Top 10 Ugly HOME THEATER SECRETS revealed!
Here they are, The Top 10 Ugly Home Theater Secrets, all in one place,
and what to DO about each one!
Let's get to the ugliness!!! We need to start there to get to the beauty.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #1: WHAT YOU BUY TODAY WILL BE OBSOLETE TOMORROW, IF IT ISN'T ALREADY.
What you should do about it:Don't sweat it. Just read on and educate yourself so you don't make a terrible mistake. If you shop wisely, you can get a tremendous leap over what you have come to know as television. The good news is the better stuff coming down the pipe is knocking prices down on the stuff out now.
Plus, consumer surveys SCREAM to the electronics companies that people WANT these new, slim, high resolution Home Theater setups. There are billions of dollars to be made. Those surveys snapped the head of every exec in the biz. They geared up to make more. "Make more" equals "economies of scale" equals "make MORE money," even at lower price points! The first one costs a bazillion dollars: research, tooling up. Then, with volume, the cost per unit plummets. The guys who want to have very latest get to pay the most. Why be that person? (But if you do, we'll have some treats for you coming up.)
IF YOU WAIT...
Make sure your display has an HDMI input if not more than one.
Try to get a receiver with the same.
And if you buy a DVR - digital disc-based video recorder (aka PVR) then make sure it'll have HDCP (copy protection) or you might end up with less resolution than Hi-Def.
Get a 1080p display.
Try to get one with CableCard 2.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #2. And this is really, really big: YOU CAN'T TELL WHAT THE PICTURE LOOKS LIKE FROM WHAT YOU SEE IN THE STORE.
What you should do about it:What you are doing now. Research. The hard part is cutting through the opinions of weenies who want to see a feather clearly, blowing in the wind at 50 yards. I'll help ya there. Believe it. Read on.
There are three reasons why Home Theater Ugly Secret #2 is true.
1- The sets aren't adjusted right. They are turned way up to dazzle you. The dazzle will bother you when you get home. Worse, it drives the set to what you'd call distortion. The better picture happens when the picture is turned down in brightness, sharpness, contrast, and whatever else has been goosed. Why do they let this happen? It's like a conspiracy that everyone is in on - except you. Because when they are all lined up, 40 sets in a row, the manufacturers know you might think theirs is different and better. But they ALL do it, so it's a wipe. And if a store is a little bit shady, with some hi-def sets to move at a higher profit margin, well, now, those might have been "optimized" to look better than the others.
Yes, most of the hi-def sets CAN be adjusted correctly for you in your home. MAYBE by you. But not at the store. More later.
Did I mention that Bubba the shopper doofus was there, just before you browsed in, that he found the remote control and screwed up all the settings anyway?
So, you can't trust what you see in most stores. But wait, there's more.
2- Many of the sets are being fed video poorly. A distribution amp or humungous splitter shares the picture among the displays. That hurts the picture. A store might have 40 sets on one distribution, but the ones they really want to move on a purer source, showing a better picture. You'll never know.
3- What you see may or may not be high definition or even good quality. Just as bad, it might be super fidelity you won't likely ever see again. Because, what you watch at home might not be broadcast or cablecast with a good picture.
So, you can see misaligned sets fed bad pictures that bear little resemblance to anything you'd see at home. Ready to drop several THOUSAND on that? Didn't think so. But tens of thousands of people do. Probably WILL this weekend. Eager commissioned salespeople will confide that THIS unit is the superior one. No hidden agenda there, do you think, huh?!!!
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #3. THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH EVERYTHING.
What you should do about it:Relax. Don't obsess. It's more a matter of things being done different ways by different designers. For example, on this set, the colors are spot on, but the resolution is a little off. On that set over there, the resolution is incredible, but the red... You are still going to love the setup you buy - and remember - you just might have it for 10 years or MORE! You'll look at it more than you look at your wife, husband or kids. I'm talking face time. Relax. We'll get you through this.
A personal note to THE OBSESSIVES:
If you haven't already left, I want you to think about the fact that there are millions of screen dots to go wrong. Not that they will, but the 317th one from the left and 119th from the bottom IS a little shaky, don't you think? Time to take a deep breath. One, two, three. Exhale. Even though there's something wrong with everything, if you embrace that thought and LET IT GO you'll be able to enjoy the - uh - big picture. The state of the Home Theater art - even if it IS yesterday's art (I tell you I saw this in full glory in the mid 80s!) is very very nice. Relax.
