Have you ever noticed the gaudy curtains and carpeting on movie theater walls? They are there to control the way sound is absorbed. Otherwise, moviegoers would not be able to appreciate the full effects of the movie. Sound comes out of one speaker, flows across the audience, and is softened or absorbed by panels and curtains on the other side. It cannot bounce back.

So what can you do to make your home theater more acoustically correct? You may want the sound to bounce off of a wall. In fact, this is how sound bars achieve surround sound effects even though the sound bar in directly in front of you on top of the television. The bar positions speakers at an angle to bounce the sound waves off of a wall so they hit your ears from either side. It’s kind of like playing pool: Instead of saying “eight ball in corner pocket,” you could say “machine gun fire in right ear.”

You can use the following techniques to control how the sound waves act in your home theater:

Acoustic Wall Panels

Acoustic wall panels can be expensive if you buy them. But if you’re handy, you can make them with some foam, fabric, staple gun and some 1 x 2 pieces of wood.These images taken from hometheatershack.com show how a person made acoustic wall panels out of a frame, some insulation and black fabric. They were positioned in the sides near the screen, and also on the left and right walls.  Of course, you can make the acoustic wall panels in any size, shape or color.

Alternatives To Acoustic Wall Panels

Acoustic Wall Coverings

Acoustic panels are great for sound absorption, but you can also go the low-tech way and use draperies and thin carpet on the wall. Heavy drapes can even be used to cover acoustic foam, so any sound going through the drapes will be captured by the foam. In order of effectiveness, the acoustic panels are best, followed by drapes and then carpeting.

Ceiling Tiles

If you are renovating that basement or spare room and were thinking about using a drywall ceiling, consider using a drop ceiling instead. Ceiling tiles have similar characteristics as acoustic panels. They can absorb sound that hits them, and depending on the type you have, can considerably reduce the sound reflection.

Carpeting and Windows

Two of the biggest killers of home theater acoustics are hardwood floors and glass windows. If you have a choice, design your theater in a room without windows and put carpeting on the floor. If you have windows in your home theater, be sure to use heavy drapery you can close when watching movies. If you already have hardwood flooring, consider a shaggy area rug or two to dampen then sound.

In conclusion, you already know there are a lot of considerations when designing your home theater, and using acoustic wall panels or coverings sound should be one of them. You do not want to go through all of the time and expense of designing a home theater to have it ruined by a room that echoes. Use acoustic tiles and acoustic panels, drapes and carpeting to dampen the sound and create that perfect movie experience. If you have questions about acoustic wall panels, read our other home theater articles.

The Roku Green Screen

The biggest problem we experienced with this device was with it establishing and maintaining communication with any of the HDTVs we connected it to via HDMI. Almost anytime we wanted to watch something on the Roku we’d have to do the “HDMI dance”– meaning we’d have to either unplug the HDMI cable a few times or unplug the power on the Roku player until it would eventually communicate with the television. Or if there was a long period of inactivity, the screen would just go green and remain that way until the next HDMI dance was performed. If interested, read more about the Roku Green Screen here. The general consensus is it works flawlessly if connected via the component cables, if you’re willing to downgrade your taste, and no true videophile wants to do that.

The Roku Player Is What It Is

Another disappointment was content. If you do not mind paying for virtually everything, you’ll be happy with the Roku player. Granted, we all knew coming in that we’d need to have a Netflix subscription (which we already did). We were, however, hoping for a little Hulu love. Instead, we were presented with Hulu Plus. While it seems like a very good service for under $10 per month, we’re just as happy watching it for free on the computer. So now, once again, we’re away from the television and watching the computer screen–the very problem Roku was supposed to solve.

Sure, there are free channels, but just make sure you’re aware of how much it’s going to cost you to get the same content you’re currently getting on your STB.

