Home Cinema Systems - reviews and price comparison

Home Theater System - Components

A home cinema system usually consists of a receiver, a DVD-player and several loudspeakers. It is perfect for those who find it too complicated to find the different parts, make sure that they work well together and then connect everything.
The usage is often much easier since you only need fewer remotes to operate the system. One of the advantages is also that all the pieces in the system have the same design which makes more aesthetically appealing.

Surround sound

To increase the experience when watching a movie you can use a so called surround sound which enables the sound to come from all directions in the room.
The most common technology for surround sound on DVD is Dolby Digital. Digital Theatre System (DTS) is a competing technology which is less established and used but by some considered to give a better sound quality.
A 5.1-system uses five regular loudspeakers (left front and back, centre, right front and back) and a subwoofer.
There are further developments for each system, with even more loudspeakers. Examples of these are Dolby Digital EX 6.1 and DTS ES 6.1, these are however not yet common on DVDs.

Typical loudspeaker configurations:

Power

The receiver’s power (in Watt) effects with which volume the sound can be played. However, it takes quite a big increase in power to be able to hear any difference. Something that has bigger impact on the sound level is the speakers’ sensitivity (in dB). If you want to be able to play loud, check with the manufacturer that the speakers have a high sensitivity, preferably over 90 dB.
Here the total power output from the receiver is indicated.

If you have a normally sized living room (~25 m²) and the system contains speakers with normal sensitivity (at least 87 dB), a total power output of 400W is enough, based on Home THX Program’s recommendation. If the ceiling is more than 3 meters high you will need 500W.
In a small room (~15 m²) 300W is enough, while a big room (~40 m²) requires 600W.

Recording

Nowadays it is not just possible to play videos with much better quality than the old VHS tapes. It is also possible to record on DVDs or directly to a hard-drive on your DVD player. With the latter you don’t have to worry about finding discs or tapes to record!
(Show more on recording) Record to DVD A DVD-disc can store 4.7 GB which is equivalent to 2 hours of film of high quality. There are also dual layer discs which can store 8.5 GB but these are expensive and not many DVD-recorders can handle them. A DVD-disc today costs less than a videotape.

Record to hard drive

The advantage with a hard drive is that you don’t need any discs to record; you just simply record the movie or TV-programme directly on your hard drive. There are DVD-recorders with up to 400 GB hard drive which means they can store 170 hours of recorded material of the highest quality, or 500-600 hours of standard quality.
When the hard drive is full you can either delete old recordings or write (burn) them to DVDs to make space available on the hard drive.
Another advantage with the hard drive is that most hard drive recorders give you the opportunity to "pause" when watching a broadcast, a so called time-shift function. This enables you to take a break and make coffee and then come back and continue watching from where you paused. This means you’re then watching a recorded version of the programme, so you can fast forward during the commercial breaks to catch up with the live broadcast.
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File formats - MP3, JPEG, DivX

If you want to be able to play a disc with music in MP3, which is the most common digital music format, the DVD-player must support it.
To show photos on a disc in JPEG-format the player has to support JPEG (also JPG). Regular Digital cameras for example store pictures in JPEG.

DivX is a compression format for movies which has a good picture- and sound quality and takes little space. Downloaded movies are often compressed with DivX and the easiest way to play it on your TV is if your DVD-player supports DivX.

DVD disc formats

DVD-discs rented or bought in the UK are all of the same type and can be played in all DVD-players. Homemade discs can however be one of two different formats. The different types are identified by a plus (e.g. DVD+RW) or a minus (DVD-RW). (More on disc types)

The two types of DVDs are more or less equivalent. If you want to record on a DVD-player or computer, and play it in another player you must however make sure that they can write to and read the same type of discs. (Many DVD-players can play both types but record only on one of them.)
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Some players can also write video discs in VCD-format on CDRW-discs. This format has a lower picture- and sound quality than DVD.

Inputs/Outputs

There is a wide range of inputs featured on the different Home cinema systems. If you want to connect your digibox or videogame we recommend you to find out which connections these require.

Audio inputs

Usually the standard inputs on the receiver are enough for your home cinema system.

There are different kinds of inputs. Digital transfer gives you a better sound quality than analogue transfer and we recommend you to use it if it is available. It is also the digital connections that transfer the surround sound from the DVD-player to the receiver (with few exceptions).

(Difference between optical and coaxial technology) The difference in quality between digital optical and digital coaxial connections is practically non-existent. Coaxial is cheaper and the cables won’t break as easily. This type is also somewhat more common than the optical cables. The optical cables are less sensitive for noise, but in a normal home environment, it won’t make any difference.
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Common inputs:

Digital coaxial	Digital optical	Analogue RCA

Check which connections are needed for the components you want to connect to the receiver.

Video outputs

The picture transfer to the TV can be made with Scart, S-video, Composite, Component video or HDMI. The two latter are to be preferred if your TV has these connections. For older TVs you preferably use Scart or S-video, while composite gives you a lower picture quality.

SCART	S-video	Composite video

Component video	HDMI

Rating/awards

On testwinner.co.uk all the different ratings given by expert testers have been translated into a percentage from 0 to 100 with 100 being the maximum rating.
The average rating for a product can indicate different things. A low average rating is a warning that the product maybe won't live up the expectations created by the ads for the product. A high rating often means that the product has great features and works well. The more tests of the product the better accuracy in the average rating.

The amount of test wins/awards shows how many times the product has been named winner or been selected "Editor's Choice", "Best Buy" or received similar positive awards in tests. An award means that the product stands out from the competition in one way or another. It can be by giving value for money or by being innovative, or simply by just filling its purpose in a really good way.