How to setup a Home Theatre System?
Whether you have chosen a theater-in-a-box home theater system or a custom home theater setup, all the components have to be connected correctly in a proper room environment to bring the true movie theater experience in your home.
Here are a few factors that have to be considered when you choose a room for your home theater: Room size
First of all, the room size should match with the power that your home theater is configured with. If you use a low end home theater in a larger room, the sound effects may be adequate to produce the desired effects.
Design features of the room
For optimum results, the design of the room needs to be rectangular and have sufficient space to accommodate all the components like TV, speakers and furniture at right placements.
TV size should be proportionate with the size of the room
When you choose a large screen TV for your home theater, the room should be sufficiently larger to provide viewing distance to avoid the visible scan lines and to get clear picture. You should sit at a distance of at least two times the diagonal length of your TV set from it for better viewing.
Ambient conditions and acoustic properties of the room
The ambient conditions and acoustic features play a huge role in a home theater setup. Make sure that the room has light-proof and sound-proof features which are ideal for a home theater.
Picture looks great in dark rooms. If there are windows in the room, use thick curtains to prevent any light from entering the room. When placing the TV, make sure it does not face a window as the glare on the screen could be disruptive.
Another thing that can help to minimize echoes and to get clear sound is using carpeted floor.
Setting up of a home theater all-in-one system
If you want to install a theater-in-a-box home theater system, there is not much work that you have to do except connecting all the cables and the manual that you get with the system will provide all information along with diagrams. Just go through the user manual to find all information on connections and functions if you plan do the installation all yourself.
Before you connect all the components, just have a look at the home theater path diagram (in the section three of this article) to understand the home theater basics. A DVD player or some AV source sends information to the AV Receiver (unit of pre-amp and sound channel amplifiers) that splits the information and send video signals to the TV set and audio signals to the speakers. The coloured cables will make your connection easy and just follow the instructions provided in the user manual.
For placement of speakers, read the section on ‘Surround sound’ to get more information about Dolby or DTS sound setup.
Building Custom Home Theater system
Custom Home theater setup often involves connecting additional input devices, separate AV Receiver and amplifiers and some times storage options like DVD recorder, DVR etc. You also need to consider whether you like to connect your home theater to antennae or cable or satellite dish to receive TV programmes. If you want to store the TV programmes and playback later, you will have to include VCR or DVD recorder in the system.
Connecting cable, antennae or satellite dish to your home theater
- The first option is just connecting AV receiver of the home theater directly with these devices.
- Or you may connect them to VCR or DVD recorder first, and then connect the A/V outputs of these devices with the proper A/V inputs of the AV Receiver of the home theater system. This way, you can store and playback the programmes later.
- Then connect the video output cable from the AV receiver to the video input connection of the TV.
- Similarly, connect audio cables between AV receiver and the loud speakers.
Connecting CD/DVD player or blu-ray player
- Connect the video output of these input devices with video input connection of the AV receiver in the home theater.
- Then make the audio connection between these devices and the AV receiver using digital audio cable.
- Then connect video output of the AV receiver to the video input option provided in the TV set. Use the proper video connection depending on the TV set (whether it is standard or HD TV).
- Finally, connect all sound channel cables with the loud speakers from the audio outputs of the AV receiver.
Things to be considered while connecting speakers
- While connecting the speakers and subwoofer to the AV receiver, make sure they are connected to the proper sound channels. For instance, the front center speaker should be connected to the channel in AV receiver.
- Other channels will be connected to side and rear speakers accordingly.
- Also connect the subwoofer to the correct input of the AV receiver.
- Use the right size, high quality speakers and subwoofer in a custom home theater setup as audio experience largely depends upon them.
- Make sure that sound levels of the speakers and subwoofer are balanced in a room environment and produce the desired sound effects. This can be often done by using the sound functions provided in the AV receiver.
