Home Theater

Setting up a new home theater system is exciting, but, with equipment and components and wiring galore, it has its share of pitfalls – many of which are avoidable.

As with most home improvement projects, preparation - and a bit of forethought - is key. Consider these simple installation tips from the experts at CableOrganizer.com – a leading provider of home theater cable, wire and equipment management solutions:

Account for power requirements
Make sure that your home’s circuits can handle the power load placed on them by home theater devices. Before you plug in and run all of those audio/video components, find out how much power you have running to your home theater room, as well as the total amount of power that will be drawn by the electronics. If the load is too heavy, reconfigure your equipment so that you don’t blow the circuit! And always remember: if you’re in doubt as far as power capabilities for a home theater go, there’s no shame in having a professional assess the situation. Where electricity is concerned, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Read more

The Bowers & Wilkins Panorama is the ideal way of upgrading your flatscreen TV's sound. Amazing audio quality with surround sound and stereo. Active center speaker for wonderful movie sound. Simple connection and set up. A true one-box solution: no subwoofer required.

Bowers & Wilkins' Panorama will do for your flatscreen TV what the iconic Zeppelin did for your iPod® - enhance its sound quality beyond what you imagined possible. And just like the Zeppelin, along with that amazing audio comes intuitive control and stylish design.

The Panorama is the result of intensive research by B&W's renowned engineering team at its UK Research and Development division in Steyning, West Sussex. It includes technologies originally developed for high-end speakers such as the legendary 800 Series, and uses them to bring a new level of performance to soundbars.

Using a combination of multiple drive units and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) the Panorama not only boosts the quality of your TV to unprecedented levels, it also provides users with an immersive surround performance from a single speaker. The wide 'sweet spot' it is capable of creating allows more people to experience the effect together, making it the ideal family entertainment system. Read more

January 9, 2009 –Epson just announced the latest addition to its award-winning line of 3LCD 1080p front projectors, the PowerLite Home Cinema 6500 UB. Offering true 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) resolution with the latest 3LCD D7 chip set for significantly higher contrast, a built-in HQV Reon-VX processor by Silicon Optix, and a wide range of new performance advantages, the Home Cinema 6500 UB delivers an outstanding viewing experience for home entertainment and AV enthusiasts.

Featuring 3LCD technology with Epson’s new “Crystal Clear Fine” D7 chip set and UltraBlack (Vertical Alignment) technology, the Home Cinema 6500 UB displays superb black levels and extraordinary details. 3LCD technology enables the projector to deliver realistic, vibrant colors without the possibility of color break-up, unlike single-chip projectors, which use a spinning color wheel to create their colors. It also allows the Home Cinema 6500 UB to provide a significantly enhanced contrast ratio – up to an unrivaled 75,000:1 – to deliver darker blacks and brighter whites. Read more

January 8, 2009 – Panasonic just announced the U.S. debut of its world's first 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System (3D FHD) this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2009. The system made its world debut at CEATEC JAPAN 2008 in October 2008 to very strong reviews.

Panasonic’s 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System enables the viewing of true-to-life 3D FHD images by using a Panasonic 103-inch Plasma HDTV and a Panasonic Blu-ray Disc (BD) player, capable of distributing full High Definition (1920 x 1080 pixels) images to the left eye and right eye.

“This goes well beyond conventional 3D and Panasonic is fully committed to making it a reality, and soon,” said Bob Perry, Executive Vice President, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. “Plasma is currently the only TV capable of delivering a 3D Full HD experience due in great part to its ability to refresh at a speed which enables multiple image display without loss of resolution. The integration of Hollywood’s 3D content with Panasonic’s industry leading Plasma, Blu-ray and 3D FHD technologies deliver a truly immersive experience which will elevate home entertainment to a whole new level of excitement. You will no longer just be watching a movie, you’ll be experiencing the realism of Hollywood film.” Read more

January 6, 2009 -- Say goodbye to complicated lists and long explanations about how to use your home-entertainment system. Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, Logitech introduced the Logitech Harmony 1100 advanced universal remote control, delivering powerful home-entertainment control through a customizable, 3.5-inch full-color touch screen. Logitech’s newest remote provides a touch-screen interface that lets you put the commands you want, where you want them. The Harmony 1100 remote has received the CES 2009 Design and Engineering Award: Best of Innovations in the Home-Entertainment Accessories category – the second consecutive year a Logitech Harmony remote has been honored with this award.

