Don’t have time to go to the movie theater or prefer the sanctuary of your own home. Now you can create your own theater known as a “home theater”.

A home theater system has at least 5 speakers, sometimes up to 9, and a subwoofer along with other components that bring you into the action of a TV show or movie by providing real action sound that envelops your senses. Some home theater systems come prepackaged or you can build one yourself, either way there is a lot that goes into deciding what type of system is right for you. Please use this handy guide from www.Number1Direct.com to simplify your shopping experience. You may also be interested in our buying guide on sound formats that explain what the numbers (6.1, 7.1, etc…) are all about and explains the differences with Dolby, DTS and THX by clicking here.

Components of Home Theater Systems:

• Receiver: These are the “hub’ of your home theater systems and mange audio from your TV, HDTV, Blu-Ray players, DVD players and HD-DVD players and sends the signal and power to your speakers (5.1 or higher). For more on receivers, click here .

• Center Speaker: Sits right below or above your television and produces much of the vocal audio from your movie or show along with sound effects that would originate from in front of you if you were actually in the action.
• Front Side Speakers: Sits to the right and left of the television and a wide array for sounds from your TV shows or movies including vocals, sound effects and more. These are the workhorses of your home theater and would be the ones that play a 2 channel/stereo content piece.
• Surround Speakers: These speakers sit on the side of the room and produce all if the sound effects, vocals, and everything else that make a surround sound system what it is. Without these speakers, you really would not have a home theater system.
• Rear Speakers: Just like the surround speakers but would sit behind your couch or chair in the rear of the room and would provide audio that would come from behind you in the show/movie to make you feel like you’re part of the action. A system would need to be 6.1 or higher to have a rear speaker.
• Televisions: For the perfect picture, you’ll need to have a television to match the your home theater component requirements that could be 720p, 1080p, LCD, DLP, Plasma.
• DVD Player: With more and more of your favorite move coming out on DVD, you will want to add a DVD player to your theater. There are a lot of choice to choose from with up-conversion DVD players, Blu-Ray players, Blu-Ray recorders, DVD recorders, and gaming systems like PlayStation 3 and X-Box with DVD/Blu-Ray players built-in.

Number1Direct by Goedeker’s carries a variety of brands of Home Theater Brands like Yamaha,KEF, Sony, Denon, and Audiovox.

In 2006, a new type of DVD was introduced called the Blu-ray. With their high storage capacity, Blu-ray discs can hold and play back large quantities of high-definition video and audio, as well as photos, data and other digital content.

A current, single-sided, standard DVD can hold 4.7 GB of information. That’s about the size of an average two-hour, standard-definition movie with a few extra features. But a high-definition movie, which has a much clearer image , takes up about five times more bandwidth and therefore requires a disc with about five times more storage. As TVs and movie studios make the move to high definition, consumers are going to need playback systems with a lot more storage capacity. You can purchase a Blu-Ray Player or you can even find a Home Theater System that has the technology here at Number1Direct by Goedeker’s.

Pros of Blu-Ray

• Image quality: Superior resolution, you’ll see a more detailed image: more clearly defined strands of hair, wrinkles in clothing, etc. The technical difference is that Blu-ray’s maximum resolution is 1,920×1,080 (1080p), while DVD is limited to 720×480 (480p). Beyond resolution, Blu-ray also uses better video-compression methods, resulting in more contrast and richer colors. If you like the way HD from your cable or satellite provider looks, Blu-ray looks even better. It’s the highest-quality video format available today, and in some ways it surpasses the picture quality of your local movie theater, especially when shown on a high-performance HDTV or projector.
• Audio quality: Audio quality is also improved. New high-resolution soundtrack formats, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, are essentially identical to the studio master, so you’ll be hearing things exactly as the director and audio engineers intended.
• Special features: Blu-ray also has additional special features over DVD. The most basic innovation is the pop-up menu, which allows you to access the menu functions while the movie continues playing. Other innovations include picture-in-picture video commentary and the ability to download new content right from your Blu-ray player, although your player needs to have the right Blu-ray profile to access these features. In our opinion, the special features on Blu-ray have mostly been underwhelming and aren’t a good reason to upgrade. For more information on special features, check out our detailed buying guide on Blu-ray Players.

Cons of Blu-ray

• Cost: Blu-ray’s main drawback is cost. Prices for players are still generally over $200 and movies cost about $25. While the one-time cost of a player isn’t that bad, the cost of building up a new Blu-ray library really adds up. At least it’s possible to pick and choose which movies you “buy Blu,” since every Blu-ray player can also play standard DVDs.
• Load times: When Blu-ray first came out, load times were unbearable; it could take more than 3 minutes to load a movie. Since then, players have gotten much faster, but they still don’t compare with the speed of loading a DVD. While simple Blu-ray movies can load in about 20 seconds on a good Blu-ray player, movies with complex menus still take close to a minute and a half to get to the actual movie, regardless of the player.
• Portability: Lastly, if you start buying Blu-ray movies, you may get frustrated that your new movies won’t work in places where you only have a standard DVD player. For example, if your bedroom only has a DVD player, you won’t be able to watch the second half of your new Blu-ray Disc from the comfort of your bed. Or if you have a car with a built-in DVD player, your new Blu-ray Discs won’t work there, either.