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Home Theater Hacks 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools

By Brett McLaughlin
Book Price: $24.95 USD
£17.50 GBP
PDF Price: $19.99

Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

Chapter 1: Buying Gear

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Although there are literally thousands of options and dials you can tweak and spin on most home theater components, the components themselves are the most important part of any solid home theater system. All the adjustments in the world won't make up for having the wrong pieces of equipment in your theater.

In fact, before you even start to turn dials and pull up menus, you might want to see what you've got sitting in your cabinet. Sometimes making some small changes in your equipment list can have a huge effect on your theater's audio and video, and even its usability. This is especially true in today's world of combination devices. Merging VCRs, DVDs, TVs, and CD players might make for less wiring to have to hide, but it doesn't necessarily make for a better movie-watching and music-listening experience, and you can forget swapping out or trading up to newer and better technology.

Of course, all of this rides on finding the right equipment, preferably at the best possible price. Buy the right components at the best prices, and you'll stretch your dollar further. You'll end up with a bigger and better system if you do your homework. In this chapter, you'll learn the basic language of the trade, and then explore the common (and not-so-common) places to pick up equipment, oftentimes at way below retail prices.

You're not going to get very far in the world of home theater if you don't understand how the techies talk. Learn the lingo, and you won't get bullied into buying something you don't want; you'll also understand how different components interact, and you'll end up with a much better setup.

If you've ever walked into a home theater boutique, you've probably been quickly overwhelmed by the strange language that's coming out of some well-intentioned salesperson's mouth. It's sort of like showing up at a Ferengi yard sale and not knowing the difference between a warp coil and a plasma conduit. What's worse, it's easy to be convinced that you need something you don't, or that what you intended to buy isn't really the right component for your system.

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Hacks 1–8

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Master Theater-Speak

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The basic definitions you'll need to be familiar with are listed here. The following sections go into further detail on each item, and explain other important acronyms and terms related to each.

Televisions: This is a pretty obvious one: the television, of course, is what you actually watch video on. However, TVs have become increasingly complex these days, and some TVs are self-contained theater systems; you can buy a TV that includes its own VCR, DVD player, satellite receiver, and virtual surround sound system. For the purposes of this book, I'll include computer monitors and other video sources in this category, except when they are specifically called out in the text.
DVD players: For those of you not stuck in the '80s, DVD is the medium of choice for watching movies and, now, even television series. DVD stands for digital video disc, and these discs look just like CDs, although they hold a lot more data. Players can be as simple as a deck that does nothing more than play your disc, or complex enough to enhance the sound and picture of a disc, and even make copies of a disc.
VCRs: VCR stands for video cassette recorder. The predecessor to DVDs, the VCR still is an important part of most home theaters. For those of you who have cases of VCR tapes with all the episodes of The X-Files on them, it's still the best-understood means to capture your favorite television show; however, DVD recorders and personal video recorders such as TiVo and ReplayTV are changing that in this century.

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Audition Before You Buy

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There's no substitute for listening and watching equipment in action before buying. However, there's as much science as there is art to choosing a good home theater. Preparation and a few tricks will help you pick the best system for you.

There's a lot of pressure when a salesperson is hovering over you, waiting to see if you're going to buy a particular piece of equipment. In fact, this is the number-one reason people walk out of chain stores [Hack #3] or boutiques [Hack #4] with equipment they're ultimately not happy with. But this pressure is largely due to a lack of preparation and method. If you have specific criteria in mind and a particular method you always follow, you'll feel less pressure, have no trouble telling a salesperson "I'd like to take a little more time," and will usually be a lot happier with your purchase.

Auditioning speakers and audio components is a lot like critiquing food. Professional critics know that their taste buds become saturated after a few bites of something so they use a palate cleanser such as raspberry ice to reset their sense of taste between dishes. Although there isn't a raspberry ice for the ear, you can reset your hearing by not listening to loud music, bubbled up in your front seat, on the drive over. This will prevent you from building up any preconceptions or expectations about how something should sound.

One weekend I went to a chain store and listened to a system that failed to impress me. The following weekend I was back at the same store and I listened to the same system, and it sounded much better! I realized that on my second trip I took a car that had AM radio, so I listened to news on the way over, and probably had my window rolled down. The lower-quality sound in the car conditioned my ears so that the equipment in the demo room sounded better than I first thought. Some might think this means you would buy a system that isn't as good. On the contrary, loud music, especially when it's coming out of several speakers within a few feet of your ears, dulls your hearing. You lose a sense of dynamics, subtlety, and all the other intangibles that make good music "good." The system I didn't like at first was providing those nuances, but by the time I got to the store on my first trip, all I could hear were screaming guitar breaks. The second time, I noticed the sound had more texture, the dynamics were terrific, and the smallest background sounds were present. I missed all this the first time because of the loud music in my car.

