home theater

A large projection screen in a media room.

Home cinema, also called home theater, are entertainment systems that seek to reproduce movie theater quality video and audio in a private home. In the 1950s, home movies became popular in the United States with Kodak 8 mm film projector equipment becoming affordable. The development of multi-channel audio systems and laserdisc in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home cinema. In the early to mid 1990s, a typical home cinema would have a Laserdisc or S-VHS videocassette player fed to a large rear projection television. In the late 1990s, home theatre technology progressed with the development of DVD, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio ("surround sound"), and High-Definition Television.

In the 2000s, the term "home cinema" encompasses a range of systems. The most basic system could be a DVD player, a standard CRT television, and a "home theater in a box", a 2.1 speaker system with left and right speakers and a small 8" subwoofer cabinet. A decent home cinema set-up might include a Blu-ray player, a 60" High-Definition Television with a "cinema-style" 16:9 format, a several thousand-watt home theatre receiver with five to seven surround sound speakers, and a powered subwoofer with a 12" (or more) driver. The most expensive home theater set-ups, which can cost over $100,000 US, have digital projectors, expensive screens, and custom-built screening rooms which include cinema-style chairs and Audiophile-grade sound equipment.

Design

Home cinema consisting of liquid crystal display television

Today, Home Cinema implies a real "cinema experience" and therefore a higher quality set of components than the average television provides. A typical home theater includes the following parts:

1. Input Devices: One or more audio/video sources. High quality formats such as Blu-ray are preferred, though they often include a VHS player or Video Game Systems. Some home theatres now include a home theater PC to act as a library for video and music content.
2. Processing Devices: Input devices are processed by either a standalone AV receiver or a Preamplifier and Sound Processor for complex surround sound formats. The user selects the input at this point before it is forwarded to the output.
3. Audio Output: Systems consist of at least 2 speakers, but can have up to 10 with additional subwoofer.
4. Video Output: A large HDTV display. Options include Liquid crystal display television (LCD), video projector, plasma TV, rear-projection TV, or a traditional CRT TV.
5. Atmosphere: Comfortable seating and organization to improve the cinema feel. Higher-end home theaters commonly also have sound insulation to prevent noise from escaping the room, and a specialized wall treatment to balance the sound within the room.

Home Theatre Flow Diagram

Flow Diagram

Component systems vs. Theater-in-a-Box

High-quality home cinemas are assembled from component pieces purchased separately to provide the best combination of equipment for the cost. It is possible to purchase home theater in a box kits that include a set of speakers for surround sound, an amplifier/tuner for adjusting volume and selecting video sources, and sometimes a DVD player. Though these kits often pale in comparison to a custom-built home cinema, they are inexpensive and easy to set up; one needs only to add a television and some movies in order to create a simple home theater. This makes them popular in the public's eyes.

Dedicated home theaters

A home theater with video projector mounted in a box on the ceiling.

Built-in shelves provide a place for movie decor, DVDs, and equipment. Note the component stack on the right, where the audio receiver, DVD player, secondary monitor, and video game system are located.

A DIY audio home theater system in a barn

Some home cinema enthusiasts go so far as to build a dedicated room in the home for the theater. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates sound and provides the potential for a nearly ideal listening environment. These installations are often designated as "screening rooms" to differentiate from simpler installations.

This idea can go as far as completely recreating an actual cinema, with a projector enclosed in a projection booth, specialized furniture, a piano or theatre organ, curtains in front of the projection screen, movie posters, or a popcorn or snack machine. More commonly, real dedicated home theaters pursue this to a lesser degree. Presently the days of the $100,000 and over home theater is being usurped by the rapid advances in digital audio and video technologies, which has spurred a rapid drop in prices. This in turn has brought the true digital home theater experience to the doorsteps of the do-it-yourself people, often for less than what you would expect to pay for a low budget economy car. Current consumer level A/V equipment can meet and often exceed in performance what you would expect to experience at a modern commercial theater.