The Roku Player Is Almost Great

Aside from the green screen issues, and the lack of quality, free content at the moment, the Roku player is an almost great device and should satisfy a void in a lot of people’s lives. Here are some of the strengths of the Roku XD|S model, which is currently the top of their line:

• Capatible with almost any SD or HDTV.
• Built-in WiFi
• USB port
• Component and optical ports if you can’t get the HDMI to work.
• Growing content (Some even free).

In Conclusion

The Roku player seems to be a continually improving device. Once the content catches up and the sporadic HDMI problems are resolved, it should continue to be the leader in online television solutions and finally fill the void consumers have been looking for in regards to Internet TV.

This should not be confused with Windows Media Center or watching Internet TV on sites like Hulu. This is a card that will help you watch and record TV from your existing cable company.

In addition to the TV Tuner card, you’ll need software such as MythTV to perform the scheduling and recording. If you purchase a TV Tuner card, it will likely come with this or another form of software you can use.

If you do not already have  TV Tuner card, the Hauppauge 1183 WinTV HVR-1600 is a respectable option. It allows you to schedule and record TV shows and saves them to your hard drive in MPEG-2 format. It comes with Win-TV Scheduler software that allows you to setup daily, weekly or one-time recordings. It also allows you to burn the shows to DVD so you can play them on another device. The card functions just as a normal DVR would.

It doesn’t matter which tuner card you get, but you should read the reviews to make sure average users did not have a difficult time installing the card or using the software. As with any PCI card, you will need to open the computer and physically install the hardware. Typically, you’ll install the software first, then install the card last. But be sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions.

Recording television on your computer is a great option for a room that has no other television and a large monitor to simulate that real TV experience. It’s also a great option as a second DVR that gives you the ability to capture and burn disks of your favorite shows. To set this up, you should be somewhat familiar with computers, but in the end you will have increased the functionality of your computer while providing some entertainment for yourself and your family.

Wrong. Well, maybe.

You first need to realize that “cheap” does not equal “low quality.” It sometimes does, but in regards to digital cables, the cable will either work or it will not. The picture will not be any better or worse for cables over a short distance. You can spend over a hundred dollars for an HDMI cable at your local electronic store when, in fact, a six dollar cable would have worked just fine. When considering buying cables for your system you should take a couple of factors into consideration:

How far away is the device? The further away you get from the television or projector, the more likely you’ll need to spend more money on the cabling. You’re probably safe up until twelve feet. After that, you will want to spend more on a thicker, better insulated cable. But how often is your TV that far away from your receiver or cable box?

What is the surrounding environment? If your entertainment center is filled with cables and components, you will want to try and organize the cables in such a way they do not overlap each other often. Cable ties can help keep similar cables together and lower the possibility of interference. If it’s unavoidable, you may need thicker, more expensive cables. You should also work on keeping your cables as short as possible. If you have a twelve foot cable for a device, for example, see if you can go down to a six foot cable.

The argument is not whether expensive cables are a waste of money. The argument is whether or not they are needed all of the time. You could save hundreds of dollars in cabling costs and use that money to buy better components. Great resources for inexpensive cables are Amazon.com and Monoprice.com. Check cable prices. We recommend trying the less-expensive cables first. You can always return them if they don’t suit your needs. Spend the extra money you saved on a better subwoofer or speakers–areas where cost really does equal quality.

Read more on home theater cables here.

Internet Programming Providers

Here is a list of current and emerging Internet TV providers. These are great alternatives to local programming, as you can pick and choose the same shows you want to watch. Some of these are free. Some of these are paid services that allow you to pay for only the programming you watch, potentially saving you hundreds of dollars a month.

Hulu – Hulu has been around for a few years and have drastically improved their streaming content service. They provide this service for free with very limited commercials. There is a wide variety of content, from movies and television shows to movie trailers.

AOL Video – AOL hasn’t completely abandoned their ISP services, but they have branched out into specialized services. AOL Video is one of those services. They have tons of channels and shows and the quality is quite good. Very limited commercials, as well.

Fancast – Fancast aggregates content from Hulu. It has a nice, clean interface which makes it easy to find the content you want.