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Buy from Chain Stores with Skepticism

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Buying from a local electronics store has the advantage of letting you check out gear in person, but you'll have to endure crowds, obnoxious music, and frequent interruption from salespeople along the way.

Buying from a chain store requires a lot of forethought; you need to dress appropriately, prepare your ears, and have demo discs in hand (all discussed in detail in this hack). These preparations might make it seem that it's better to avoid people altogether and just shop online. However, the advantages of a brick-and-mortar store are significant:

You can watch and listen [Hack #2] to the specific gear you take home.
You can visually inspect components to ensure new or like-new condition.
You avoid the often-dangerous shipping process (and the possibility of having to return equipment, often at your own cost).
You can see your favorite movie or hear your favorite CD on a variety of equipment.

All of these are great reasons to at least look at your local electronics stores. However, each advantage comes with its own set of drawbacks.

Although it's nice to listen to a specific set of speakers or audio components, chain stores often set up systems to favor the systems at the expense of the listeners. You won't be sitting (or standing) in the exact same area, in the same size room, in your own home theater. In fact, most chain stores have huge rooms, with at least one glass wall, and you're standing up—about as different from a typical home theater as you can get. So, although you will get an idea of the sound you would obtain at home, realize that it's not a perfect picture of what to expect. If you want a closer-to-home experience, boutiques [Hack #4] often have viewing and listening rooms that closely simulate a home theater, with regular walls, only one door, low lighting, and even theater seating.

It's also nice to be able to make sure the components you are buying are in perfect condition (even new equipment can easily be smudged or scratched in transit from the manufacturer). To really gain this advantage, though, be sure you insist on getting the specific model you are viewing rather than another unit already boxed up. You'll also need to ensure that you don't get stuck with display unit that doesn't have a remote, instructions, or other materials that should be included.

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Buy in Person from Electronics Boutiques

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An electronics boutique offers the advantage of in-person tryouts without many of the downsides of a larger chain store.

Most home theater enthusiasts realize that chain stores [Hack #3] rarely cut it, for either quality or selection. If you want more than a "home theater in a box," you're going to have to spend some money, and in that case, you deserve more than a too-bright, too-crowded chain store. In these cases, an electronics boutique is ideal.

Boutique stores are smaller stores, often on a side road, that specialize in home theater. You'll have to look for them; they often don't advertise as much, or have as much visible presence, as the Best Buys and Circuit Cities of the world. However, if you find a good boutique, you can easily become a customer for life.

Before you walk into your first boutique, you should realize you are probably going to pay anywhere from 10% to 15% more on items than you would if they were in a chain store. Boutiques have higher overhead and less revenue, and they pass those (lack of) savings on to you. However, you have to realize many of the components in a boutique aren't available in chain stores, so this theoretical price increase becomes just that—theoretical.

If you want to pay the absolute lowest price for equipment, you're going to have to shop online [Hack #6] . But on the Internet, if you don't know exactly what you want and what to watch out for, it's easy to pay less for something that doesn't serve your needs. Some will urge a potential consumer to figure out what he wants at a boutique, write the items down, and then shop online. I have a real distaste for this; if you're going to spend several hours at a boutique (and you will, if you're serious about choosing the best gear), you've taken up valuable time for the owner and salesperson. I think it borders on outright dishonesty to then devalue the information and assistance they provided, buying the gear they helped you select from an anonymous Internet dealer. Realize that 10% of a purchase is more than warranted if you have a great salesperson who helped you find what you wanted, was patient with you, and gave you plenty of options.

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Shop Intelligently at eBay

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Although ebay.com isn't the best place to buy all your gear, it's a great source for certain types of gear, often at lower-than-normal prices.

No book on buying anything would be complete without mentioning eBay. One of the largest and most diverse marketplaces around (online or otherwise), eBay is a good source of a lot of electronics, including home theater components. You'll often find slightly used or B-stock gear at killer prices that aren't available anywhere else. With all that said, you'll need to be just as careful with eBay (if not more so) as you are when shopping at a chain [Hack #3] .

One of the keys to using eBay to your advantage is determining what you can and can't buy online. More accurately, this could be phrased as figuring out what you should and shouldn't buy online.

The basic rule of thumb is that if an item is essentially a stock item, it's fair game for buying online. Stock items are anything that is manufactured and is generally the same across the board. For example, receivers are a stock item; as long as you have the same manufacturer and model, they're going to sound more or less the same, unit after unit, as long as they're in good condition. The same goes for DVD players, VCRs, CD players, and most other audio/video components.

Where you get into trouble is with items that, even when manufactured, don't always come out exactly the same. Speakers fall into this category. I've listened to two "identical" speakers that don't sound at all alike. You also need to be very cautious about items that have great potential for damage in transit. Although you can pack a DVD player in a ton of foam, it's very hard to ship speakers, as well as larger items such as TVs, without causing some shakeup. At a minimum, you're probably going to have to calibrate [Hack #61] these devices (which might mean paying a professional, if things are really out of whack). This also is true, although somewhat less so, with receivers and preamplifiers. These can be shipped safely, but be prepared to spend a lot of time explaining what you want to the seller, and ensuring that they follow through.

