s look at each of them individually : The Display (or viewing component):- the type of television or projector you buy for your home theater system dictates the quality of the picture and how much you will enjoy your home cinema experience of your home theater.

You should be able to pick up a good TV set for a reasonable price either on or offline which will give a reasonable to high quality picture quality, or you have deeper pockets and wish to go further and invest more in a top-notch state of the art quality picture display you might choose some of the other options?

At the moment those are LCD televisions, Plasma televisions, regular television widescreen sets, etc. Even aybe if you have the space you might even consider installing a movie screen and projector with or without a built in TV receiver.

DVD Player (or playback component):- If you think of the TV as the head of your Home theater system then the DVD player is the heart of your home theater system. It is what makes everything happen without it you are destined to watch only programs and movies from your TV. Whilst the big TV networks have massive budgets and are able to broadcast movies sometimes very quickly after the movie is released at the movie theater you will still be controlled by them and with DVD’s costing just a few bucks why settle for second best ?

You can depend on your DVD player to give you an entry ticket to whole new movie experience when you link it up in a home theater system and enjoy your choice of movies in the comfort of your own arm chair. These days, you can buy a pretty good DVD players for less than $100.

 But you might if you can afford it want to save your money for a little while and splash out on the very latest HD-DVD players which are just being released as HD (high definition) is slowly being introduced to home theater enthusiasts. As it becomes more mainstream prices will fall but for the time being expect to pay $500 plus for this new technology.

To be honest this sort of outlay is not needed and is only for the real home cinema fanatic who must have the very latest of everything. But for your home theater when getting started you don’t need a fancy DVD player, so you don’t have to invest a large amount of money in it, around one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars will get you a pretty decent DVD player.

The Receiver (the output component): The receiver or audio visual amplifier as it is sometimes known is just as important, if not more so, than your DVD player for your home theater system set up. It takes the signal which is produced by the DVD player playing the DVD and channels the video signal held on the disk and the audio soundtrack and carries them via cables to the television set and the speakers.

The receiver or amplifier will reproduce through the speaker system the surround sound audio track which was recorded on the DVD by the film maker and the TV or TV Monitor displays the digital quality images any home theater system must have. Sometimes you can find a DVD player which combines both of these components together but unless space is very limited it is normally better both in terms of quality and value for money to buy a separate AV Reciever or AV Amplifier and DVD player.

Speakers (the audio playback components) : -  The speakers complete the perfect home theater experience in the recreating that total movie theater experience in your own home. You can enjoy whilst sat in your favorite chair imagining a plane flying over your head narrowly missing you. I am still blown away every time I listen to Top Gun which for many was one of the very first movies to be produced with a Dolby Prologic surround sound soundtrack track originally on VHS video. Some people say still a must have DVD in your collection and I have to say I totally agree.

You will dodge when you feel yourself narrowly missing a car zooming through your living room. Or duck when a hail of bullets gets fired in the latest action movie thanks to the surround sound system. You need at least five speakers and a well matched active subwoofer to get the very best out of the DVD. Don’t worry you won’t miss those gut wrenching explosions which we all love at the movie theater the subwoofer in your system takes care of the base sounds.You might feel the house rumble a few times as a tank goes over a bunker in a war movie or a creaking floor board in the latest horror movie.

Whilst it is possible to create a home theater system with only three speakers in smaller rooms unless you add the surround and base speakers you will be missing out on so much. But don’t panic a good speaker system complete with a subwoofer will cost anything from $150 and upwards but a good set of speakers is essential for that great home cinema sound from your home theatre system!

Belinda Teska is a work at home mom and total home theater enthusiast she worked in conjunction with Joe Boyle to create “The guide to getting started with home theater” to get your copy click here.

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