Home Theatre System

How often have you looked at advertisements of Home Theatre systems in magazines and newspapers, and wished you could own one? Often, there is a DVD you want to watch in its full glory, but you don’t have a branded DVD player? Well, look no further, because you probably have most of the stuff needed to make your own home theatre system! 

Your home theatre would be no less than any of the popular branded ones, but at a significantly lower cost (considering that you already have a PC and a TV at home). In fact, it will have many more features. It’s just a question of wiring the cables and using some additional hardware. Let us see as to what you need and how to go about doing it.

A PC with atleast 500 MHz processor is what you start off with for a home theater system

You need

• A PC with at least a 500 MHz processor and 128 MB of RAM. You would need an AGP graphics card on your PC as this configuration is needed for playback of DVDs on your PC.
• A TV set. Though a 29” flat TV (or higher if your pocket permits) is
  
  recommended for a good DVD viewing experience, you can do with your existing TV at home. 
• Home theatres are meant for playing DVDs and so, you need a DVD drive on your PC. Any speed from 4x to 16x would do. 
• A high-end sound card for reproducing 5-channel Dolby surround sound. Recommended is a 5-channel output sound card like the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum, Audigy or the Extigy series, Voyetra Turtle Beach or any other. Some of these cards come with a remote control that really give you the works. However, you can do with a 4-channel sound card like the Sound Blaster Live! Value series if you are on a low budget.

• This is how the back panel of the 5.1 speaker system looks like

  You will need a 5.1 speaker system for your PC. All the sound will be reproduced through them, be it DVD playback or regular TV. Options are available from Creative SoundWorks, Typhoon, Altec Lansing etc. Choose one that best suits your pocket and also gives a decent output. You can make do with a 4.1 speaker system, but the limitation of the fifth (center) channel not being reproduced in case of DVDs will remain. 

• A display card with TV-out capabilities. This is a composite video out jack that sends the video signal to a TV.
• Requisite audio and video cables for the connections. These cables are normally supplied with the cards you would buy. As a checklist, these are the cables you would need — audio input cables to connect your sound card to the speakers and a composite video cable to connect the graphics card to your TV.

Fit DVD drive into an empty   bay on your PC

How much moolah?



A DVD drive costs around Rs 4000. A high-end 5-channel sound card (Sound Blaster Live! Platinum) would cost around Rs 12,000 (even higher for the Audigy or Extigy); while a 4-channel (Live! Value series) is as low as Rs 2500. Good speaker systems cost anywhere from Rs 4000 to 20,000 depending on their power output, quality and whether they accept digital input or not. Though a digital input is not necessary on the speaker system, it will give you a better sound quality. The display card with TV-out would cost anywhere from Rs 6000 to 12,000. In all, a decent home theatre system would cost around Rs 35,000 on the higher end and Rs 18,000 on the lower end.

Setting it up



Fit the DVD drive into an empty bay on your PC and connect the cables to it. Three cables connect to the DVD drive — the IDE cable, power and digital-audio cable. If your drive comes with any drivers, install them. Also ensure that you enable DMA mode for your drive for faster access. 

Fixing a sound card and a graphics card

Insert the display card and the sound card into the AGP and empty PCI slots. Install the required drivers for both cards. You will need to install DVD playback software (like WinDVD). This would either be supplied with your display card or with the DVD drive. 

Cables connected to the back of the display and sound card

Connect the composite video line from the TV-out socket on the display card to the composite-in on your TV. Also, wire the speakers to your sound card as explained in the sound card and speakers’ manuals. To feed the audio from your TV to your PC speaker system, connect a stereo audio cable from the TV’s headphone, out to the sound card’s line-in socket. 

Place the speakers in your room at appropriate positions for optimum audio effects. Configure your display card settings to display output of the PC onto TV. This will be a dual display setup.

Checking the setup



Turn on your TV and boot up your PC. Check if the sound from the TV is reproduced from your speaker system. If not, you may need to check the sound card’s volume controls. Select line-in as the source of input. Adjust the volumes to your convenience.

Check your dual-display setup. The output on your TV screen should be the same as on your PC monitor. Pop in a DVD movie title into your DVD drive and play it. The output should be visible on your TV screen and the sound reproduced from your speaker system.

Clean up any clutter of dangling wires. You may want to use wire fasteners to hold them in place. Place your equipment in your living room, relax on the couch and get going!

Ashish Sharma