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Overview
Trends
• Home theater heats up: 33 percent of all U.S. households owned a home theater system in January 2005, up from 21 percent in January 2000, according to CEA consumer surveys.
• Emerging DVD majority: The household penetration rate of DVD players in the U.S. grew to 75 percent in January 2005, less than eight years after the first DVD player was sold, a CEA consumer survey shows. By the end of 2005, the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) projects penetration will exceed 80 percent of U.S. households (http://www.digitalentertainmentinfo.com/.)
• Video software sales exceed movie-ticket sales: Consumer spending to buy and rent DVD discs and VHS videotapes rose 9 percent in 2004 to $24.5 billion, the DEG said. That figure is more than double the $9.21 billion in movie ticket revenue generated last year, according to Nielsen EDI.
• Digital TV content gets high 5.1: Satellite-TV providers, digital-cable operators and terrestrial digital television (DTV) stations are delivering a growing amount of standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) digital programming in 5.1-channel surround sound.
• Analog TV adds five-channel surround: For years, select analog TV stations have delivered programs in matrixed-surround formats that squeeze four channels of surround sound into their stereo broadcasts. Now, select programming is available in matrixed five-channel surround through some of those stations.
• Home-theater-in-a-box (HTiB) sales hit new highs: These all-in-one systems provide everything you need to reproduce DVD movies in surround sound. Factory-level unit and dollar sales rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2004, with unit sales surging 34.4 percent to 4.87 million units, according to CEA estimates.
•Step-up 6.1-channel surround at step-down prices: Home audio receivers with advanced 6.1-channel surround decoders are commonplace and will be available in 2005 at prices starting at around $200. HTiB systems with 6.1-channel decoding will be available for as little as $179 in 2005. These devices feature six full-range speakers instead of five to deliver the enhanced realism of 6.1-channel soundtracks on select DVDs.
Home Theater Soars
The margin of victory in this election isn’t even close. In 2004, movie lovers cast their ballots, and home theater won without a recount. Movie ticket sales rose a meager 0.5 percent to $9.21 billion in 2004, according to Nielsen EDI, which captures box-office results from U.S. movie theaters. Consumer spending on buying and renting videos, on the other hand, rose 9 percent to $24.5 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), a format-promoting coalition of DVD hardware and software suppliers (www.digitalentertainmentinfo.com).
In this election, consumers faced multiple issues like rising ticket prices, traffic jams on the highway, the shrinking size of movie-theater screens and even cellular phone conversations that punctuate the on-screen dialog.
For many of these reasons, people voted to bring the movie theater to their living rooms, but not just to enjoy the visual impact of the silver screen in the comfort of their homes. American consumers are building home theater systems to enjoy blockbuster movies in life-like surround sound that recreates the sonic drama of a movie theater. Home theater systems plunge you into the middle of the action. Jets thunder overhead as if you’re on board an aircraft carrier. Boisterous crowds surround you as if you’re one of the participants.
Home theater is a big picture and big sound. It’s virtual reality on a grand scale and you don't have to make a hundred grand to enjoy it.
To create your own home theater, you could spend tens of thousands of dollars for a top-end home theater system built around a high-definition (HD) video projector that projects movies onto 100-inch screens that retract into the ceiling. You could devote thousands of dollars to a room-rumbling surround sound audio system tricked out with a surround sound preamplifier/decoder, megawatt amplifiers and five to seven floor-to-ceiling speakers. For added measure, you could install plush theater-style seats and faux ticket booths to complete the movie-theater illusion.
You could do all that, but you don’t have to.
Home theater went mainstream long ago, and by early 2005, a bare-bones entry-level system with all the necessary audio and video gear cost less than $300 during special promotions. That includes a TV with a minimum screen size of 27-inches, a VCR or DVD-video player, surround sound-decoding equipment and a minimum of five speakers. You’ll spend even less if you already own one of the necessary components.
At a minimum, according to CEA, all you need to create a home theater is:
• A TV set with a minimum 27-inch diagonal screen size,
• A hi-fi/stereo VCR or DVD player, both capable of delivering surround sound,
• A product such as an audio-video (A/V) receiver, DVD-receiver or other device with a surround sound decoder and amplifiers,
• And at least four speakers: one on each side of the TV and one to each side of your seating position. As an option, you can add a center-channel speaker above or below the TV screen to lock dialog onto the screen. Behind you can add one to two optional back-surround speakers that integrate with the front speakers and side-surround speakers to complete the illusion of a 360-degree sound field. An optional subwoofer delivers thunderous bass.
Household Penetration
All told, the percentage of U.S. households owning a CEA-defined home theater system more than doubled during the past seven years to 33 percent in January 2005, up from January 1998’s 16 percent, CEA consumer surveys show.
The sources and quality of surround sound content have likewise grown. A decade ago, a limited amount of video programming was available in basic matrixed Dolby Surround on prerecorded VHS videotapes, now-obsolete laserdiscs, select analog-TV stations and analog cable systems. Today, Dolby Surround programs are commonly available through these sources and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) services, digital cable networks and local digital TV (DTV) stations.
A more sophisticated form of surround sound – 5.1-channel surround – also has emerged as a significant new technology that delivers more realistic surround sound through such digital video sources such as DVD-Video discs, satellite-TV services, DTV stations and digital cable systems.
Whatever the surround format, the keystone of any home theater system is the TV, and a high-definition TV (HDTV) is the video display of choice for the ultimate video experience. HDTVs deliver crisp, movie-screen-like images through various display technologies, from flat wall-hanging plasma and LCD displays to rear projection TVs using digital light processing (DLP) technology.
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