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Find High-End Equipment Online

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Online sites such as audiogon.com and videogon.com provide high-end gear, both new and used, at low prices.

So, here's the basic problem: you don't have a good boutique [Hack #4] nearby; you hate the chain stores (and their selection is terrible) [Hack #3] ; and eBay [Hack #5] doesn't offer the really high-end gear you're looking for. This is actually a common situation (I'm in it myself, for what it's worth), and thankfully there's a solution. There are a couple of high-end online sites that offer even the most unusual gear, at less-than-factory prices.

Audiogon: Housed at http://www.audiogon.com, this is the original site for killer equipment online. Audiogon has lots of home theater gear, but caters to the stereo (two-channel music) crowd as well.
Videogon: Videogon is a follow-on to Audiogon, and is online at http://www.videogon.com. Videogon is more squarely focused at home theater, and is probably where you want to start if you're into…well…what this book is about.

Just in passing, there's also a high-end camera marketplace at http://www.photogon.com.

You'll find everything from the standard fare seen on eBay to $20,000 components on these sites; needless to say, you won't be limited in selection.

There's also a nice network of reviews that will help you find just the right gear for your particular system.

Both of these sites have essentially the same navigation. The main page (shown in Figure 1-8) has a listing of categories down the left. You also have subcategories to choose from. However, I often find things miscategorized (or not placed in a subcategory at all), so stick with the main headings and work from there.

Figure 1-8: Videogon home page

Once you drill down into a category, you'll see a list of featured ads (see Figure 1-9), auctions (seen in Figure 1-10), and finally, dealer demo listings (Figure 1-11). Each area is worth some investigation, as long as you know what to watch out for.

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Buy Cabinets for Your Gear

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Purchase the best cabinets you can afford for your gear to ensure that it runs as cool as possible, and looks good doing it.

Let's face it: gear is expensive. You easily can spend $20,000 on a good home theater over the course of a couple of years, and that's still leaving plenty of room to upgrade. But that gear isn't worth much, if you never let anyone listen to it. So, here's the common scenario: you invite your friends over for the "ultimate" movie experience. But instead of being in awe of the sound and picture, the first comment you hear is "Gee…why's it all just sitting out on the floor?" Not a pretty picture, is it? One of the most important purchases you'll make, in going from cool gear to cool theater, are cabinets. You'll be able to organize your gear, tuck it away neatly, keep the cable situation under control, and look high-end, all for a fraction of what you've already dropped into the black hole which is your home theater expense sheet.

If you've squeezed out every penny to get what you could in terms of equipment, you might have to begin with a lower-end solution than nice wood cabinets. With a decent set of tools and some effort, you actually can put together a nice set of component shelves. Unless you're Bob Vila, you probably won't have hinged doors, custom-fit racks, and the like, but it's still a lot better than a $5,000 receiver sitting on a cardboard box.

Purchase some medium-density fiberboard (MDF) from Home Depot or Lowe's, and cut it to size. For a nicer look, bevel the edges (this will make your shelves look much more expensive!). Then drill holes and run rods through the holes to create a support structure. Connect the whole thing with your basic bolts and washers, and you're done! For extra support, especially on carpets, add some casters to the bottom shelves to level things out. As an example of this sort of setup, check out Figure 1-12; it should give you some ideas.

Figure 1-12: Home-built component rack

Be sure you heavily prime the MDF, especially if you're painting the shelves black, to ensure a nice matte finish. I've also heard of folks lining the shelf tops with truck bed liner for extra traction—go figure! In any case, I've not gone into detail because most of you will want to jump to the higher-end cabinets as quickly as possible, especially if you've got bigger TV sets.

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Plan Your Room Décor

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Take your theater to the next level by adding creative lighting, wall sconces, seating, and decorations.

So, now you've got all the gear—televisions, receivers, speakers, DVD players, and the rest—and you've even spent a bundle on enclosures [Hack #7] for your components. However, your theater still doesn't feel like…well…a theater. What gives?

Most likely, the answer is that you've simply got a room with great audio and video. And that, my friend, does not a theater make. You'll be amazed at what the accessories in your room can do; you'll soon find that carpet, paint, lighting, posters, and seating add up to a better experience than even some of your components! Ultimately, components are subtle things, and sound and video are in the eye (and ear) of the beholder; but everyone knows what a theater looks like!

In my experience, the bar-none best place to get room décor is the Home Theater Market (HT Market), located online at http://www.htmarket.com/index.html. These guys have the best selection, and are the most responsive, that I've found. Make no mistake: I've probably spent a few bucks more here than if I'd hunted for each individual piece online. That said, I've received stellar service, and they've even thrown in free shipping from time to time as a thanks for repeat business.