Why a Home Theater? And what's it MEAN anyway? Good questions. A Home Theater is simply the natural; evolution of the TV experience. Now that we can, we do. It's how it goes. Basically, you get a shorter, wider picture (more like a movie in a... theater) and the picture is much clearer. Usually. And you can have better sound too. It can be all around you, or just in the front. You choose. You can have a box that plays the deep notes - fun things like car crashes, earthquakes, whale farts, cannons. You get to experience them like never before. It's not essential, but it's there if you want it. I'll explain later.
A Home Theater is just like going to the movies. Except the screen isn't that big, but you can get a good seat. You don't have to endure advertisements if you don't want to. You can go to the bathroom and touch the door handle on the way out. No paying $5.75 for a bag of stale popcorn. No popcorn bagging zomboid teenagers. No lines. No sticky floors (unless that's the way you live, not that there's anything wrong with that.)
By the way: Why do Canadians spell Theater "Theatre?" It's a metric spelling. Okay, no it's not. It's the English influence. I think it's cool. You know: "Bond, James Bond." In some of the US, it'd be "Jimmy Bond, yo!"
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #4: EVEN IF YOU GET A DEAL ON THE TV, THEY WILL HOSE YOU ON THE STAND. MOST ARE WAY OVERPRICED!
What you should do about it:Shop around. Find one that isn't the one that is designed to put more money into the dealer's pants. Look off brand (not the same manufacturer as the TV.)
This obviously assumes you are looking at a Hi-Def TV that goes on a wall, or more likely, on a stand. Big CRT rear screen projectors are all in one box.
You want something that brings the set to seated eye level. Stand in front of a tv and move up and down and side to side. The picture will change some. Try to approximate the angle you'll sit and see how it looks to you.
Don't forget you can also shop at a furniture store.
Stands are usually overpriced.
“We had no idea about most of this. Thank you for opening our eyes!” G. B. Tierrasanta, CA
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #5: IF YOU BUY A PLASMA OR OTHER "HANG ON THE WALL" SET, YOU STILL HAVE WIRES THAT WILL DANGLE UNLESS YOU RUN THEM IN THE WALL.
The ads all show the screen, but not the wire. At minimum you have power and signal wires (cable or satellite). By the way, these babies are heavy. It's not at all like hanging a picture.
What you should do about it:Plan ahead.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #6: IF YOU SEE A TV THAT SAYS "...READY" THAT MEANS IT DOESN'T HAVE A TUNER. YOU NEED A TUNER. THEY WILL SELL YOU A SEPARATE TUNER. YOU ARE BUYING A MONITOR.
Monitors don't have tuners. Since so many sets were being sold in a way that may be politely called MISLEADING, somebody changed the regulations - now it has to be disclosed. The picture may not suck, but just know a monitor should be a lot cheaper than a true complete TV.
What you should do about it:know this. It can save you money and SHOULD.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed- Secret #7: SOME PLASMAS AND LCD DIRECT VIEWS LOOK LIKE HI-DEF BUT AREN'T.
The PICTURES don't look like High Definition because they aren't. The screens, when OFF, look the same.
What you should do about it:IF YOU WANT HDTV, Pass.
These sets were put out into the market as bait. Often thousands less than the original run of HDTVs, their pictures were better than you had been used to, but can't stun you like true HDTV can.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #8: YOU MAY NOT SEE A PICTURE AT ITS BEST.
What you should do about it:Depends on how deeply you want to crawl into this.
Warning!This is technical but I'll simplify. Each piece of electronics - a display device (Hi-Def, digital television) has its own way of showing the picture, involving a fixed number of pixels (picture pieces). This isn't the same for all sets. It isn't the necessarily same for DVD players, converters, or whatever else you plug into see a picture. So somewhere the data is converted. ALL CONVERSION SCHEMES ARE NOT EQUAL. THERE MAY BE LOSSES of resolution, or clarity. There may be what they call artifacts.
And here's a thrill: The TV stations don't have to use all their new digital bandwidth to broadcast in full high-definition. For example, rather than being limited to providing one analog programming channel, a broadcaster will be able to provide a super sharp "high definition" (HDTV) program or multiple "standard definition" DTV programs simultaneously. Providing several program streams on one broadcast channel is called "multicasting." The number of programs a station can send on one digital channel depends on the level of picture detail, also known as "resolution," desired in each programming stream. DTV can provide interactive video and data services that are not possible with "analog" technology. They may use some of it for something else that makes them more money. They - or the satellite channels - can in effect send a degraded picture alongside another new channel of degraded picture. There's nothing you can do about this. Nice.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #9: ARTIFACTS.