Netflix – The hot mail DVD service has been streaming movies online for the past few years. The implementation of this is flawless and you can find them on your computer or third-party boxes such as the Roku box. They even have Apps for portable devices such as the iPhone and iPad. To view this content, however, you do need to be a subscriber to their service.

Apple TV - The Apple TV is a new box about the side of a hockey puck. It interfaces with your TV and allows you to purchase TV shows and movies from their online store for cheap. This is the closest thing to A La Carte TV you’ll find. Depending on how much TV you watch, however, you could end up spending more for this than your standard cable fees.

These services have proven that users no longer need the pricey cable subscription channels anymore. But since most of the cable TV providers are also our Internet providers, this could mean some type of tiered service down the line where those that consume a lot of Internet video will need to pay more for their service. If this were to happen, your Internet bill would offset their losses from the cable TV media. Either way, the cable companies will learn how to adapt and survive as cable TV goes the way of the newspaper industry.

To delete any recording, or group of recordings, you can simply push the red button. A confirmation will pop up and you can choose “Yes, Delete”, or if don’t want to delete it you can choose not to. If you have a program you want to save you can highlight it in the List and choose to keep it by pressing the blue button. Items set to “Keep” will not be automatically deleted when the recorder gets full.

Should You Record in High Definition or Standard Definition?

This is something that has to be considered when choosing to record programs because HDTV uses 2 to 3 times the hard drive space that SDTV does. My DTV DVR will record about 35 hours of HD programs, or about 100 hours of SD. If you record a program in HD and want to keep it for a long time it will reduce the drive space available for other recordings.

While 35 hours of recording time seems more than sufficient consider how many VHS tapes you might record it to. Younger people may not be able to use that as a reference like older readers. To put it in perspective, it would take about ten VHS tapes to record 35 hours. When my father passed away I inherited over 100 VHS recordings of sporting events alone.

Another way to understand the amount of recordings people save on their DVR is by looking at the upgrades available online. A measure of recording time is roughly 1 GB per hour of SD recording. Many people buy upgrades for their DVR hard drive of 500 GB and more, with some units having two stacked up inside. I haven’t looked for a couple of years but I’m sure the 1 and 2 TB drives are pretty high sellers.

Of course these upgrades have to be done to a DVR that you own. In the past the DVR was something you paid for up front, now the provider leases them to you. In my case it doesn’t actually cost anything for the DVR itself, I pay for the programming needed to use it. You can buy a used DTV compatible DVR and upgrade the hard drive to expand recording capabilities. But be sure to get the recorder ID number and the access card number from the seller first. Then call DTV to make sure there is no outstanding balances or the DVR still belongs to DTV. You don’t want to buy one then find you have to pay more or can’t use it at all.

The Bottom Line on DVR Recording

I might have made you think using a DVR is terribly complicated, or you might think it’s just another gadget that you won’t really use. The growing popularity of On Demand programming and Internet TV might also seem like another reason not to get a DVR. But if you get one it’s likely you won’t want watch TV without one. It makes for free On Demand TV in a way, because you can record what you like and watch it when you like. But for me the best part is something I haven’t really covered, the ability to skip past commercials. With 1/3 of network shows consisting of commercials it’s a great way to pass the annoyance.

Pushing the fast forward button a few times and getting back to the program in 20 seconds is something I’ve grown to love. I’ve reached a point where the only time I watch actual live TV is during Alabama football games and the Super Bowl. With my DVD recorder I can also save programs to DVD and edit the commercials out. I think it takes a lot of the Boob out of the Boob Tube. There are lots of different reasons to love a DVR, and if you try one I think you will find some yourself.

Related Direct TV DVR Articles:

Install A Direct TV DVR

Direct TV Menu Options

What is a DVR

Direct TV DVR

Article by forums member Bama19642

You can choose to record only one episode or you can choose to record the entire series. Choosing to record the series will bring up a choice of options, beginning with the choice of whether to record reruns, only new episodes or both. The default setting is Both, so if you make no changes you will record every episode of the program that airs on that channel. Selecting that option will let you change it to First Run or Repeats.

