Over the last year the industry has been touting 1080p as “Full HD”. Giving the false presumption that you’re not getting the entire HD signal or worse yet, confusing consumers into thinking that anything not 1080p isn’t worth getting.

The old adage of “you pay for what you get” couldn’t be more true than it is in the home theater market today. With prices being slashed dramatically on large/big screen TVs the lure of getting the biggest screen at the smallest price is tempting, but you may regret it over time, as the reliability of the cheapest TVs may be questionable.

It goes without saying that Audiophiles love great sound quality. These are enthusiasts who can hear the audio differences that equipment and speakers can make. For these people, the MP3 format is downright crap, and many lump in the MP4 format used by default within iTunes/iPod (AAC encoding) with the sound quality of MP3, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The MP4 format can sound every bit as good or close enough to CD quality playback. Just don’t expect an iPod to do it for you if you’re an audiophile.

There’s been a growing trend to have home theater equipment act like computers, which also imparts the lack of reliability, glitches, and incompatibility normally associated with the computer industry.

There are some major changes happening in the world of TV service providers. Telephone companies, the world over, are heavily investing into providing TV service via broadband Internet connections, the new service technology is called IPTV. Over time, the Cable companies will have some stiff competition to their service offering. With telephone company provided DSL broadband being the most affordable broadband Internet solution, the telephone companies already have an “in” to many homeholds.

A home theater not only does movies, music, and TV well, but can provide an awesome gaming experience as well. The downside is that those who want to do a considerable amount of gaming need to be careful about which display technology they choose.

Consumer forums are a great resource to get the low down on home theater gear you’re looking at, and tips and tricks to get the best from what you have. Keep in mind that these are consumer forums – regular people who have an interest in talking about home theater. Just like any conversation about home theater, they’re not always right.

They’re the bane of any consumer that gets into home theater. With the great technological prowess of consumer electronics to bring the movie theater experience home, comes the unwieldy pile of remotes needed to control it all. They can all be replaced by the coveted universal remote that offers the nirvana of full control via a single remote and with so many different remotes out there it can be hard to find best one.

Since DLP came out about 5 years ago it has never offered better picture quality than CRT driven rear-projection TVs. Despite this, most manufacturers over the last three years have all but dumped CRT rear-projection TVs from their lineup in favor of DLP technology which offers a much brighter image and thinner form factor, but suffered from color issues and the nausea inducing “rainbow effect” from the spinning color wheel employed to produce color.

Consumer Alert!
CES happened and the format war has played out in the high-definition DVD market, with HD-DVD in one corner and Blu-ray in the other, each touting certain technological reasons why their format is better. At the show each group launched their product release dates and specs, and while everyone in the media’s focus has been on the format war, few have looked at the heavy-handed copy protection schemes employed by both formats.

We home theater enthusiasts read a lot of magazines, web sites, and message boards about home theater. I was dismayed while reading some of the industry leading magazines as they were ripping the truthfulness of online content about home theater.

I while ago I was at a bar with a few friends and acquaintances thereof. One of my close friends is always bellowing about how great my home theater is. Another home theater buff whom my friend had obviously known and previously talked to about the matter comes up to me and questions me…

#1 – The New iPods, The Best Made Better ($200 – $400)
The iPod was and is the #1 portable music player in the world and with good reason. Only Apple has seamlessly integrated the interface, music management, connection, and music store into an effortless cohesion of what would otherwise be four completely separate applications.

Home theaters come in all shapes and sizes depending on the room, personal desire, budget, and a host of many other factors. Most would assume that unless you have a big screen and surround sound you don’t have a home theater. That’s simply not true. You could have a 27-inch TV, sit in the optimal viewing range, and use a pair of stereo speakers to bring home theater nirvana to your room.

Thanks to the boom of home theater over the last 15 years, families across America are enjoying an unprecedented movie experience at home. While many of us gear geeks out there gripe over issues with new display technologies and various trends in audio and video, it’s good to step back and look at the big picture. Quite simply, many people are in a state of “home theater bliss” and that’s a great thing.