Home Theater Seating

Home theater seating consists of chairs specifically engineered and designed for viewing movies in a personal home theater setting. Most home theater seats have cup holder built into the chairs' armrests and a shared armrest between each seat. Some seating is movie theater-style chairs like those seen in a movie cinema, which features a flip up seat cushion. Other seating systems have plush leather reclining lounger types, with flip-out footrests. Additional features like storage compartments, snack trays, tactile transducers (nicknamed "Bass Shakers"), or even electric motors to recline the chair are available, depending on the model.

Backyard theater

In places that have the proper outdoor atmosphere, it is possible for people to set up a home theater in their backyard. Depending on the space available, it may simply be a temporary version with foldable screen, a projector and couple of speakers, or a permanent fixture with huge screens and dedicated audio set up poolside. Due to the outdoor nature, it is quite popular with BBQ parties and pool parties.

Some specialist outdoor home cinema companies are now marketing packages with inflatable movie screens and purpose built AV systems.^[1]

Some people have built upon the idea, and constructed mobile drive-in theaters that can play movies in public open spaces. Usually, these require a powerful projector, a laptop or DVD player, outdoor speakers and/or an FM transmitter to broadcast the audio to other car radios.^[2][3]

History

1950s, 1960s, and 1970s

In the 1950s, home movies became popular in the United States and elsewhere as Kodak 8 mm film (Pathé 9.5 mm in France) and camera and projector equipment became affordable. Projected with a small, portable movie projector onto a portable screen, often without sound, this system became the first practical home theater. They were generally used to show home movies of family travels and celebrations but also doubled as a means of showing private stag films. Dedicated home cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing commercial films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the very wealthy, especially those in the movie industry.

Portable home cinemas improved over time with color film, Kodak Super 8 mm film film cartridges, and monaural sound but remained awkward and somewhat expensive. The rise of home video in the late 1970s almost completely killed the consumer market for 8 mm film cameras and projectors, as VCRs connected to ordinary televisions provided a simpler and more flexible substitute.

1980s

The development of multi-channel audio systems and laserdisc in the 1980s added new dimensions for home cinema. The first known home cinema system was installed as a sales tool at Kirshmans furniture store in Metairie, Louisiana in 1974. They built a special sound room which incorporated the earliest quadraphonic audio systems and modified Sony trinitron televisions for projecting the image. Many systems were sold in the New Orleans area in the ensuing years before the first public demonstration of this integration occurred in 1982 at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois. Peter Tribeman of NAD (USA) organized and presented a demonstration made possible by the collaborative effort of NAD, Proton, ADS, Lucasfilm and Dolby Labs who contributed their technologies to demonstrate what a home cinema would "look and sound" like.

Over the course of three days, retailers, manufacturers, and members of the consumer electronics press were exposed to the first "home like" experience of combining a high quality video source with multi-channel surround sound. That one demonstration is credited with being the impetus for developing what is now a multi-billion dollar business.

1990s

In the early to mid '90s, a typical Home Cinema would have a Laserdisc or S-VHS player fed to a large screen: rear projection for the more affordable setups, and LCD or CRT front projection in the more elaborate. In the late 1990s, the development of DVD, 5.1-channel audio, and high-quality video projectors that provide a cinema experience at a price that rivals a big-screen HDTVs sparked a new wave of home cinema interest.

2000s

In the 2000s, developments such as High Definition video, Blu-ray Disc and newer HD display technologies enabled people to enjoy a cinematic feeling in their own home at an affordable price.

Future

2010s

In the 2010s, it is determined that about 95% of all U.S. homes will own at least one HDTV and a Blu-ray Disc player. High Definition will be the next medium in the home entertainment market by 2015.

See also

Look up home cinema in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

For more information on connectors like HDMI, component, et cetera:

• Blu-ray Disc
• HDMI cable
• High Definition
• Domotics
• Haas effect
• High fidelity
• Matrix decoder

External sites

• Projector Tips
• HD resolution for DLP Projector Brief article about High Definition Resolution.

References

1. ^ backyard projection screens
2. ^ Guerilla Drive-In
3. ^ Mobile Movie

Home Theater and Media Room Design