Home Cinema

Home cinema, also commonly called home theater, are home entertainment set-ups that seek to reproduce the movie theater going experience and mood with the help of video and audio equipment in a private home.

In the 1950s, playing home movies became popular in the United States with Kodak 8 mm film projector equipment becoming affordable. The development of multi-channel audio systems and later LaserDisc in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home cinema. In the early to mid 1990s, a typical home cinema in the United States would have a LaserDisc or VHS player fed to a large rear-projection television. In the late 1990s, home theatre technology progressed with the development of the DVD-Video format, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio ("surround sound") speaker systems, and high-definition television.

In the 2000s, the term "home cinema" encompasses a range of systems meant for movie playback at home. The most basic and common system could be a DVD player, a standard large-screen television, and a "home theater in a box" surround sound speaker system with a subwoofer. While a decent common home cinema set-up might more likely include a Blu-ray player or media center appliance/computer with a 10-foot user interface, a video projector and projection screen with a "widescreen" 16:9 aspect-ratio format, and a several thousand-watt home theatre receiver with five to seven surround sound speakers plus a powerful subwoofer.

The most expensive home theater set-ups, which can cost up to and over $100,000 (US), have expensive digital projectors and projection screens, and maybe even a custom-built screening rooms which include cinema-style chairs and audiophile-grade sound equipment designed to mimic (or sometimes even exceed) commercial theater performance.