Building a Home Theater - The Three Basic Components

Setting a complete movie theater in your home is something that is unachievable to anyone but the rich. However setting your own high definition home theater is accessible if you have a normal budget. All you really need to know is a little about the basic components of home theaters and be smart when it comes to shopping wisely.

A regular home theater is built around three basic components. The first one of these components is the television set. You may or may not already own an HDTV television but, a regular 27 inch 720p LCD high definition television set is not that expensive considering how prices on HDTV screens used to be. A set of this size will or even a little bigger will surely not cost much. For 1080p televisions the story is different. These are more expensive but you will be able to obtain easily a 32 inch 1080p set for under a thousand dollars. It all boils down to preference and budget.

The second very important element to any home theater is a BLU-RAY player. Regular DVDs are not able to store the huge amounts of data that movies in HDTV need and some may not even support progressive scan. It is all a matter of storage space. A regular BLU-RAY player is not that expensive. But, if you would like a high end model with tons of features then expect a higher price.

The third important component and one that is very essential for any home theater is speakers. To have a good surround sound effect and get the best possible experience you need a minimum of four directional speakers and a subwoofer. Two regular speakers are to be positioned at the sides of the television set, left and right respectively. The other two speakers should be placed where the viewers will be sitting. If possible, these speakers should be pointing to the back of the couch or any furniture that sits in the middle of the room. Since bass frequencies are not directional, the subwoofer can be placed anywhere on the room but not to close to the viewer so that it overshadows the sound from the directional speakers. An additional channel may be used as a center channel. This speaker if used ,should be pointing straight to the viewer and is responsible for better sound projection of dialogs and frontal sounds.

The basic setup for a home theater is not that expensive. However for bigger rooms a bigger budget may be necessary especially when it comes to speakers. In the end, if we take in to consideration the hours of fun that your family will enjoy not to mention the time spent together, a small home theater will surely be worth the investment.