There's a more complete discussion on paint [Hack #18] in the section on video components, as you'll need to understand how lighting affects the color palette before selecting paint. Still, begin to consider how theaters are painted. You probably can't think of a single one with light colors; they're usually done in black, midnight blue, or some other deeply tinted dark color.

Also think about the ceilings of these rooms. They are almost always painted the same dark color. This is often a common mistake in home theaters; enthusiasts get the side walls right but forget about the ceiling. You also should consider removing any ceiling fans. For those of you up north, this is no big deal; but I'm in Texas, and pulling the ceiling fan was a serious decision, albeit one I think I made for the best. I probably pay a little more to air condition my theater, but it looks like a theater (who ever got up from watching a movie and got distracted by the fan over their head?).

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Chapter 2: Video Components

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No matter how you cut it, home theaters are about great pictures. You can have killer audio, amazing décor, and even an old-fashioned popcorn machine, but nobody will care if your picture is fuzzy and dull. That means you need to spend lots of time getting the right components, and making sure they perform at their very best. This chapter will help you make the right selections, and get them performing at their peak levels.

Getting the right television to provide that picture isn't trivial, but here are plenty of good tips to help you pick the right unit.

Figuring out which TV to buy, even with a fixed budget, is worth some explanation. The first decision you need to make relates to the aspect ratio [Hack #13] . If you've got less than $700 or so in your TV budget, this might be a moot point; you're going to have to spend at least that much to get into the widescreen TV market. You might consider saving up a little longer and making sure you can afford a widescreen TV, for several reasons:

You'll get to watch movies in the closest possible format to how they were filmed, without losing much of the picture to the screen edges.
Most HD broadcasts [Hack #28] are coming in 16:9 these days, so your favorite episode of CSI will look right on your TV.
Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube all support widescreen TVs; you simply can't beat Halo on a 16:9 screen.
Widescreen TVs invariably come with the highest selection of inputs for video sources.

These are all worth considering, and if you can't afford a widescreen TV on your budget, you might want to wait an extra month or two and save up.

Once you've determined the aspect ratio of the TV, you should simply look for the biggest TV with the best picture available. Although you can buy most components for great prices online [Hack #6] these days, it's still best to buy a television in person. You'll pay a little more in many cases, and often get hit with sales tax, but you save the stress of hoping someone with a death wish isn't driving your TV's delivery truck. Judging picture quality is also highly subjective. So, browse at a local store—I prefer boutiques

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Hacks 9–20

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Get the Right TV

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Getting the right television to provide that picture isn't trivial, but here are plenty of good tips to help you pick the right unit.

You'll get to watch movies in the closest possible format to how they were filmed, without losing much of the picture to the screen edges.
Most HD broadcasts [Hack #28] are coming in 16:9 these days, so your favorite episode of CSI will look right on your TV.
Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube all support widescreen TVs; you simply can't beat Halo on a 16:9 screen.
Widescreen TVs invariably come with the highest selection of inputs for video sources.

These are all worth considering, and if you can't afford a widescreen TV on your budget, you might want to wait an extra month or two and save up.

When you visit a chain store [Hack #3] that sells HDTVs, notice that the televisions are all on brightly lit shelves. Then go visit a middle- to high-end store

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Your TV's First Steps

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After the credit card has taken a hit, there are several tasks you need to take care of right away on a new television set. This will allow you to get the TV in the house and make sure it's working, and will guard against early burn-in.

The most difficult time in buying a new TV is the period between checking out at the register (or entering your credit card information online) and actually having the TV in your theater room. You'll be impatient, grumpy, and probably a real pain to be around; who likes to wait? The bad news is that this is exactly the time when you need to be careful and cautious, as many problems can occur in shipping and you're the only one who cares about catching them.

When the TV arrives on a big delivery truck, you should test the TV—say, in your garage—before you let the shippers leave. You might want to plug it in and connect it to a DVD player just to see if it turns on and if an image appears. If not, you have the option of refusing the shipment.

Some also recommend that you look through the vent holes behind the TV with a flashlight to check whether anything is out of place. If you want, you can remove the whole bottom back panel to closely inspect the innards. Many folks might not even know what to look for, but if you ensure that everything looks clean and in place, you've already prevented a lot of major problems.

Sometimes delivery men get cranky and impatient while you do this. Frankly, that's just too bad; you've put too much money into a good TV at this point to allow something silly to happen in transit.

As an example, the heat sink tray, like those in Toshiba units, looks like a little table that sits on a circuit board at the bottom left side of the TV. If it is not level, the tray probably broke off due to mishandling during shipment. You can then look into having the shippers take it back. Some, however, suggest that if the TV still works, simply work with Toshiba in getting the tray resoldered onto the circuit board. That way, you can enjoy the TV now rather than have to wait for a replacement, which might take another few months! Can you really stand to wait that long again?

