Home Theater Buying Guide

What will you need for your home theater? The basic considerations include sound, picture, connectivity, and control. Once you have all the pieces, visit our Home Entertainment Connections Guide and Speaker Setup Guide for information on how to make the most of your investment.

Interested in learning more? Download Dolby's new guide, HD Essentials: Get in the Middle of the HD Action.

All the Elements of Sound

To get the type of surround sound possible from a home theater system, you’ll need speakers and a subwoofer, and an amplifier and receiver. These devices are designed to work with the latest in audio technologies to produce that cinematic experience you want to have in your living room. Once you familiarize yourself with the equipment, you can decide if you want to invest in separate pieces or in a home-theater-in-a-box system, which is described below.

Speakers	All your sound comes through your speakers, so they are not the place to cut corners. Try to get an acoustically matched set rather than recycling various speakers you have on hand. A matched set produces more even, natural sound as it pans around you.
Subwoofer	The subwoofer, or LFE, supplies all the really low bass effects—such as the rumble of an explosion—and as such, is critical to the home theater experience. It’s a good idea to get a self-powered unit because subwoofers tend to require lot of power.
Receiver	A receiver combines amplifier, AM/FM tuner, switcher, video, and surround processor functions in one box to serve as the heart of a home theater system. All sources go into the receiver, which then directs the appropriate signals to the video display and the loudspeakers. Look for a unit with plenty of high-definition inputs and outputs, as well as sufficient amplifier power for your speakers. As an alternative to a receiver, separate preamp/processors and amplifiers can offer greater system expandability and potentially even higher performance.
Home Theater in a Box	A home theater in a box (HTIB) is an alternative to buying a set of separate components by combining components to simplify the buying and operating experience. These systems always bundle a receiver with a full set of home theater speakers, and sometimes also include a source device such as a DVD player.
Technologies	Dolby makes a range of technologies well suited to all entertainment listening content and environments. Pretty much every current device will have Dolby® Digital technology, so the latest HD Dolby technologies to keep an eye out for are Dolby Headphone, Dolby Pro Logic®IIx, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby TrueHD.

Getting the Premium Picture

In addition to the sound, the other part of the home theater experience is, obviously, the picture. In order to get that breathtaking quality that makes a home theater system so incredible, you need both a piece of display equipment and a source device to provide high-definition content.

Displays/TVs

The future is in HD. Your home theater deserves a display that is at least 720p, though the 1080p displays are becoming more affordable. Different display technologies are better suited to different needs. If you have very limited space in your room, a flat panel may be your best option. Flat panels tend to cost more per diagonal inch than alternative technologies, but they look excellent. Rear-projection TVs give you great picture size and offer good affordability per diagonal inch. Front projectors provide the most theater-like experience, but to get the best effect, you need to make the room very dark, and you may also need to buy a screen.

Source Devices

You can get HD from a wide range of sources now. HD TiVo, HD satellite, HD cable, HDTV (over the air), Blu-ray Disc, Xbox 360™, and the PlayStation^® 3 are just some of the devices that can provide high definition. All of these are capable of delivering much better sound, picture, and features than their standard-definition predecessors.

Establishing Connectivity

You’ve got the equipment, now make sure you can connect it all properly. Check out of Home Entertainment Connections Guide for more about the different connection types for audio and video.

HDMI	HDMI is the single-cable method of connecting all the devices in your home theater. HDMI is capable of carrying both HD picture and sound together across a single digital cable, eliminating much of the snarl of earlier connections. Seek devices with HDMI.
Component Video	You can also get full HD video through component video, but the signal is carried across three analog wires, and audio is carried separately.
S/PDIF	This is the most common digital connection for multichannel audio such as Dolby Digital 5.1. It comes in two flavors: optical and coaxial.

Remote Control Devices

Having a single remote to control a home theater system is some people's idea of nirvana. Advanced remotes are capable of controlling all your devices and are relatively easy to program. You can probably buy the rest of your devices first and decide later if you need an advanced remote.