The Perfect Party

Organizing a party can be a relatively thankless task, when you get down to the point of planning the night’s entertainment. However, a home theater can really bring the best out of your planning, as it allows you to link together so many different modes of entertainment. Planning the perfect party is something that becomes easier when you have access to a good home theater, and this is a major selling point for much of the equipment on offer.

Because it can be hooked up to a stereo system, a home computer or both, the home theater makes it a lot easier to set up the right music for the evening. Using an MP3 player, you can set up a playlist that is perfect for dancing, mingling or anything else – including watching sport. You don’t need to mess around with changing CDs and lose the ambience of the evening. And when the time comes, you can change to running a movie on the big screen, or start a video game contest.

Whatever you are looking to get from the party, there is a way to involve the home theater. If you have enough technical knowledge then you can switch seamlessly between phases of the party and actually enjoy it yourself rather than having to play the joint role of party planner and host as well as being a reveller. At the end of the night, all you need do is switch off the computer from which the phases were run and, although it will not clear up after your guests, it will make the post-party process more bearable.

Home Theaters For The Sports Fan

Much of the discussion about home theaters centers on how good they are for watching films, but they are greatly adaptable. This, after all, is one of their major selling points. Even if you aren’t much into films, a home theater can be a very good investment for other reasons – for example, if you are a sports buff. Although for most sports fans, there is nothing to compare with actually being at the game, there is definitely an advantage to being able to watch them in the setting of a home theater.

Whatever your preferred sport, there is something wonderful about watching a contest on a big screen. Football fans will always relish seeing a perfect pass or a crunching tackle shown in close-up on a big screen, while soccer fans can really get the benefit of seeing a goal scored and hear the full crowd reaction and almost feel as though they were at the game. If it is a boxing match you are watching on the big screen, then the sights and sounds become a lot more real the larger they become.

Even golf fans can get the benefit of watching their preferred sport on a bigger screen as you can see the ball a lot more easily and the contrast between rough, fairway and green is all the more visible. There is not a single sport with nothing to gain from being watched in a home theater, and this is what makes it so enthralling for the sports fan.

Starting With A Small Step

Putting together a home theater is something that can be done in stages, or all in one go. People with enough money, or the time to dream about what they would do if they did, may well sit and put together a plan for their perfect home entertainment system, but for others it may be something that happens bit by bit. If you want the perfect home entertainment system but do not have the money to immediately make it a reality, then you may find that starting with the basics is a good way to go.

A home theater needs at least two things to make it more than your run of the mill video entertainment system. It needs a DVD player and a TV of significant size. Otherwise what you have is simply a TV and DVD combo and with the best will in the world that is not a home entertainment system. So you can start with the DVD player and a big screen TV, and then think about what you want to add as you go along. The next thing on most people’s list will be an upgrade on the speakers that came with the TV.

As you go along, you can co-opt more hardware into the system. For example, hitching up a laptop computer will allow you to run programs from your computer through the system. A slide show or presentation can be put on the big screen, or more interestingly you can run downloaded music videos or graphic displays that move in time to music. As you go along, you can add still more bits and pieces. A games console, a telecommunications system, whatever you want. This is your project.

Who Needs a Home Theater?

Home theaters can cost a lot of money to put together, and they are not within the reaches of everyone. Even an equivalent put together using the cheapest parts – a medium-sized TV, a basic DVD player and some cheap speakers – can be a financial stretch for a family. However, if you have the money then a home theater system can be the equivalent of a child’s favorite toy – one with endless add-ons and adaptability. It is not so much a matter of need as something you want – and a good home theater is certainly a desirable acquisition.

If you like films, then there is no doubt that a home theater makes the process of watching a movie more enthralling. The little bits that you might miss on a normal TV, you will catch on a projection screen. The sound quality, which on a standard TV and video/DVD combo will allow you to pick up dialog and certain other noises, will allow you to catch the little nuances that can really make for a virtuoso performance. Remember that most movies are made with the cinema in mind, so a decent home theater can give you the viewing experience that was originally intended.

To set up a fully-functioning cinema in your home is the kind of thing that only millionaires can really think about doing seriously. But the next best thing, a home theater package, is something that is achievable if you know enough about what you are doing and have the finances to put it into action. It is something that you can do bit by bit, too, so it may be worth thinking about that.

How Gaming Fits Into A Home Theater

The most complete home theaters will involve more than just the combination of a DVD player, some speakers and a TV screen of any size. What you put into your own home theater is a matter for you and your own preferences. It may contain a great deal of different add-ons, of which one or more might be used for gaming. Although gaming is something that can be enjoyed very easily by one person using a console and a small TV, there can be a benefit to including a gaming platform in your home theater system.

Many gamers like to arrange games nights where a large group of people get together and play off against one another in one or more games. With the bigger screen and greater sound diversity included in a home theater, these games can be more enjoyable for the player and even take on a lot of interest for the spectator. The more you can see, the more you can react to and with the developments being made in gaming technology this can add a whole new dimension to the play, to the point where it can change your decisions entirely.

Particularly with the existence of SCART switch boxes on the market, the number of different machines you can hook up to a home entertainment system has grown over the years and it means that there are now fewer set-up issues with switching between using the system for gaming, music, movies and other purposes as and when you wish.

Plug and Play or Mix and Match?