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Move Your TV Safely

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Even if you have a professional deliver your TV, you might eventually need to move it—to a new home, to a new city, to a new state. Avoid losing thousands of dollars by following a few simple instructions.

This might not apply to a short move, but it definitely applies to a crosscountry move, and everything in between. Whenever you are considering a move—near or far—that involves a big-screen TV, you should go down to U-Haul and buy half a dozen unbuilt cardboard boxes, and don't build them.

Instead, lay the boxes flat in your moving truck. Place them where the wheels or flat bottom of your TV or projector is going to go. Use two sets— one for each side of the TV—if it is an extremely long RPTV, such as a 73-inch unit. As you roll or lift the TV into the truck, set it down on these boxes.

Then tie down the TV very carefully (you've just raised the center of gravity for the unit) and allow the 12 layers of corrugated cardboard per corner to absorb the road shocks. You also should pad the large contact areas at the sides of the truck; hopefully you can place the TV in a corner of the moving truck. Just padding that area should do it there.

Be extra careful of the screen, of course, by keeping padding away from the screen's center. Try to ensure that nothing touches the TV screen, and if you can't avoid the screen entirely, just use the edges. Facing the TV up against the side of the truck should present the screen face with a safe parallel surface, and protect it from something falling against it during frisky cornering on the part of the driver.

Keep in mind that if your TV is a Sony, or some other brand with very little fortification at the plastic, slanted/curved, outside upper-rear surface that encases the mirror, the mirror is paralleled up against that surface and anything that hits it will take out the mirror also. You'll never even have evidence that anything untoward has happened; at least, until you turn on the unit and find a very unusual picture, if you still have one at all. The Sony 41-inch table model T15 is very susceptible to this; I've seen two of them need new mirrors after a move.

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Fix Panasonic's Picture Glitch

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Many of Panasonic's 16 x 9 rear projection TVs have a nasty picture glitch: if power is lost, the picture looks odd, with the top and bottom cut off, and the convergence goes screwy on you. A little service menu magic will get you back to normal in no time.

The PT47/56/65 and WX51/49 series of Panasonic rear projection TVs have a glitch that results in what appears to be a hardware problem with the sets. If power is lost (a fuse shorts out, or even if your surge protector trips) and is then restored, the TV picture suddenly looks strange. No matter what you try, you won't be able to get that picture looking good.

The easiest way to verify that this is indeed the glitch discussed here is to examine the picture on the screen (with the TV on, of course). The top and the bottom of the picture will be cut off if you've got this bug. If you're not sure how to check for this, tune to either a sports channel such as ESPN or a news channel such as FOX News. These types of channels usually have a ticker running at the bottom of the screen. If it's cut off, you're missing part of your picture. Additionally, you'll often see a fishbowl effect, where the picture almost appears to be curved on the sides; convergence won't help this, either.

The first thing you need to do is enter the Panasonic service menu. This requires your remote (often, programmable remotes [Hack #84] are a pain for this; the original remote is recommended). Then, follow these steps:

In the setup menu, set the antenna to "cable."
In the timer menu, set the sleep time to 30.
Exit all menus and tune to channel 124.
Adjust the volume (on the TV, not your receiver) to 0.
Press the Volume Down button on the television set panel until a red CHK appears on the screen.

Once you're in this menu, you should know how a few buttons on your remote function, until you exit this menu:

The TV/Video button changes video inputs.
The Power button (on the remote) toggles menus.
The up, down, left, and right arrows are used for navigation.

Once at this point, you can actually fix this power glitch once and for all.

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Figure Out Aspect Ratios

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This hack explains the difference between the 4:3, 16:9, and 1.85:1 aspect ratios. You'll learn what TV is best for you, why black bars are good, and how to make sure you get the "theater" in home theater.

Many first-time DVD buyers notice that DVDs are mostly in the widescreen or letterboxed format, which have black bars at the top and bottom, and they wonder why. The next time you go to your local movie theater, take a close look at the movie screen. You will find that modern movie theater screens are actually rectangular in shape (they are much wider than they are tall), as Figure 2-3 illustrates.

Directors shoot their movies in such a way that the shape of the finished picture is a rectangle. While you watch a movie in the theater, take note of how wide the movie picture is.

Now, when you get home, look closely at your TV set. Your TV set (if it's a standard TV) is basically a square (see Figure 2-4).

Figure 2-3: Typical movie screen aspect ratio

Figure 2-4: Typical TV screen aspect ratio

To make the rectangular picture you saw at the movie theater fit in your square TV the studio uses one of three processes in preparing the DVD release.

