How Home Theater Works

What Is Home Theater?

Home theater is difficult to define — it’s really just a vague term for a particular approach to home entertainment. Generally speaking, a home theater system is a combination of electronic components designed to recreate the experience of watching a movie in a theater. When you watch a movie on a home theater system, you are more immersed in the experience than when you watch one on an ordinary television.
To see how home theaters do this, let’s take a look at the original model — the movie theater. When it comes to picture and sound, the theater can offer an amazing experience we just don’t get at home. That’s usually why people will pay to go to the movies, even though renting a movie is cheaper. There are a few main components that make watching TV and going to the movies very different.

How Home Theater Works

  • One of the biggest differences is the sound experience. When you go to see a movie in a quality movie theater, you’ll hear the music, sound effects and dialogue not just from the screen, but all around you. If you’ve read How Movie Sound Works, you know that a standard movie theater has three speakers behind the screen — one to the right, one to the left and one in the center — and several other speakers spread out in the rest of the theater. In this surround sound system, you hear different parts of the soundtrack coming from different places. When somebody on the left side of the screen says something, you hear it more from the left speaker. And in a movie like “Star Wars,” you hear a rumbling swoosh travel from the front of the theater to the rear as a spaceship flies toward the camera and off the screen. You are more involved in the experience of watching a film because the world of the movie is all around you.
  • The second chief component of the theater experience is the large size of the movie screen. In a theater, the screen takes up most of your field of view, which makes it very easy to lose yourself in the movie. After all, you’re sitting in the dark with only one thing to look at, and everything you’re looking at seems much bigger than life.
  • We also enjoy going to the movies because we can see everything so well. Film projectors present very large, clear pictures. The detail is much sharper than what we see on an ordinary 19-inch television, and the movement is much more fluid. We may not consciously recognize this, but it does make a significant difference in how we enjoy a movie. When we can see more detail, we are more engrossed in the world of the movie.

The basic idea of a home theater is to recreate these elements with home equipment. In the next section, we’ll look at an overview of what you need to get started.

What Do You Need?

In the last section, we saw that the major components of a movie-theater experience are a large, clear picture and a surround-sound system. To build a home theater, then, you need to recreate these elements. At the bare minimum, you need:

  • A large-screen television (at least 27 inches across, measured diagonally) with a clear picture
  • At least four speakers
  • Equipment for splitting up the surround-sound signal and sending it to the speakers
  • Something that plays or broadcasts movies in surround sound, preferably with a clear picture

And, of course, you’ll need a room where you can arrange all this stuff.
There are any number of ways you can meet these criteria. In the end, your home theater system depends on how much money you’re willing to spend and how important certain areas of performance are to you.
If you’re not looking to spend much money and already have a good-sized television and a stereo system, you can upgrade your entertainment system into a fairly crude home theater with a couple of extra speakers and a few other inexpensive components (see Accessing the Surround Channel to find out how). If you invest in a basic surround-sound system and a new DVD player, you might spend $500. For a more advanced system, with a larger television and an advanced sound system, you might spend about $8,000. For $30,000, you could set up a real theater, with a projection television, built-in speakers and bolted theater seats (and maybe a concession stand).
In the following sections, we’ll look at the different options for televisions, surround-sound receivers, speakers and video sources. We’ll find out the advantages and disadvantages of different types of equipment, as well as the price range and long-term benefits. We’ll also look at some of the extra components you can add to put the finishing touches on your home theater system.

For more detail: How Home Theater Works


About The Author

Ibrar Ayyub

I am an experienced technical writer holding a Master's degree in computer science from BZU Multan, Pakistan University. With a background spanning various industries, particularly in home automation and engineering, I have honed my skills in crafting clear and concise content. Proficient in leveraging infographics and diagrams, I strive to simplify complex concepts for readers. My strength lies in thorough research and presenting information in a structured and logical format.

Follow Us:
LinkedinTwitter

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top