| Video Noise April 2001
Getting Started With Home Theater
The hardest thing about home theater is getting started.
Once you’re "in," it seems easier to absorb the new stuff and build a more
ideal system over the years. The paralysis that keeps people from making the first move is
responsible for a tremendous amount of wasted time that could be spent enjoying your home
theater with your family. Let’s see if we can help some fence sitters take the plunge
into their first home-theater system.
Last year home theater was the number two home-remodeling
desire of homeowners, beaten out only by kitchen remodeling. People seem willing to spend
rather large sums of money building a home theater that will serve the entire family.
It’s remarkably easy to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home
theater if you go the whole-hog route of replicating the entire theater environment with
tiered seating, box office, popcorn machine, motorized curtains over the screen, fancy
décor and all the possibilities that the home-theater industry offers these days. For
this article, however, starter systems will be the focus.
Ranking home-theater features
For starter systems, you want to get decent performance for
your money and you want to have as many of the "goodies" as is practical without
going overboard. The following rankings apply two criteria (averaged) to each home-theater
feature: 1) How important is the feature and how much will it be used; 2) How much
performance the feature will garner in the big scheme of things. These ratings will be a
generalization for average users. A "10" is a must-have feature. A "1"
makes little or no difference or will rarely be used. A "*" denotes ratings that
are dependent on your personal needs. These items will be very important for some people
and unimportant for other people. Remember while studying the ratings table that a
"10" does not represent "state of the art." It represents the features
you really don’t want to be without. 6.1/7.1 surround decoding is the current
"state-of-the-art" in home theater, but it is not widely implemented yet so 5.1
applications will get "10" with 6.1/7.1 features getting lower ratings simply
because they will not be used as much.
Surround-sound decoding modes in the audio/video
receiver
| Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding |
10 |
The default surround-sound mode
for DVD movies, you won’t find an A/V receiver without this. |
| DTS 5.1 decoding |
10 |
Arguably the best-sounding movie
surround format today, only available on a limited percentage of titles, usually has to be
manually selected from the DVD menu. |
| Dolby Pro Logic II |
7 |
Replaces Pro Logic and is much
improved, creates 5.1 surround sound from any stereo source… TV, VHS tapes, CDs, etc.
If the receiver has DTS Neo:6 but not Pro Logic II, you’ll have essentially the same
functionality. |
| DTS Neo:6 |
7 |
5.1 surround from stereo
sources…TV, VHS tapes, CDs, etc. this is the DTS equivalent to Pro Logic II and works
about as well. |
| THX Surround EX 6.1 or 7.1
decoding |
5 |
This feature adds decoding for
one or two speakers placed behind the listeners (rear-center). Still new, not many DVDs
available with this yet, but it could become more widely available in the future.
Sometimes works pretty well on DVDs which were not released with this feature. |
| DTS-ES 6.1/7.1 decoding |
4 |
Like THX Surround EX, this is
still new also. Few DVDs have been released with this feature, but the ones that have it
are enjoyable. May be more widely used in the future. Sometimes works well on DTS
soundtracks which were not specifically ES encoded. While DTS-ES arguably has better sound
quality than THX Surround EX, it is rated lower because of fewer DTS DVD titles being
available. |
| "Trick" sound modes
(Arena, Stadium, Club, Cathedral, etc.) |
2 |
Usually called DSP surround modes
because they are synthesized with a Digital Signal Processor. Sound quality is usually
below average because of the extra processing that has to be done to the signal. |
| Dolby Pro Logic |
* |
Universally included in receivers
these days, unnecessary if the receiver has Pro Logic II. |
Miscellaneous features of the receiver
| Remote control, not programmable |
10 |
|
| On-screen setup menus |
9.5 |
A huge difference when you need
to adjust the receiver and you cannot see the display on the receiver from where you are
seated. |
| Programmable remote control |
7 |
Allows use of one remote control
for everything, some can be complicated to use though. |
| AM/FM tuner/radio |
3 |
Will you really listen to the
radio in the home-theater room? |
| RF (radio frequency) remote
control |
3 |
Replaces infra-red, can go
through walls or doors, great if you need it and if it works well, but most people
won’t need it. |
| Tone Controls |
2 |
If you have selected good
components, you’ll never use these. |
| Multiple Digital Inputs |
* |
If a DVD player is the only
component you have with a digital connection, you only need one digital input. However,
there are a number of other components which may have digital audio connections: digital
cable TV boxes, digital satellite boxes, Mini-Disc players, CD recorders, CD player, CD
jukebox. The more of these devices you have, the more digital audio inputs you will want
to have. |
Receiver amplifier channels
| Five amplifier channels |
10 |
Most home theaters today have
five main speakers and most DVD movies released today have five main channels plus the
subwoofer channel (referred to as LFE for Low Frequency Effects). |
| Six or seven amplifier channels |
7 |
Get the additional amplifier
channels in the beginning and it will be easier to add one or two rear-center speakers
later. 6.1/7.1 is the current top-of-the-line home theater configuration. The rear-center
channel fills in a bit of a "hole" in the soundfield at the back of the room
making surround effects more convincing. There are not yet too many DVDs using the
rear-center channel, but some titles released without it still benefit from having the
rear-center channel operating. |
| Two amplifier channels |
6 |
A cost-saving trade-off, big
improvement over two TV speakers, great way to get into a "mini-theater." |
Loudspeakers
| Five matching speakers |
10 |
"Matched" means all
from one manufacturer, intended to be used together. |
| Six or seven matched speakers |
8 |
|
| Subwoofer |
8 |
May or may not "match"
the other five to seven speakers. |
| Two good speakers for a stereo
theater |
6 |
|
DVD player features
| Coaxial (RCA connectors) digital
output |
10 |
Almost always sounds better than
optical digital outputs on low-cost players. |
| Five-disc or other multi-disc
carousel |
6 |
Handy, but not necessary. A
luxury feature. |
| 5.1 decoding in the DVD Player |
1 |
If you have decoding in the
receiver, don’t pay for it again in the DVD player. |
| CD-R and/or CD-RW playback |
* |
Very important for some people,
not available in all DVD players. |
| Component video outputs |
* |
Best connection if your monitor
has component inputs, but many monitors do not. Three separate cable connections makes the
cables a little pricey. |
Home-theater accessories
| After-market speaker cables |
7 |
Big improvement over free cables
or lamp cord. |
| After-market digital cable for
DVD player |
7 |
Big improvement over the free
cable in the box with the DVD player. |
| After-market video cable |
7 |
Improvement over the free video
cable that comes with the DVD player. |
| CD player |
1 |
Your carefully selected DVD
player will play CDs just fine, and CD-R if you choose carefully. |
| Turntable |
* |
Only you can decide, most
receivers will accept many phono setups. |
| Audio cassette player |
* |
The cassette is dying. If you
have a bunch, connect one, otherwise forget it. |
The ratings in this table should help you decide which home
theater features are most important to you. When you know the features you want, the
confusion that sets in after reading sales literature and listening to sales pitches can
usually be avoided. Next month we will explore each type of entry-level system and what
level of performance each will reward you with. Stay tuned!
...Doug Blackburn
db@hometheatersound.com |
