For whatever reason, the public glommed onto the term "home theater", so that just about any electronic component larger than a 13-inch black and white TV is slapped with a label that reads "home theater ready!"
So at this stage of the game, home theater is ubiquitous, and us old-timers are left fighting a rear-guard linguistic battle. I guess I can't blame the authors or their publishers. To paraphrase the line from Jaws, it's psychological: you write a book called Media Rooms For Dummies, and people go "huh?!". You call it Home Theater For Dummies, and you'll sell some copies.
The Home Theater PC
One very interesting concept in Home Theater For Dummies is the home theater PC. (I've written a few articles about these myself, incidentally). There are all sorts of reasons why a PC in the media room makes perfect sense. (Of course, they're also arriving there in pieces: component size MP3 players and PVRs like ReplayTV and TiVO are essientially simple computers dedicated to singe functions.) But in the past, getting a PC's display to look good on a fuzzy NTSC screen has been difficult. Fortunately, the growing number of HDTVs, DTVs, computer-grade projection systems, plasma screens, et al, in media rooms have made this easier to accomplish, as Briere and Hurley explain in their book.
The media room PC reflects one of the goals of Home Theater For Dummies: have a home theater that's capable of playing anything, that can be used to surf the net, play videogames, listen to music (whether it's CD, MP3, SACD, DVD-A, etc.), and with a little help from the advice in Smart Homes For Dummies, be accessible by TVs and speakers in other rooms in the house.
If you're new to the idea of media rooms, err home theater, and like the idea, Home Theater For Dummies is a great place to start. If your media room is starting to look a little long in the tooth (no PVR, no MP3 player, a first-generation DVD player, etc.), and you'd like to bring it into the 21st century, Briere and Hurley's book is equally recommended.
Article comments