Pan and scan: The studio cuts off the sides of the rectangular picture and makes it a square (obviously losing picture area from the original film). In many cases the missing information is important, so a technician must pan the center of focus back and forth digitally to fit the important action from the rectangular frame onto the square TV screen (thus the name "pan and scan"). This is probably what you have seen if you watch movies on VHS or on cable TV. You might have seen the warning "This film has been modified to fit your screen." This warning lets you know that someone has cut off big pieces of the original rectangle to make it fit inside your square.
Open matte: Some film cameras actually shoot on a square negative, but the director composes his shots for the rectangular movie screen and plans to throw away the extra material at the top and bottom. When the film is shown in theaters, it is matted to eliminate this empty space above and below, and shows only the director's framed action. Sometimes for home video, to create a square TV transfer, the square negative is transferred without the mattes. This results in the appearance of "more image" above and below the action than what was seen in theaters, but still differs from the director's intended theatrical framing. In fact, production elements such as boom microphones and lighting equipment often are revealed when the mattes are removed for home video. Like pan and scan, this is modified from the theatrical shape.

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Avoid Cheap Projectors

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One of the more difficult decisions you'll encounter in the evolution of your home theater is whether you should add a projection system to replace your television. However, this isn't always a matter of adding quality; sometimes you're trading picture depth for picture size. Make sure you understand the difference between a better picture and a bigger one.

Although it's true that throwing a movie picture onto a huge screen in your theater makes you look cool, the picture might sometimes suffer as a result. Before buying any old projector just to brag to your buddies, make sure you're getting something that's going to perform better than the TV you've already got.

One of the first things to take note of is the differences between display technologies. Here's the basic rundown.

Section 2.7.1.1: Cathode-ray tube (CRT)

One of the earliest types of front projection technology, CRT uses the same scanning electron beam technology used in old-fashioned picture tubes to create the video image. In the case of CRT projection, the projector increases the light output to project an image across a distance onto a screen. CRT display is an analog process, meaning it is not locked into a specific display resolution like a digital display, which is based on a fixed number of pixels. The only display limits on a CRT display concern how fast the electron beam can draw (called the sync or refresh rate).

You probably have seen a CRT projector in a conference room or your favorite sports bar. The majority of CRT projectors feature three lenses— one green, one red, and one blue—that are specially configured to project overlaying colors to create an image on a reflective screen. Many of the bigscreen rear projection sets also use CRT technology, but have the projection elements mounted inside the case, projecting from behind the screen.

The main advantages of CRT projection are the smoothness of picture, the solid black levels, and the variety of sync rates it can display. The main disadvantages are the low level of light output, the overall size, and the complexity to install and maintain. CRT gives an excellent picture, but the projectors tend to be large and unwieldy, they require absolute darkness, and they often take hours to install and configure properly.

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DVHS on a Budget

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The high-definition craze is beginning to affect every type of video component, and your old VCR is no exception. DVHS allows you to tape HD material, but it comes at a high price. With a little trickery, you can get all the benefits of DVHS at a fraction of the cost.

Just as TiVo enthusiasts are getting used to having the ability to record all their favorite programs, HD has come along and changed things. A standard TiVo set can't record HD content; you'll have to shell out at least $500 for an HD-recording unit. Additionally, not everyone has TiVo, and many that do don't get their local channels (where a lot of HD content is to be found) except through an antenna.

Amazingly enough, this has caused a renewed interest in VCRs—but VCRs that can record HD content. These HD-VCRs are great, but the tapes are expensive, and they make keeping a lot of HD content—such as an entire season of Stargate SG-1 or Alias—difficult, if not impossible. But a little bit of work and a lot of clever experimentation can get you around this limitation, keep you in HD content, and impress your buddies.

First, a little bit of history about the Super VHS (SVHS) format, which JVC introduced in 1987. This format was an upgrade to the existing VHS format; SVHS was designed to record at a higher horizontal resolution than VHS. The boost to detail came in the luminance domain (a.k.a. the black and white information), while the color resolution was still unchanged from VHS. The horizontal resolution specification for SVHS was greater than 400 lines, compared to VHS, which was only 240 lines. Strangely, the increased detail in the black and white information resulted in an image that looked like the color saturation was low all the time.

In practice, most consumer SVHS VCRs typically recorded only 360 to 380 lines at the best SP (standard play) speed, so they were not quite as good as the specification for the new format; still, this was a large leap in image quality. Some of the cheaper SVHS VCRs of the time were actually down in the 340-line range for recorded horizontal resolution. The current JVC higher-end SVHS units (circa 2001) record greater than 420 lines while their budget units are still in the 350-line range.

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Cover Black Bars with Letterbox Mattes

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Cover the black bars that appear on the edges of your screen with mattes, creating a better-looking image and sharper picture.

The nature of the display technology inside a television set is such that it sometimes has trouble "holding black at black." The color displayed as black on your television screen is often only relative. When a scene is composed mostly of light color elements, it is said to have a high picture level in terms of brightness. When viewing these high-picture-level scenes, an area on the screen that is supposed to be black often appears gray. The overall picture level of the image affects the black level; light from the brighter objects often spills over and influences the darker images.

