In a perfect world we would just hire a home theater specialist to come over to our house in the morning. In the evening, when we get home, at the end of the day, we have the perfect home theater system. It would consist of all brand new state of the art top of the line components. On the coffee table there would be one easy to use remote control. The remote control would control the 3D television, the Stereo, the Blue Ray player, as well as adjust all the sound levels in our new 12:1 system sound system.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. We do not have an unlimited supply of money to put into our home theater system. Many people whom I have talked with have a cookie cutter living room. In that living room is a out of the box system.
I know football season is here. It is only going to get more exciting as the season progresses. For football season it would be really nice to upgrade to my current home theater system before the playoffs. So here is some relativitly low cost ways to upgrade our home theater, thus making my viewing experience better.
Our first stop will be at DIY Home Theater Design. What got my attention about this website is how we can enhance our experience by changing the physical surrounding. Things like room lighting, placement of wires along with room layout can make a big difference.
Gloss and semi-gloss paints are definitely not what you what you use in your home theater room. Light reflects off the walls and can create a distraction from the viewing experience. This also holds true for pictures and any kind of artwork hanging on the walls. Things like pictures with glass will reflect glare from the television screen. An overly bright room will also take away from the experience.
The optimum TV viewing distance is directly related to the size of the TV screen. The angle of viewing is also very important. Each big screen manufacture has their own recommendation, which depends upon screen resolution. For general guidelines I recommend looking at what is on the Wikipedia website. You will have to scroll down toward the bottom of the page, but there is some real good easy to read charts.
In my opinion the distance from the screen to the couch or easy chair is very important. For example a 42″ screen big screen television the ideal distance of 5′ to 10′ form screen to viewer is ideal, with an angle of less than 31 degrees.
Some time back my wife wanted to rearrange our living room. This put our 42″ television about 18′ from the couch. For the longest time it felt like we were sitting in the back row of a drive in theater. Then just this last month we rearranged the living room. We moved back to where our 42″ television. Now we are 9′ 4″ from screen to couch. This makes watching our shows and movies more enjoyable.
A person could get hung up on the hardware of a home theater and spend a small fortune. Personal tastes and budget play a big roll as to what hardware to get. Then there is also a big difference between knowing what you want and the available hardware that will meet your expectations. Because we can get lost looking at the hardware, we will look at different componets in furture posts For right now I recommend you check our HomeTheater.com.
We will be looking at speakers and players as we get closer to Christmas.
I am alway interested in hearing for you. So email me through the contact page. How would you like to upgrade your home theater?