After getting your home theater where you want with components, wiring, and setup comes the best part of home theater nirvana: no longer worrying about all that stuff and simply enjoying the fruits of your labors (that is, if your tweaking/upgrading bug has run its course).

There’s a general push not just by the computer industry, but also broadband providers, to provide services wherein a PC is used to provide content and control the experience of a home theater. In essence, the goal is to replace all the components that make up home theater with a computer that would handle all the functions aside from the display and speakers.

With the vacation season now in full swing it’s great to get away. While you’re all out and about enjoying different places, or hanging out with distant friends, there’s plenty to keep you busy while on vacation. When it comes time to watch a movie on a normal TV at the hotel or vacation house it can become quite clear that you’re going to have to cleanse your home theater palette when you get home.

Over the last year, and especially over the last few months, shopping for a new big screen TV has changed dramatically. The once venerable CRT Rear-Projection technology has been very much removed from the marketplace even though it offers better picture quality and cheaper prices than the new digital technologies such as Plasma, DLP, and LCD.

The main presumption is that surround sound and big screen TVs are high tech items that only men are really interested in, but the truth is that women love home theater too. Take the Consumer Electronics Association’s numbers that over 50% of consumer electronics shoppers are women and you see that home theater isn’t gender bias and why should it be.

Audiophiles are a quirky bunch. Being one, I know the path of audio nirvana and how it takes you over, and only by experiencing the musical nuance and appreciation that comes with such snobbery does one know or “get” what it is that us audiophiles are talking about. It’s why we’re willing to shell out major cash for audio systems that pump out the best possible sound quality, and research every setup tweak and enhancement possible to eek out the most performance from our high priced audio systems.

I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to people’s homes to see them have the most awesomely capable system components and TV, just to have the seating location ruin the whole experience. It’s not to say their seats are uncomfortable (some are), but rather just placed awkwardly in relation to viewing the TV.

DLP technology has evolved over the last few years to become a great force in digitally driven TV display technology. While LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) promises color fidelity comparable to that CRT driven displays and a much higher resolution of 1080p, companies such as Intel have failed to make LCoS a consumer reality. DLP, in the meantime, has been evolving and through that time companies have reduced DLPs shortcomings to make it into a very promising technology for home theater displays, projectors, and commercial theater use.

With the continual cheapening of many consumer electronics components to extremely low prices, consumers should be wary this holiday season. The old adage of “you pay for what you get” couldn’t be truer today. In the late 90s it was hard to actually find a piece of crap component due to the demanding home theater hobbyists refusing to buy anything that was rated as garbage. Now with the influx of home theater hobbyists spanning across more and more people, the cheapening of the lower end of consumer electronics is in full swing, and an ill-informed consumer may not know what they’re really getting.

With the plethora of options and technologies when buying a big screen TV it may come a surprise that consumers purchasing smaller direct view TVs in the $700-$1600 range actually face a much tougher decision when buying a TV.

The Home Theater industry has changed quite a bit over the last few years.  The following is the state of the major components that create a home theater.

As far as picture quality and cost of maintenance go, CRT driven rear-projection TVs still reign supreme. Despite all the new technologies such as DLP, Plasma and improved LCD technology, CRTs still provide color quality and black level that the other technologies don’t come close to reproducing.

For all but the last few years, consumer electronics TVs consisted of continuously better products coming forward, and advances in new technologies bringing about better video quality than before. Today, with so many different technologies available, it’s hard not to go into the old mindset that the newest technologies are the most superior, but it’s not necessarily so.

As most any home theater enthusiast can attest, getting the perfect home theater goes well beyond just buying the equipment and setting it up properly. After the initial setup begins the hardest part of the final setup process, getting the best possible performance by tweaking speaker location, getting better cables, improving room décor and seating, and properly calibrating the audio and video settings.

It seems everyone has an opinion or two about home theater these days. In overhearing others speak, and reading magazines unrelated to home theater attempting to offer ill-advised nuggets of home theater knowledge, I’ve become more than upset at the rampant misinformation being spewed out into the consumers’ minds.