As a result, if you watch the letterbox bars at the top and bottom of your screen, they will shift in color from solid black to a much more medium gray depending on the picture level in a scene. Although you might not consciously notice this shift, it does have an effect on how you see the image.

By covering these bars with mattes you remove the distracting shift in color, allowing your eye to truly ignore this unused area. The letterbox bars become more neutral to your eye and the contrast and color level in the picture seem much more vivid. This hack is not only an excellent example of how a small investment can make a sizable difference, but also, an interesting demonstration of how our minds play a starring role in how we process visual information. You'll be amazed at the difference.

It's important to note that users of standard 4:3 televisions and users of 16:9 widescreen sets can benefit from this hack; it is useful in working with almost any aspect ratio [Hack #13] . Standard-TV owners will find that they might need to create two sets of mattes, one for 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 content, and a second set for 2.35:1 material. Widescreen-TV (16:9) owners also will need two sets of mattes, one for 2.35:1 material and, if desired, a set for covering the bars on the sides of 1.33:1 (4:3) material.

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Improve the Picture on Rear Projection TVs

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Taking the protective reflective screen off a rear projection television increases black levels, reduces glare, and makes for a much-improved picture, especially during daylight hours.

We've all been there before: you've got the day off, and you decide to sit around the house and enjoy watching Saving Private Ryan in your home theater, without constraints on volume from your roommates, significant other, or spouse. Everything is great—until you realize you can't see Tom Hanks because sunlight from the rear window is glaring up your screen. What began as an enjoyable experience quickly becomes annoying, and you end up spending all day answering email and grumbling about your TV. Fortunately, the answer to this problem is simpler than you might imagine.

Rear projection televisions (RPTVs) have a protective screen placed between the actual screen elements of the television and the viewer. This protects your TV from pets, carpet dander, and the hands of two-year-olds. However, if you've got your theater in a well-controlled environment where there isn't much traffic (resulting in low carpet dander), and pets and children are either not allowed or watched fairly closely, the protective screen stops serving its purpose. In fact, it actually hurts the picture, allowing for light sources to cause glare and distortion. In these cases, removing the screen is a great idea.

First, you'll need to remove the speaker covers on the bottom of the TV. These usually are attached via thick Velcro-like attachments, and you can firmly pull them off without damage. Then you can unscrew any other coverings on the bottom portion of your TV, all of which house and protect the projection elements of the television. On my Toshiba RPTV, I had to pull off two speaker grilles, attached by Velcro, and then unscrew a center cover.The results are shown in Figure 2-17.

Figure 2-17: RPTV without bottom speaker grilles

Different models use different attachments and cover schemes, so consult your manual carefully. Pulling firmly on something that's screwed in can be futile, or in certain cases, can rip your speaker grilles.

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Paint Your Theater a Neutral Color

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Although your walls are certainly not a video component, they can make a dramatic difference in how your display devices are perceived. Neutral colors might not be as impressive with the lights on, but they sure make a difference with the lights off.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has recommended the use of neutral—or at least nearly neutral—colors in viewing environments for electronic displays. This specification is to preserve accurate color perception for the viewer. The way our brain processes optical information results in surrounding colors having an effect upon our perception of other colors in the same field of view. A photo of a person wearing a cyan shirt, placed in a frame with a blue matte surrounding the image, will cause the shirt to appear greener. Place the same photo against a green matte, though, and the shirt will appear bluer. It's only with a neutral gray matte that you get a true perception; the shirt will appear cyan.

The same principals apply to your perceptions of electronic images. SMPTE's research had critical applications for engineers, editors, cinematographers, and producers needing absolute accuracy of perception in the studio. SMPTE used the Munsell System of color standards to specify precisely what constitutes neutral, and nearly neutral, for professional viewing environments. Instead of ignoring these standards, you should take them into account in your own home theater.

Correct color perception in a video viewing environment is ideally enhanced and preserved by providing a neutral-colored surround within the field of view of a monitor's screen. Popular home theater magazines have consistently featured stylish viewing environments that look great with all the lights on; unfortunately, these colorful designscapes tend to contaminate the image produced by the video display when it's time to actually watch a program (and the lights go down).

Rich colors near the screen skew the viewer's perception of the image on the display in a subtractive manner. Flesh tones can be perceived as slightly pink, green, yellow, blue, etc., depending on the color of the surrounding walls. Other picture elements, such as grass and sky, can take on an unnatural hue that disrupts a sense of realism. The careful efforts of program producers and cinematographers to set a mood, via the subtle use of color, can be rendered ineffective. That fancy theater décor is suddenly hurting your theater rather than helping it! It's much more important for viewers to feel that they are in the theater when the movie is playing than when it's not.

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Backlight Your TV

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Watching a large TV in a dark room can cause a lot of eyestrain. By placing a simple light behind your TV, you create the illusion of depth, resulting in less eyestrain and a more pleasant viewing experience.