Important background on nasty artifacts:
Warning:Like a pimple on a teen, after they see it, that's ALL they see. If you want to live in denial, skip ahead to Number 10. And these aren't REALLY secrets, because you can see them, but you might not notice right away.
What you should do about it:Decide which you can live with and which you can't. It will drive you crazy if you let it. Or spend a fortune to get the latest technology that might have it fixed. Or just ignore it. Life isn't perfect. Be VERY CLEAR on what the warranty covers or doesn't.
Mosquito noise.Not buzzing. It's a swirling that looks like tiny bugs flying around. You'll see it - if you do - in saturated colors.
Screen Door Effect. It looks like looking through a screen door into your picture. (Especially - to my eye - on Plasma sets.) It's because of how the set is built (you are actually seeing the holes or spaces between picture elements). Manufacturers are aware of this and doing all they can to fix or mitigate it.
Blocking.The picture breaks up into little (or bigger!) blocks. This is horrible to see unless you love modern art. It'll be seen in moving pictures of detail. This is the worst sin.
Rainbows.Certain people see a rainbow effect in certain DLP (Digital Light Projector) sets. You might notice it if you look slightly away from the screen. It's caused by the way the DLPs work. Some are better at this than others. There's no pot of gold at the end, either.
Pixel failure.Since there are so many elements (pixels) to a picture, one or more can fail. THE WARRANTY MIGHT STATE that a certain number of failures is okay with them and may even be expected. IF you saw it you'd only notice it up close (see section on where to sit in relation to screen - you shouldn't BE that close. One or more might also stay lit permanently. That'll be more obvious, a tiny, tiny red in a black scene, for example. There may be millions of these dots on your screen, to give you a sense of scale. This isn't the end of the world.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #10: SPEAKERS NEVER SOUND THE WAY THEY DO IN THE STORE.
What you should do about it:Just know it. There's little you can do. (But in the audio section I'll tell you all about how to get the best out of your sound.)
Why? It has to do with the acoustics of the room in which you listen. Each room makes the same speakers sound differently. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. You could buy a subwoofer and bring it home and HEAR NO BASS where you sit. But this will be covered in the audio section. Along with what you can do about it.
BONUS: Home Theater UGLY SECRETS Revealed - Secret #11: SOME TV SCREENS ARE REFLECTIVE.
What you should do about it:Avoid them!!! unless you have a windowless hole to use as a viewing room. Or wait till dark. Or get dark shades.
I would immediately disqualify* any screen that reflects light from windows in the room back at you from the screen. Notice, if you dare go to a store, that the good ones have the big screens FAR AWAY from windows or other sources of light!
A tip:bring a flashlight to the store. Really. Shine it at the screen. You'll immediately see the difference between reflective and non-reflective.
Some manufacturers will SELL you the ADD ON anti-glare screen. It's like undercoating on your new car. YOU SHOULDN'T NEED IT. Avoid reflective screens.
*this doesn't apply to screens you use for a PROJECTOR if they weren't reflective, you'd see nothing. Even so, now there are projector screens which you put on the wall or drop down, that reflect the colors of your TV projector but not others as easily. Less non-tv reflection = a better picture.
Some manufacturers know you will have to watch in a dim room - not because the TV can't crank out brightness, because they CAN, but because you have to use a more moderate brightness setting for a great picture. PLUS they know some of their screens are crappily shiny. So they are starting to put lighting INTO the side and/or back of the TV itself. That actually helps. Thought you should know.
BONUS: Home Theater UGLY SECRETS Revealed - Secret #12: On many new HDTV display screens, old analog TV looks bad.
What you should do about it:Live with it. It'll change when the TV channels go High-Def.
This drives me crazy. And it's often difficult to get them to show you a standard picture in a store. They'll say, "Oh, we only have satellite" or "Our antenna is bad." Because they don't want you to see this ugly thing. To me, at worst, faces look like they are one tone of skin colored wax with not enough detail. There's a reason stores won't show you this: because it looks bad.
You can still get a CRT (TUBE type) "Direct view" TV in HDTV. These are going away, but won't be obsolete. Any HDTV set with CRT technology will show you what is now 'standard' TV better than other types. But, again, soon there won't be 'standard' tv.
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