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My Home Theater - Background

I have always appreciated a good movie, but for the most part VHS tapes just didn't do it for me, especially on a 19" TV.

My father owned a laser disc player in the early 90s, but I never got into that hobby, due mostly to the fairly prohibitive cost of the record-sized discs. The quality of the picture and the sounds did stick with me through the years though.

Fast forward a couple years to 1997. It was then that I started reading about these little 5" discs that could hold an entire movie, up to 18GB of data, and they would do for movies what CDs did for music. Sure, I was a bit screptical... would this format ever take off, would it be cheap, what about their lack of recording ability? In the summer of 1998 my brother and I decided that it was time to get a new receiver, just because. Well, the receiver was a Marantz SR-800, which featured Dolby Digital. 1 week later I picked up a Sony DVP-300 to check out this new Dolby Digital sound, and pristine picture I had been hearing about on DVD. The same day I picked up The Rock and Apollo 13. I was utterly amazed at the quality, and vowed never to go back to VHS again.

There were a few struggles along the way, the most notable adversary of the DVD era was DIVX, a now defunt pay-per-play spin-off of DVD. You still can't record on DVDs, at least not mainstream, but I have since purchased a TiVo, and haven't used my VCR since.

Over the years, there have been upgrades, including a new HDTV, Dish Network, and new speakers, including a nice, new 325 watts, 12 inch subwoofer. The subwoofer is, without a doubt, amazing in every respect. My own review is available here. As far as 'furniture' goes I have 1/2 of my Equipment Stands 'bookending' the TV built; the 2nd unit should be complete soon. Pictures of the flexi-rack are available from my flexi gallery. A recount of the building can be found at the guide to building a flexi rack.

Here is a list of my DVDs