I know you've been there—you're five hours into a Lord of the Rings marathon (watching the extended versions of each movie, of course), and your head begins to hurt. Your eyes get tired, and you can't understand what it is about those Uruk-Hai that make you tired. Well, it's not the movie; it's the lack of lighting in the room. More specifically, it's the lack of depth perception that the darkened room is causing.

When lights get dim, your television begins to "fade" into the back wall. Eventually, as lights go almost out (the optimal viewing environment), your eyes can no longer separate the picture on your screen from the wall behind it—but these two objects aren't the same distance away. If you're still unclear as to what I'm talking about, think about a camera trying to focus in on two objects, different distances away. Just as you seem to focus in on one object, the other starts to grow blurry. This is what's happening to your eyes in a darkened room—and eventually, it's going to begin to hurt. Your eyes need some way of distinguishing between the wall and the picture, which allows them to focus on just the picture, reducing eyestrain.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to backlight your television. Key to determining what light to use is the color-rendering index (CRI), which measures light's ability to render pigments (perceived as color) according to a prescribed standard. Most lights for your house don't even take CRI into consideration, so just grabbing a lamp and sticking it behind your TV isn't going to help much—in fact, you won't see a CRI rating on most bulbs at all. However, you can make some judgment based on the light's Kelvins (K). Ratings of 5,000K and higher are referenced to daylight, based on different times of the day; 6,500K is what you want to look for in a home theater application. A white light rated at 6,500K is going to exactly match the white on a correctly calibrated TV set.

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Add Metal Plating to Support a Center Speaker

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Most home theater television sets have a large center speaker sitting on top of them. This is generally the ideal placement, but over time, a heavy speaker will warp your TV set. A simple piece of metal on top can solve this problem.

The bigger the speaker, the better, right? Well, that's not always true [Hack #37] , but it often is. However, these big speakers also are heavy speakers, and over time they'll create an ugly indentation in your TV set. Although that might be a great excuse to buy a new set, it's too easy of a problem to correct to let lie. Besides, you can't resell a TV with a warped screen!

To solve this problem, locate (or buy at your local sheet metal shop) a good size sheet of either 1/2- or 3/8-inch aluminum. Cut this down to the size of your television top, minus about 2 inches.

If you're not comfortable working with sheet metal or don't have the tools you need, a sheet metal shop (or even an auto body shop) can cut down metal like this for a nominal cost.

It shouldn't just be the size of your center channel's footprint; in addition to leaving you no room to upgrade, all you've done is added to the weight in the middle of your set. Instead, you want a plate large enough to distribute the weight of the speaker across the entire set, as shown in Figure 2-23. You can see that a little extra time resulted in a nice-looking stand rather than an ugly piece of metal. Paint the plate the color of your TV, place it on the TV, place the speaker on the plate, and you're all set.

Figure 2-23: Winged center-channel speaker stand

This hack is really aimed at rear projection TVs (RPTVs). The newer CRT TV sets have some magnetic issues with plate metal, so I recommend against using a metal plate for newer CRT-based TVs. LCD and DLP televisions are not an issue, as they are rarely sturdy enough to hold a center channel in the first place.

Even better, you might want to consider taking some extra time to really make things sturdy. If you've got the tools and the inclination, bend the plate edges down. This takes all the weight off the speaker and focuses it on the edges of your TV set (which have the most reinforcement, from the sides and back of the unit). You need to test this out a bit because a heavy speaker can cause the middle of a plate bent like this to sag; you want to be sure the speaker doesn't bend the plate down so much that it ends up touching the TV set after all. Finally, you need to level off the bent ends, so you don't have aluminum edges wearing into your TV's top. You also can make the location of the plate (some have suggested using Velcro as well) so that it always rests in the same spot; check out Figure 2-24 for the completed stand, sitting on a TV, with the center channel properly placed.

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Squeeze Your TV into Your Basement

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Sometimes, you'll find that your perfect TV just won't fit into your perfect room. In these cases, you might be able to take some drastic steps and disassemble enough of the TV to get it where it belongs.

In cases where building a mockup [Hack #9] actually proves you can't fit your TV into its target resting place you still might be able to make things work. This hack details taking a Sony 57HW40 apart, moving it, and putting it back together again. Your mileage may vary on different brands, but this will give you a head start on getting that TV where it just doesn't seem to want to go.

It should go without saying that this operation is going to void your warranty. If that makes you nervous, stop reading, and find something safer to do!

First, you might want to see the set before it underwent deconstruction and moving; it's shown, still in pristine condition, in Figure 2-25.

The first thing you want to do is get a flat-head screwdriver, get down on the ground, and look for the two circles that hold the front speaker grill. Figure 2-26 shows what to look for.

Using your screwdriver, remove the two circle caps, which will reveal the two screws you want to remove.

Figure 2-25: Sony TV before moving

Figure 2-26: Screw caps for TV speaker grill