Home Theater Myths: Part One

Myth: Buying an HDTV will improve our cable TVs quality
It won't. Our cable in India is in standard def, thus on our LCDs and plasmas they will be displayed the way they are - stretched to fit of course. Abroad, there are over the air broadcasts available in HD, plus subscribing to HD channels is picking up. It is not yet in our country, so we still have MPEG2 broadcasts, of standard PAL definition. This is also true about the new Set top boxes out by Airtel, Hathway, Tata etc. The HDTV obviously will 'upscale' (read previous myth) to its native display, but that will not be some magic. It looks ordinary most of the time, sometimes worse than it would on a non-HDTV, good old CRT set.

Myth: The more expensive the speaker, the better it will sound
This is one of the most hilarious ones ever, and if you truly love audio, you'll know. The PC industry is more accurate as we can test and benchmark all the specs easily with software. But Audio speakers and home theater systems come with so much claim that it gets hazy, and expensive for sure. The niche of floor standing speakers, bookshelves, amplifiers etc. is brimming with too many brands, most of them great no doubt, but many a time you are paying for a feature or specification that is completely baseless. Unbiased reviews must be read thoroughly. Don't just flip through the specs.