DIY: Connecting a Home Theater

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Now that a pair of movie tickets will set you back $20 – or more, if you splurge for a $7 popcorn and two $4 sodas – it’s easy to see why interest in home theater has exploded in recent years. If you wait a few months, you can buy that same movie on DVD for under $20 and you’ll have complete control over who watches it with you and you’ll save a bundle on snacks. In fact, if you’re supplying the movie and the home theater, make your friends bring the treats!

It may sound like you’ve got the easy part, but many people would prefer picking up some Ring Dings and Pepsi to wiring a home theater and making sure everything’s working as it should. (It’s actually not that hard­, as you’ll soon see, but feel free to exaggerate if it yields more Ring Dings.)

With quality hardware available at every price point, putting together a home theater has never been easier. There are several elements common to every home theater: source devices (such as a DVD player or cable box); audio processing and amplification, commonly handled by an A/V receiver; a multi-channel speaker system, usually 5.1; a television or display device; and finally, the cables that connect and route your audio and video signals.

In this article, I’ve broken the process down into five easy steps, but there’s a fair amount of overlap since everything is interconnected. I’ll also address some of the connection challenges you may encounter with things like High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), CableCARD, iPods and the Digital Video Recorder (DVR).

DEMONSTRATION SYSTEM :

Harman/Kardon AVR340 A/V Receiver
Definitive Technology ProCinema 1000 Speakers
Sharp AQUOS LC-32D40U HDTV
Panasonic EMR-ES45 DVD Player/Recorder
Scientific Atlanta 8300HD Cable DVR
Harman/Kardon “The Bridge” for iPod
Sharp AQUOS LC-32D40U HDTV
Monster, BetterCables and Belkin Cables

STEP 1: Speakers

Speakers are rather simple to connect and they’re hard to screw up, so we’ll start there. Our AVR340 features color-coded binding posts with nice, legible labels for each of its seven speaker outputs. If you’re going to run a 5.1 system, use the “Surround” terminals for the rears. If you’re shooting for 6.1 or 7.1, use the “SB” or “Surround Back” terminals for the rear-center speakers. The primary thing to watch out for when connecting speakers is keeping the polarity straight. That means red to red and black to black at both ends: receiver and speaker. Some speaker wire makes it a no-brainer with red and black sheathing, but some 2-lead wire is trickier to work with. Typically, one lead will have lettering, a colored stripe or raised texture on its sheath – make that your “red” wire and keep it the same on both ends.

The subwoofer typically doesn’t use speaker wire. On most A/V receivers, you’ll find a “Subwoofer” or “LFE” (Low Frequency Emissions) pre-amplified output. It will be a single RCA-style connection and you’ll connect it to the “Sub” or “LFE” input on your subwoofer. Bass management is a subject worthy of an entire article, but a good rule of thumb is to adjust your sub’s crossover knob to its highest setting (usually 120Hz or more) and allow your receiver to manage the crossover frequency (usually around 80Hz). If your sub has a volume control, start at 1/3 power and use the receiver’s level adjustment to achieve the desired oomph. (Click here for more on speaker calibration.)

STEP 2: DVD Player

There are two words to remember when connecting source devices: picture and sound. If you can account for each and trace its path, you won’t have any issues. Picture and sound connections can be made several different ways with varying levels of performance, so the trick is to make sure you’re using the best possible connections supported by your hardware (See sidebar on page 42). Our Panasonic EMR-ES45 is an upscaling DVD player complete with HDMI output. HDMI is an all-digital connection that combines your picture and sound on a single cable. A one cable solution sounds great, but unless you’re using an HDMI-compatible receiver, you’ll have to run HDMI to the TV for picture and run a digital audio cable to the receiver for sound. In our case, we wanted to use the receiver as a central switching station for all audio and video sources so we’d have only video output to the TV. Unfortunately, the AVR340 doesn’t support HDMI so we used component video (picture) and an “optical” digital audio cable (sound) for the DVD-receiver connection.

If you don’t mind switching video inputs on your TV and running multiple cables isn’t an aesthetic concern, the best results with our hardware should be achieved by running HDMI from the DVD player directly into the Sharp AQUOS (picture) and using the optical connection for sound. Many DVD players feature both optical and “coaxial” digital audio outputs and they’re arguably equivalent.

