Home theaters are entertainment systems that seek to reproduce cinema quality video and audio in a private home. In the 1950s, home movies became popular in the United States with Kodak 8 mm film projector equipment became affordable. The development of multi-channel audio systems and laserdisc in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home theater. In the early to mid 1990's, a typical home cinema would have a Laserdisc or S-VHS videocassette player fed to a large rear projection television. In the late 1990s, home theater technology progressed with the development of DVD, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio ("surround sound"), and High-Definition Television.
Today, the term "home theater" encompasses a range of systems. The most basic system could be a $50 DVD player, a standard television ($200), and a $100 "home theater in a box", a 2.1 speaker system with left and right speakers and a small 8" subwoofer cabinet. An expensive home cinema set-up might include a High-Definition DVD format such as Blu-ray, a 60" High-Definition Television with a "cinema-style" 16 X 9 format, a several thousand-watt home theatre receiver with five to seven surround sound speakers, and a powered subwoofer with a 12" subwoofer. The most expensive home theater set-ups, which can cost over $100,000 have digital projectors, expensive screens, and custom-built screening rooms which include cinema-style chairs and audiophile-grade sound equipment.
Some home cinema enthusiasts go so far as to build a dedicated room in the home for the theater. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates sound and provides the potential for a nearly ideal listening environment. These installations are often designated as "screening rooms" to differentiate from simpler installations.
This idea can go as far as completely recreating an actual cinema, with a projector enclosed in a projection booth, specialized furniture, a piano or theatre organ, curtains in front of the projection screen, movie posters, or a popcorn or snack machine. More commonly, real dedicated home theaters pursue this to a lesser degree. Presently the days of the $100,000 and over home theater is being usurped by the rapid advances in digital audio and video technologies, which has spurred a rapid drop in prices. This in turn has brought the true digital home theater experience to the doorsteps of the do-it-yourself people, often for less than what you would expect to pay for a low budget economy car. Current consumer level A/V equipment can meet and often exceed in performance what you would expect to experience at a modern commercial theater.
Home theater seating consists of chairs specifically engineered and designed for viewing movies in a personal home theater setting. Most home theater seats have cup holder built into the chairs' armrests and a shared armrest between each seat. Some seating is movie theater-style chairs like those seen in a movie cinema, which features a flip up seat cushion. Other seating systems have plush leather reclining lounger types, with flip-out footrests. Additional features like storage compartments, snack trays, tactile transducers (nicknamed "Bass Shakers"), or even electric motors to recline the chair are available, depending on the model.
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