It is undoubtedly true that people who buy home theater equipment have different needs and different levels of knowledge for the products that they are buying. As with many other things, you can pay for a package deal which only requires you to put the finishing touches in place, or you can go for component parts and put them together yourself. It’s like buying ready made lasagne or the pasta sheets, ground beef, tomatoes, cheese and sauce ingredients. You may be paying for convenience, but what are you losing in the process?

It is possible these days to buy a home theater in a box which, depending on the package you buy may well include hardware such as a DVD player and even the TV and other players that you want. What you are paying for here is the simplicity of being able to plug and play, but what you might lose is the technical perfection that could be achieved by looking for the best parts and putting them together yourself. In the end, mixing and matching your way might end up costing more than the convenient way, but you set the ceiling yourself.

If you simply want a system that can and will play movies, music and other add-ons of your specification, then buying the kit in a box might be the soundest option. If, however, you want something that conforms to your tastes perfectly it is always going to be better to research your needs and put things together yourself.

Making The Connection

Putting together a home theater is in many ways a bit like playing with Lego bricks. You start with some bits and pieces, and can add them together, and add to them, in such a way as to make something else. For many people, this is something that constitutes a hobby. Getting the best from your home entertainment system is a subjective matter – what you want from your home theater may be different from what other people would want, so it’s not just about the “best home theater”, but the one that works for you.

Your home theater may well be different from the one your neighbor would put together, for example. It will depend on what you want to showcase using it. It is a good idea to link up a home PC or a laptop if, for example, you want to use it to provide music at parties. From the PC you can put together a playlist that will make the party go with a swing. Your neighbor, however, might not care for music and might prefer to play documentaries – nature films, for example, which show the Bengal tiger in all its majesty. His interest, then, should be in getting the best TV to showcase light and shade.

A lot of the technical knowledge involved in constructing your preferred home theater will depend on technical differences such as these. If you are prepared to spend enough money you can put together a home theater that works equally well for movies, music, sports and potentially for video games too. But it will certainly require a lot of equipment which will not come cheap.

Do Old Movies Look Right On New Technology?

Spending a lot of money on installing a home theater is a way of experiencing new films in the way the director intended them to be enjoyed, but not everybody likes new movies. For the classicist, is there a danger that investing in new technology will take some of the spirit of the older movies they like? Certainly there has been some debate over the remastering of older movies for broadcast on newer technology, and whether this strips away the authenticity of the show – but is this a justifiable complaint or the gripe of someone looking for something to complain about?

In many ways, it depends on the movie you are watching. Some directors of old, aware of the limitations of technology, very cleverly played on those very limitations to provide a more stripped-down film which could be all the more stark or realistic for its basic quality. If we watch a remastering of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, will we be disappointed by how obvious it is that that “blood” is actually chocolate syrup? Does the increase of realism damage the suspension of disbelief?

It is hard to give a full answer one way or the other for whether the newer technology damages the experience of older movies, because once we have seen the film for the first time we are never seeing it as new, and knowing what has happened we will always look for more peripheral details. In the end it is the job of the person remastering recordings for newer technology to retain the spirit of the film, as it is not possible to go back and reshoot the film to suit the newer developments.

Does A Home Theater Take The Soul Out Of Entertainment?

Most of us will be young enough to have got much of our youthful enjoyment from watching movies, and old enough to have spent much of that time watching them on video. This has brought about a special kind of nostalgia which yearns for the old movie nights which involved playing a few VHS cassettes of the latest releases and huddling around a TV screen about the size of, or little bigger than, a microwave oven. One of the most common complaints about newer technology is that it is soulless. Is this fair?

One thing that cannot be denied is that some of the charm of watching a film on video was its “cosy” aspect. As the viewers naturally had to be positioned closer together in order to see the screen, everyone got much the same experience. Pausing the film pretty much caused the picture to jump so much you expected it to fly off the screen, and if you got the freeze frame at just the right point this could be particularly amusing. Now with crystal clear pictures and perfect pausing, some of that is gone.

On the other hand, there were certain elements of films made for cinema that got lost when they were watched on video, due to the compromised sound and pictures. Although the old-fashioned charm of watching movies on video may have been reduced by technology, the fact of the matter is that digital technology has allowed for some of the soul which was lost on video to be regained.

How 3D TV Fits In A Home Theater

The world has been advancing technologically since before most of us were born but it may seem like the concept of advancing technology is a recent thing. The reason for this seems to be the rate of progress. We are scarcely digesting the magic of big-screen high-definition TV and all of a sudden the next big thing is arriving. For fans of technological wizardry the big talking point in the middle of 2010 is the magic of 3D TV. It may seem like a kitschy throwback to the 3D technology of the 80s, but the technology is now so advanced that it is a world apart.

Many people are a little circumspect about paying for a 3D TV for a very good reason. At the present time, spending all the money it takes to get the most advanced technology is like paying for a statue of yourself – you’ve shown you have a lot of disposable income, but there is nothing to appreciate that you haven’t seen more than a few times already. Most TV shows and films are not made for the purposes of 3D viewing, so once you’ve watched the promotional DVD that came with the television itself, there are limits to its use.

This is of course set to change. One thing that the past few years have shown is that the creative side of an industry develops to meet the technology available. Some movies are already being made in 3D and TV companies are launching dedicated 3D channels. Sports are now being broadcast using the technology, too, and although it’s not just like being at the game, it does add something to the experience.

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