STEP 3: Cable/Satellite/DVR

Cable television used to be the easiest thing to connect when all you did was plug the cable from the wall into your TV. If you’re a basic cable or CableCARD customer, you can still do that. However, more than likely you’re a digital cable subscriber with a cable box or you’re a satellite customer with a satellite receiver. In either case, the connections are no different that the DVD player—it’s all about picture and sound. Make sure you keep track of both portions of the signal and you’ll be done in no time.

In our Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable box, picture output options include HDMI and component video, and we can choose from optical or coaxial for sound. Like the DVD player, it also features composite (red/white/yellow) and S-video connections, but you’d only use those as a last resort. The HDMI situation here is the same as it was for the DVD player—we can run it directly to the TV or forego HDMI and instead run component video/optical audio to the receiver and leverage the receiver’s signal switching capabilities.

If your cable box or satellite receiver has an integrated DVR, there’s no additional wiring necessary. However, if you’re using a standalone DVR such as Tivo’s Series2 machine, you have some extra work. In that case, the signal will flow from the street into the cable box, then into the DVR and finally into the receiver. Here’s how: use an RF splitter on the cable from the street and send one output to your cable box and one to your DVR. Then run the A/V output from your cable box into the DVR’s A/V input. Finally, send the A/V output from the DVR to an available input on the receiver.

And then there’s the subject of CableCARD. For a while, CableCARD seemed like it was going to answer the prayers of cable customers everywhere – a card you slip into the back of a “Digital Cable Ready (DCR)” TV that identifies you as a customer and eliminates the need for a cable box. Unfortunately, the first wave of CableCARD hardware (a lot of which is still being sold) does not allow for bi-directional communication with the cable company; this means you can’t use CableCARD if you enjoy services such as the interactive program guide, Pay-Per-View (PPV) or Video-On-Demand (VOD).

If you have a CableCARD installed, picture and sound comes in via the coaxial cable from your wall. However, if you want to hear multi-channel surround sound from a digital broadcast, you’ll need to run a coaxial or optical digital audio cable from your DCR-TV to the receiver. If you don’t have CableCARD yet, but you’re on the fence – wait. A bi-directional version of CableCARD is currently in development.

STEP 4: Receiver

Even though this section is coming near the end of the article, the receiver is actually the most important component of any home theater. In an ideal setup, every single source (cable, DVD, camcorder, iPod, etc.) will run through the receiver. Think of the receiver as a judge in a courtroom – it decides whose turn it is to be seen and heard.

If you’ve connected the DVD player and cable/satellite box, and you’ve connected your speakers, the only remaining connection is the output (often called “Monitor”) to your TV. Once again, because the AVR340 is not HDMI-compatible we used component video for the single run to the Sharp AQUOS. If your receiver has an HDMI output, use that to drive your TV for the best results.

One quick note on the iPod since they’re practically taking over the world: many receiver makers now offer iPod interface docks or cables so you can listen to and control your iPod from the receiver. H/K offers “The Bridge” for use with the AVR340 – one proprietary cable is all that’s required and it even charges the iPod while it’s connected.

STEP 5: Cables, etc.

One of the most common questions I get is about cables: “Is it worth it to buy expensive cables?” My answer is always the same: “Yes, but…” The “but” is a qualifier because there’s certainly a point of diminishing returns. A good rule of thumb is to buy cables commensurate with the gear you’re using. Don’t use $500 cables with a $39 DVD player and don’t use the flimsy stuff that came with your VCR on an $800 DVD player. I’ve had great luck with products from Monster Cable, BetterCables.com and Belkin Pure A/V and I’ve used an assortment of them for our purposes here.

Another common question: “What about surge protection and power filters?” My answer is similar to the cable query. When friends and family members ask, I generally recommend spending at least $50 to get a solid surge protector. Combination power filter/surge protectors, such as the PowerCenter line from Monster Power, are also recommended if your budget permits.

Finally, it should be noted that HDMI and DVI can often coexist by using a simple adapter. DVI (Digital Visual Interface) is the digital predecessor of HDMI, but it’s a video-only connection. Scenario 1: your DVD player outputs DVI but your HDTV only accepts HDMI; Scenario 2: your cable box outputs HDMI but your HDTV only accepts DVI. In either scenario, you can place an adapter on one end of the connection to make everybody happy. However, it should be noted that for DVI to work properly with HDMI, the DVI device must be HDCP-compliant. HDCP is a digital content protection system present in late versions of DVI and all versions of HDMI.