The Complete Home Theatre Guide ? Part 1
The mention of Home Theatre conjures up an image of a huge LCD projection screen with massive speakers all around in an soundproof enclosed glass cabin in a super luxury home and with a price tag of Rs. 2, 00, 000 and above !
It need not be ! You can rig up a decent hi-tech hi-quality Home Theatre system for less than Rs.30, 000/- (at today?s prices which are heading downwards all the time)
Before we start:
What exactly is Home Theatre ?
Home Theatre is basically an integrated system for you to enjoy the theatrical audio-visual experience in the comfort of your home. This means viewing a hi-resolution big image movie along with real-effects sound. What really makes the difference is the Digital Surround Sound that enhances your viewing of a movie. The image of a fighter plane zooming from one side of the screen to the other is more enjoyable when the zoooooommmm?.. of the jet also moves from one side of the room to the other. The booooom of an avalanche is much more frightening when your floor actually starts vibrating and when the roarrrr?.. of the Dinosaur from the sub-woofer resonates in your ear and you jump out of your sofa?? you know you have a good Home Theatre!
So what goes into a home theatre? The following are the ?components? of a Home Theatre System :
The TV for viewing the movie.
The DVD player to play the movie.
The Audio receiver / decoder with speakers to listen to the soundtrack.
The media (DVD disk) to play.
All the connecting stuff.
Before we go ahead let us discuss some terminology so that the salesperson who is making a pitch to you doesn?t sound as if he is talking Greek and Latin.
DVD : DVDs (short for nothing - yes there is no official expansion of the abbreviation and the expansion Digital Versatile Disk is incorrectly used commonly) are CD ROM sized disks which can hold upto 8 hours of Movie audio/video at near-studio-quality video and better-than-CD-quality audio.
VCD : Video Compact Discs : The common VCD can hold upto 74 to 80 minutes of a movie in stereophonic sound. The quality of a very good VCD is about the same as a Video tape movie but VCD is usually a bit more blurry. Most VCDs can be played in almost all DVD players but not vice-versa i.e DVDs cannot be played in VCD players. VCDs cannot playback Digital Surround Sound.
NTSC / PAL : These are different TV video formats NTSC is prevalent in the US and PAL in the rest of the world. So a DVD produced in the US would be formatted for NTSC output. Thus your TV should be able to display both the formats to enable you to view DVDs from any region.
Surround Sound: This is what sets the Home Theatre apart from a regular TV. The audio signal from the DVD containing Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS soundtrack is split into multiple Channels (six in the case of Surround Sound 5.1) by the audio receiver and fed to speakers distributed around the room after being decoded by the decoder.
Dolby Surround is a matrix encoding process that in essence combines the Left, Center, Right, and Surround channels onto a single stereo track.
Dolby Pro Logic is a matrix decoder that decodes the four channels of surround sound from a Dolby Matrix encoded stereo track, such as VHS HiFi tapes, Stereo CD, A Pro Logic decoder extracts the four channels on playback.
Dolby Pro Logic II is an advanced matrix decoder that derives five-channel surround (Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround) from any stereo track (2 Channel). This can just simulate Dolby Digital Surround Sound but cannot deliver actual Surround 5.1 sound
Digital Surround 5.1 is the latest in multi-channel delivery. 5.1-channel soundtracks that can be heard on most movies either on DVDs or in theatres. This a discrete system that keeps the multiple channels fully separated throughout the encoding and decoding processes. In addition to having full-range Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround channels, Digital Surround 5.1 soundtracks carry a sixth (?.1?) channel recorded with low-frequency effects (those bass rumbles and booms you feel as well as hear in a well-equipped cinema).
Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS Digital : These are two proprietary digital surround sound formats (like a .doc and .pdf document) from different companies. Dolby Digital 5.1 (or DD) from Dolby Labs is more common in the US. DTS is the Digital Theatre System (DTS Surround Sound) found in most theatres. The 5.1 refers to the 5 surround speakers (three in the front and two in the rear) and the sixth (.1) ?Low Frequency Effects? channel, which is a sub-woofer speaker. DTS sound quality is a little better than Dolby Digital since the sound signal is less compressed in DTS. The next generation of Dolby Digital EX (6.1) and DTS ES with six surround speakers and a sub-woofer are compatible with 5.1 systems. Dolby ProLogic is a outdated 2.1 format.
RMS output : Do not get fooled by a high RMS output of a system. Louder does not mean better quality. You can get very good quality and more than sufficient sound out of 100 Watt speakers.
THX ? THX is just a certification from LucasFilms (yes of StarWars fame), which certifies the individual components and the whole integrated theatre system. Getting a THX certified system would make a very big whole in your pocket so forget it.
Audio Outputs :
5.1 channel Audio outputs: This is a set of six analog outputs, one for each of the channels (left front, center front, right front, left rear, right rear and subwoofer). The DVD player decodes the Dolby Digital / DTS signal and uses its own decoder to output an analog signal. These are the outputs you’ll need to use if you are hooking the DVD player up to a ’’Dolby Digital ready’’ receiver.
Coaxial / Optical Digital Audio Outputs : These outputs provide the highest-quality audio. They send the digital sound information to the receiver for decoding. You can use either one of these if you have a Dolby Digital / DTS receiver
Stereo outputs (Composite Analog Audio) These outputs (red and white for Left and Right) carry only the stereo music signal. You would use these if you were hooking your DVD player up to a TV that has only two speakers
Video Outputs :
S-Video : This is a type of Video connection that gives the best quality of distortion free output when connecting your DVD player to the TV. Your DVD player and TV should have S-Video out and S-Video in respectively connected by an S-Video Cable.
Composite (Analog) Video : The other alternative is to use the default Composite Video connector (The yellow plug cable in the Red/White/Yellow cable set).
Component Video : These high end connectors (colored Red, Blue and Green) give superb quality but are available only in very High-end Television sets
Continued in The Complete Home Theatre Guide ? Part 2
(which is in ’Comments on this Review’ section below)