The next option for recording is Keep at Most, which sets the number of episodes the DVR will keep stored. The default setting is 5, but highlighting and selecting that option will let you make changes. The choices will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 or All Episodes. Depending on the program and the channel the All Episodes choice could fill a disk quickly. For example, if you chose to record SpongeBob on Nickelodian, and recorded both reruns and First Runs you would fill up the DVR in less than a month.

The next choice is Keep Until. Selecting this gives you an option to keep the recording Until Disk Is Full, which is default, and Until I Delete. The second option will save the recording until you manually select it and choose to delete. This option is for programs you want to keep as long as possible. That does not mean it will be safe forever though because the hard drive is subject to fail. That’s why a VCR, or preferably DVD burner, is essential for saving programs indefinitely.

The last two options are for Start Time and Stop Time. The Start Time option allows you to begin recording early and the Stop Time allows you to continue recording past the scheduled end time. For some reason there is no provision in these options for starting late or stopping early. Of course this can be done a couple of different ways, just not on the standard recording options.

The start time is usually not a problem unless something like a Presidential Address or live sporting event is airing before the program. Stop times are usually a problem with live events. The DVR programming has even been updated to suggest including a 30 minute extension of a live event. Being a fan of the Sunday night Fox broadcast there have been many times in the past when an afternoon NASCAR event has totally wrecked (pun intended) the schedule. It takes some experience before you learn exactly how to record programs to compensate for this. It seems like Fox has learned something from the mistakes because now they schedule programs to buffer between the NASCAR and The Simpsons.

Recording can also be done by simply pushing the Record button on the remote. This comes in handy when you happen upon a show that isn’t a series, or when you watch a new series and find it’s something you really like. The Record button allows you to set a series to record by simply pushing it twice. You can tell the difference between a single recording and a recurring recording by the symbol shown. A single recording will look like (R), while a recurring one will look like (R))). Setting a series recording using the Record button will always record with default settings.

Related Direct TV DVR Articles:

Install A Direct TV DVR

Direct TV Menu Options

What is a DVR

Direct TV DVR

Article by Forums member Bama19642

The Caller ID lets you scroll through the list of calls you have recieved. The DVR has to be connected to a phone line to get programming updates. There are wireless options but I really can’t explain them because I’ve never used one. Having the Caller ID come on the TV is something that proves to be a convenience you wouldn’t otherwise have ever thought of. Like the list on your phone it will only hold about 25 entries before the older ones are erased for new ones.

TVMail is messages sent from DTV to inform you of upcoming events. It’s honestly something I rarely ever check.

The Parental Controls allow you to set locks and limits on programming ratings, channels, spending and hours. I don’t have children that watch TV except when I’m home so I don’t use any of these. But for people who have children, especially with a TV in their room, it can be a great option. Using these will not only prevent children watching explicit programming. It can also prevent parents from dying when they see someone has ordered tons of pay-per-view programming. The options are so specific a parent can choose what channels, what ratings and what hours a TV will play. This can be locked and unlocked at your whim so it’s great for when children are grounded too.

The Favorites setup is great for limiting the channels you have to search through for something to watch. For example I never want to see anything on MTV or Lifetime so I can set a favorites list that excludes them. The options when you select the Favorite Channels are Edit Settings, All Channels, Channels I Get, Custom 1 and Custom 2. From the Edit Settings you can choose to select the channels which show up when you search through the Custom channel you choose. With two custom lists you can set one for channels you like and let someone else select the other. You can use a shortcut to switch between lists. When you press the Guide button to look for programs you can press the yellow button and choose to change to All Channels, Channels I Get or a different Custom list.

The Setup section is where you choose display resolution, audio setup, check signal strength, program the remote to work with your TV and many other options. Typically this is used for selecting the best setup for your TV when the DVR is first installed. After that it’s not really used unless there are some changes made like a different TV or audio system.

{Read part two of this series}

Article by forums member Bama 19642