“The Harmony 1100 is a natural extension of the Harmony promise – to simplify today’s complex home-entertainment systems,” said Ashish Arora, vice president and general manager of Logitech’s Harmony business unit. “As more and more people get the bulk of their entertainment at home, the Harmony 1100 will help people get more out of their home-entertainment experience – for a fraction of the price of traditional custom-installed remotes.” Read more

There's the teen who refuses to turn off her cell phone, the toddler booting the back of your seat and the $5 bucket of popcorn that tastes like it's been around since the silent era. Isn't going to the movies supposed to be fun?

If you'd rather watch movies at home than go to the theater, you're not alone. About 73 percent of your fellow movie-lovers feel the same, according to one Associated Press-AOL poll. The majority of respondents said they would rather watch movies at home, citing crowds, uncomfortable seats, expensive tickets and costly concessions among the aggravations of going out to the movies.

No wonder building a home theater is one of the hottest trends in home improvement, and electronic items like home theater systems promise to continue as hot sellers. If the idea of having your own home theater is appealing, you don't have to pay pros to do the job for you. You can enjoy a home theater experience without the expense of professional installation by doing it yourself.

Here are some basics for building your own home theater: Read more

I have always wanted a Porsche 911, and hope to own one before I die. Now, I must create a list; because the ITC One from SE2 Labs is number two on my (now) list of wants. The Porsche 911 is on my list because I enjoy driving, and going from point “A” to point “B” in a well-made vehicle is what I perceive true happiness to look and feel like. The ITC One was added as the number two item I would like to have because I enjoy good entertainment. Especially when it is a good movie, or the latest episode of NBC’s The Office.

The ITC One from SE2 Labs is a personalized, multi-function, home entertainment system. That’s right, a “system!” All of your components are built into one box making it the elite home entertainment system. This system can integrate the following components: Cable company DVR (Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, etc.), Game consoles (Microsoft X-Box 360, SONY Playstation, Nintendo Wii, etc.), Dish Network, Direct TV, High-End Video Processor, AMX Netlinx Control System, Bryston Pre-Amp Processor, Ice Power High-End D-Class Amplifiers, Power Conditioner, Apple Video iPod with Dock, all with a touch panel on the front. Check with your installer for all components, as the list is long. Read more

Maybe you're remodeling to optimize TV watching at home. Perhaps you're gearing up to secure virtual front-row seats to the “Big Game”. It's entirely possible that you're simply using the national conversion to 100-percent digital TV broadcasts at midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, as a good excuse to bring home a shiny, new high-definition TV.

Regardless of your motivation for the purchase, after eagerly unpacking your cherished widescreen DLP, LCD or plasma TV, you'll see there are many different options, tweaks and adjustments to make in pursuit of the best possible viewing experience. One oft-forgotten detail is how to use lighting in your media room or home theater. Read more

Samsung recently released the latest generation of a very special projector, the SP-A800B, a stylish design that features the rare combination of professional quality video at a reasonable price (under $10,000). This projector combines the latest DLP chip technology, 1080p broadcast quality video, and the ability to correctly project 24 frames per second motion pictures just as filmmakers intended.

For the technically inclined, the projector uses the latest TI DLP chip set featuring a native resolution of 1920x1080, a spectacular lens with adjustable iris settings, and superb on-board deinterlacing. It also is the only projector in this price range that provides (accurately) the three most popular worldwide color standards right out of the box: HDTV, EBU, and SMPTE-C at no extra charge. If you do not know what all this technobabble means, don’t worry. What you will know after seeing the projector in action is that it provides virtually unmatched color fidelity, deep blacks, and a picture that’s better than what you would see at your local cinema. Read more