Home Intertainment | How to Concep for Home Theatre System (HTS) Part I

Wouldn't it be nice to simulate the cinema or concert experience right in the comfort of your home? You no longer need to be the first in the queue to book choice seats. Rushing to meet someone before screening starts becomes a thing of the past. All these conveniences and more are made possible by advances in Home-Theatre Systems (HTS) technology. You and your loved ones can simply sit back and enjoy a well-deserved home design movie break!

This articles is aimed to provide you with an overview of what a HTS is, guidelines for making informed purchasing decisions, and pointers for doing up your Home Intertainment decor to maximise the home theatre experience.

Home Entertainment Accessories

What is a Home-theatre System (HTS)?

A complete home-theatre system (HTS) is a combination of an audio system and a video system. A good quality audio system provides realistic, clear and "full-bodied" playback of film sound tracks or music recordings. A good quality video system provides clear, sharp and true-to-life images. A well-matched HTS gives you an audiovisual experience that closely matches what you'll experience at a theatre, concert or music hall. The recorder media you can use for playback include cassette tapes, phono records, VHS tapes, CDs, laserdiscs, DVDs, TV and radio programs.

A proper audio system will consist of an Audio-Video (A/V) receiver and a set of 5 loudspeakers. Three of them are placed at the front of the listening position, and are generally called the Left, Center and Right loudspeakers respectively. Two of them are placed by the side of the listening position, and are generally termed the Surround Left and Surround Right speakers. The sixth speaker, called the subwoofer, is optional. It can be placed anywhere in the same room. A subwoofer is great for producing bass the explosions, car crashes, "booms", loud thuds etc.

Home Entertainment Audio System

A video system can be a simple TV set, preferably a wide-screen one. If you want better picture quality and/or a wider viewing area, choose the more sophisticated rear-or front-projectors.

A minimum HTS configuration should include :

*An A?V Receiver (a single chassis containing a preamplifier, 5 power-amplifier channels, AM/FM tuner and Dolby Surround decoder)

* A set of 5 speakers (Left, Centre, Right, Surround Left and Surround Right Loudspeakers)

* A VCR with Hi-Fi tracks

* A Video Monitor (which is usually your exiting TV set) 

A more high-end HTS configuration includes:

* Separately housed preamplifiers and power-amplifiers

* A set of 6 speakers (the 6th being the subwoofer)

* A VCR with Hi-Fi tracks

* A Wide-screen front-projector or rear-projector

* Laserdisc player

*DVD machine

* The latest audio and video decoder standards

Home Entertainment Cabinet Design

How to Choose a HTS?

The audio system will decide, to a greater degree than the video system, how enjoyable and memorable your home-theatre experience will be. Buy a high quality audio system that is within your budget and it may not be necessary for too many fancy, in-built audio features on a TV set because your audio system will do a much better job playing back sound tracks.

Apart from budget, choose an audio and video system that you're comfortable using on a daily basis. If complicated-looking controls, features and options cause you to enjoy your self! So be honest with your own technical aptitude and preference for hands-on finetuning. 

Home Entertainment Design Ideas

To test video playback capabilities, view the pictures from different distances and angles. During a demo, don't be afraid to ask questions and try out different functions. If you are not completely convinced that you are getting a system of you liking, try out other demos!

HTS & Your Interior

First-time owners of HTS sometimes do not get the maximum from their systems because they do not know how to tune the various settings for optimal sound and video reproduction. Or they might not know how to layout their home for the best possible sonic visual effects.

In order to achieve maximum enjoyment from home theatre experience, HTS specialists should work together with interior designers and home owners in the design incorporation so that the basic principles of acoustics, wiring and illumination can be fully appreciated.

Read also the article about HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT CARPET FOR YOUR HOME

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