3 Essential Elements You Need in Your Home Theater

If you’ve spent the time, money and energy to build a home theater in your house, you want to be sure you have everything you need to enjoy the cinematic viewing experience. But what do you need for a top-quality home theater? Is it just about TV size and how loud your speakers are?

To make sure you get the best movie-watching experience possible, check out Phoenix Audio Video’s guide to a better home theater installation for your Westchester County, NY house.

 

SEE ALSO: Make Any Room A Home Theater with These Hidden Technologies

 

UPGRADE TO 4K VIDEO

1080p HD resolution has been the standard for most video content for a long while, but 4K Ultra HD is the way of the future. As implied by the name, 4K displays have four times the amount of pixels than standard HD displays, which gives you a much sharper picture, an image that’s brighter and with a greater variety of colors, and helps the black tones pop in the background to create better contrast. When you factor in newer video technologies like high-dynamic range imaging and faster refresh rates, a 4K display is a must-have for your home theater.

You’ll also want to be sure you have a sufficiently large TV or projection screen to bring all that visual detail to life, but you don’t want to go too big. Remember that with 4K resolution, you will want to be closer to your screen so you and your guests can immerse yourselves in the action and enjoy every detail within the image. But you also don’t want your screen to be so large that it doesn’t correspond with your room’s dimensions and causes an uncomfortable viewing experience through the need to crane your neck to follow the action.

 

SPRING FOR SURROUND SOUND

Visuals are undoubtedly the most important element of your home theater, but you won’t get a cinematic watching experience without a quality sound system to supplement the action on screen. Accordingly, you’ll want to include a surround sound system as part of your home theater installation.

At the bare minimum, you’ll want what’s referred to as a 5.1 speaker setup, which includes five speakers and a subwoofer. The first three speakers are your front, left and right channels, and then the other two are placed behind or to the side of the viewer. This creates a 3-D sound environment to better bring you into the environment of the on-screen action, and the subwoofer (which can go more or less anywhere) gives those low bass tones an earth-shaking boost.

You can also go for more advanced speaker configurations to create an even more detailed soundscape in your home theater. 7.1 speaker setups have an additional two channels that be placed to the side of the viewer or behind them, and setups with overhead speakers that can support Dolby Atmos audio format bring even greater immersion into your viewing space.

 

INTEGRATE OTHER AUTOMATION SYSTEMS

One of the guiding principles of home automation is that systems work better the more interconnected they are, including your home theater. Being able to control all the parts of your home theater from one device is nice, but imagine the possibilities if you incorporate other aspects of your home’s automation system.

A good place to start is whole-home audio. If your home theater is integrated with your audio system, you’ll be able to hear whatever you’re watching from any room in the house, if you so choose. No more having to pause the movie when you get up to grab a snack or use the bathroom; you’ll be able to hear what’s happening on screen no matter where you are.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas for your Westchester County, NY home theater installation project. If you have any questions or need any help throughout the process of your home theater project, get in touch with Phoenix Audio Video today.

To learn more about our home theater solutions, call us at (203) 338-0706 or contact us here.