Home Theater Fundas

Flat panels. These are of two types – LCD (liquid crystal display) and plasma. Which one is better is an age-old debate – it will be covered in a future feature; right now it must be understood that the two are very different digital video technologies.

Whatever HDTV you have, it will have these connections: Component video, HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), Composite and S-video for the video from the DVD players. Besides the video connections, there are audio outputs and inputs – not so important unless you want to take the audio out from the cable reception and connect it to your sound system. As we just learned in the previous page, you can play it in surround sound, even though it is in simple stereo. A PC input (D-sub) is also provided so that you can use the screen as your monitor if required.

Projectors are the other side of the coin in the display section of your home theater. Prices can vary widely, but there are mainly two types, viz. DLP (digital light processing) and LCD. DLP is considered to have more saturation and contrast. Projectors come with a burden of something known as 'lamp life', which means the lamp is going to go off, maybe sooner than you think if you don’t maintain your projector. Another thing is you need to be in a dark room for most of the models. But all said and done, it’s the ultimate style of viewing, as the screen size can be larger than your wildest expectations. If set correctly, the image quality is brilliant too.

Another important terminology common in the home theater space is the aspect ratio. This is simple - it’s the ratio of the width of the display screen to the height, thus 4:3 (1.33:1) and 16:9 (1.78:1) are physical attributes of screens and depicted images. There are slight variations in aspect ratios, e.g. TVs offer features of 2.85:1 (this is a movie film ratio), widescreen, full zoom etc. For all these, it's the TVs' circuitry that does the work of resizing. Just remember to look at the back of the DVD case and match your TV's aspect ratio setting accordingly, or your images may appear stretched or clipped off.