Installing a Home Theater

Written by Kenny Hemphill


Thinking about installing a home theater system? You’re not alone. Home theater is one ofrepparttar fastest growing areas areas in home entertainment andrepparttar 110053 advent of DVD recorders means your set-up can now be entirely digital, without an inch of video tape in site.

Installing a home theater is a big decision and requires careful planning. Luckily there are a number of resources around to help you and you needn’t be a technical expert or a hi-fi buff to getrepparttar 110054 job done.

One ofrepparttar 110055 first decisions you’ll need to make before you set about installing a home theater is whether your going to dedicate a whole room torepparttar 110056 theater or whether it will share a space with a lounge, dining room, or office. Having a dedicated room allows you to position seating and speakers inrepparttar 110057 optimum position and you can seriously consider a projector and screen without it looking as out of place as it might in your living room.

LCD v DLP projectors

Written by Kenny Hemphill


If you’ve been thinking about buying a home theater projector and read reviews or done a little bit of research, you’ll be aware that there are two technologies competing forrepparttar contents of your wallet.

Both LCD and DLP are used in projectors suitable for home theaters, but they work in quite different ways and produce slightly different results. If you ask around – particularly in electronics stores, you’re likely to be provided with a mass of information that’s confusing and often just plain wrong. So here, in an effort to clearrepparttar 110052 fog surrounding projectors, is our guide to LCD v DLP.

LCD

LCD projectors have three separate LCD panels, one for red, one for green, and one for blue components ofrepparttar 110053 image being processed byrepparttar 110054 projector. As light passess throughrepparttar 110055 LCD panels, individual pixels (or picture elements) can be either opened or closed to either allow light to pass through or be filtered out. In this wayrepparttar 110056 light is modulated and an image projected on torepparttar 110057 screen.

LCD projectors have historically had three main advantages over DLP. They produce more accurate colors (due torepparttar 110058 three separate LCD panels), they produce a slightly sharper image (although this is as good as undetectable when watching movies) and they are more light-efficient, which means they produce brighter images using less power.

However, LCD projectors also have some disadvantages, although asrepparttar 110059 technology improves these are becoming less and less relevant. The first of these is pixelation, or what’s known asrepparttar 110060 screen door effect. This means that sometimes you can seerepparttar 110061 individual pixels and it looks as though you are viewingrepparttar 110062 image through a ‘screendoor.’ The second historic disadvantage of LCD v DLP is that LCD doesn’t produce absolute black, which means that contrast is less than you would get with DLP.

However,repparttar 110063 advent of higher resoltion LCD projectors (particularly ‘HD-ready’ projectors which have a horizontal resolution of 768 pixels or greater) means that pixelation is less of a problem than it used to be. Andrepparttar 110064 improved ability of LCDs to produce high-contrast images is also allowing them to be taken more seriously by home theater enthusiasts.

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