Our dream home theater system.

Our home theater system is a dream system right now but we have been doing some research on the different systems. The choices are many from what type of video monitor unit, dvd unit, receiver unit, speaker system to video service provider.

Ok before we start we need to understand a few technical terms and standards to know how to build a home theater system. This can be an easy home improvement project.

High Definition TV, HDTV, the new broadcast standard format for digital TV signals is ATSC for the USA and DVB for Europe and most of the rest of the world. HDTV also supports surround sound audio 5.1-channel.

The USA plans to stop broadcasting analog signals on Feb. 17, 2009 for large metropolitan areas, rural areas will still have analog signals. If you live in a rural area, check with your local TV stations to see if they are going to switch to digital broadcasting.

For those of us in the USA with a good analog TV set, we can still use our old TVs with the help of the "TV Converter Box Coupon Program" that allows USA house holds to obtain two $40.00 coupons which can be applied against the cost of an eligible converter box. Most new HDTVs come with a HD tuner built in.

HDTV systems are defined by three parameters, frames or fields per second, number of lines in the vertical display, and the scanning system.

The progressive p scanning system draws complete image per refresh frame. The interlaced i scanning system draws every other line first then fills in the other lines on a second pass per refresh frame.

A 1280 x 720 pixels and progressive scanning at 60 frames per second is called a 720p60 format. A 1920 x 1080 pixels and interlaced scanning at 50 frames per second is called a 1080i50. Some newer HDTVs boast of a 120 HZ or frames per second refresh rate.

The home theater video monitor needs to be sized for your viewing comfort and the size of your room that is the distance of the seating from the monitor. It needs to be placed at a height that is natural for you to look at, not too high and not to low, and can it easily be seen from all seats in the room.

Picking the best home theater receiver is a challenging effort. The price and quality varies from a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars. How do you pick the right one for your home. Well first you need to understand what all the receiver can do and what you need on how to build home theater.

What kind of sound system do you want? A stereo system or a surround sound system, if surround sound system, do you want a 5.1, 6.1 or 71. system. How large of a theater room do you have? You need to match the size of the system to your room.

Ok the wait is over Blu-ray has won. The cost of the Blu-ray DVD unit is still very expensive. It may be a year or so until the price of these units start to become more affordable.

Also in our area the Telephone company is adding fiber optic cable so that will be another choice for a distribution system of either fiber,cable or satellite.

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How would you design and build a high quality low cost home theater system and decorate a family room that is about 12 feet by 20 feet?

What components would or did you use, such as a TV monitor, receiver, speakers? What delivery system would you choose, cable, satellite, or fiber optic? How would you decorate and what kind of seating would you choose for the home theater room?

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