Why it's cool

Tired of crowds, baby-sitters and waiting in line? Why buy a ticket when you can own the theater? With new technologies like HDTV and Dolby Digital® surround sound, you can have a theater in your home that rivals the best cinema in town.

A properly set up Home Theater will deliver all the potential of movies on DVD and HD cable or satellite — quality you're probably missing.

You'll be able to experience movies at home the way the filmmaker intended, with film-quality images and cinema quality sound.

Whether you dedicate a room or have your theater in a family room or den, you can create an experience that your whole family will enjoy.

How it works

The goal of Home Theater is to recreate the cinema experience in the comfort of your home. It requires more than just a big TV and surround sound.

There are two main parts of Home Theater: sound and pictures. The sound is actually the most important part because it creates the most engaging effect — the feeling that you're actually in the environment on the screen.

The standard for Home Theater surround sound is Dolby Digital®. It's far superior to its predecessor, Dolby Pro Logic. It delivers clearer dialog and a more realistic sense of atmosphere. It's sometimes referred to as 5.1 because there are 5 full range channels of sound plus another channel dedicated to low frequency effects, called LFE.

High quality surround sound requires a Dolby Digital processor (part of an A/V receiver or preamplifier), 5 speakers, a sub-woofer, and amplification for the speakers. The processor decodes the surround sound information from the DVD, HDTV, satellite or cable broadcast then sends the signal to the amplifier and on to the speakers.

The left, center, and right front speakers reproduce on-screen action: dialog, music, and sound effects like left to right motion. The two rear speakers create the 3D effect — the illusion of space. They're essential to creating front to back motion effects like jet aircraft fly-overs. Finally, a sub woofer (sometimes more than one) is used to reproduce the LFE: the very low sounds of explosions or earthquakes.

The placement of the speakers in your room is critical to the over-all effect. So is the character of your floors, walls and ceiling (hard surfaces reflect sound, soft surfaces absorb it).

Believe it or not, properly addressing the shape and character of your room can have a greater effect on the quality of home theater sound than buying better equipment.

It's easy for professional home theater designers to predict many aspects of how a room will sound — before the system is even installed! They can recommend seating positions, speaker placement, and acoustical treatments that dramatically improve the home theater experience.

Creating film-like images for Home Theater can be achieved on screen sizes from 32" to 10' or more. Direct-view televisions (CRTs), rear projection TVs, flat panel displays (LCD and plasma), and video projectors can all be used, but quality varies greatly among different models and brands. The best pictures are created through a combination of high resolution, accurate geometry, and proper color, contrast, and brightness settings. (Having your set professionally setup is worth the money.)

The choice of video display depends on the size and shape of the room, ambient light conditions, viewing distance, and the seating arrangement.

Most people are comfortable at a viewing distance that is 1.6 to 3.0 times the screen width.

Ease of use is key to a great Home Theater experience. Nobody wants to use 4 or 5 different remotes to control the various pieces of equipment. Adding a programmable remote control to simplify operation is an investment that will pay off immediately. They can be small hand held units with buttons or touch screens or large colorful touch screens that provide feedback from the system as you control it. Some can even deliver video and Internet access.

Automated lighting and window coverings complete the home theater experience and it's easy to control these 'atmosphere' elements with your system controller. You can literally press a single button to close the drapes, dim the lights, turn all the gear on and start the movie.