Home Theater Fundas

The video player
Moving on you need the player to play your disc, and before we go further let me clear out one point: you can play all kinds of discs through almost all the available players these days. The ones available are universal players, which means they play all types of discs, be it MP3, Audio, VCD and others. Blu-ray players also have not yet caught on, but if you will be purchasing a player now, it will make sense to go in for one. Of course there is the PS3, which is my favorite Blu-ray player till date. Basically your HT system should be future ready. And if you’re a gamer, then keep clutching those controllers as your Xbox or PS3 can act as the source player of your HT.

The connections
Now comes the ugly part - the wires. The snake like irritating things that you trip on and spend hours figuring out what connects where. After the DVD player you start connecting your wires to the various components, and there are a couple of different methods to do so, basically using different types of wires. To go to your TV you can use composite, S-video, Component and HDMI (the new champion). HDMI is the best option, as it is digital and hassle free. These are just names. Each one is a newer and better type than the last. See the figure to find out how they look. The connections at the back of your DVD player and TV are the female versions of these connectors, check our Home theater conection guide to get a detailed explanation on connections. It's not difficult at all.

After the TV, you need to connect the DVD/Blu-ray player to the AV receiver (I’ll tell you what that is in a moment). Well, the best way is to use a coaxial or optical wire. Coaxial is a single thin one that is exactly the same as your composite or single component wire, just the transmission is different, its digital. One thing must be clear: you are sending the video to your TV and the audio to your AV receiver and that too digitally, which is good.