Home Theater Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
Book Review
Home Theater Hacks:
100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
Book Review
 By
Dale Farris, Vice PresidentGolden Triangle PC Club December 2004 General Overview It might be the long lines at the theater, the $4.00 for a small bag of popcorn, or the cutting-edge technology that's now so readily available to the home market. Whatever the reason, the home theater market today is booming like the soundtrack to Star Wars! Want proof? A Google search for home theater reveals over three million results. Yikes! It's simply undeniable: More and more people prefer watching their favorite movies, television shows, and videos from the comfort of their own sofas and couches. What's also undeniable is the inexperience of most people who choose to install or upgrade their home theaters. Until now, the knowledge, techniques, and experiences of those who've encountered similar conditions to yours could only be accessed through laborious web searches, stacks of magazines, and water cooler conversations. Home Theater Hacks from O'Reilly is the perfect remedy for this group. A smart collection of insider tips and tricks, Home Theater Hacks covers home theater installation from start to finish, purchase to experience. Just imagine: no frustrating trial and error process and better yet, no expensive appointments with installation experts. Home Theater Hacks prevents both by imparting down-and-dirty technique not found anywhere else. The book begins with a quick glossary of terms so you can speak the lingo when you go shopping, and then dives right into hush-hush, insider tricks. It's all covered where to find the right audio and video components, how to deal with speakers and wiring, understanding cable connectivity, mastering remote controls, how to fully grasp TiVo, and so much more. And to top it off, each of these insider tips is presented in a concise yet delightfully entertaining style. Bringing the Jurassic Park dinosaurs into your living room has never been so easy! A seasoned veteran with numerous O'Reilly titles under his belt, author Brett McLaughlin leaves no stone unturned in helping you customize your home theater experience to your own personal environment. Hacks Discussed in the Book Master the jargon - The home theater scene has its own lingo. Master this and everything else becomes much easier. Buy without fear and get the best price, whether you are buying online, in a chain store, or a boutique store. Set up your theater for the best visual experience, no matter the screen size. Take control of your sound. From speaker cables to placement, every little thing you do can make the sound that much better. Tune into HDTV. Whether you are receiving the signals through a rooftop antenna, satellite dish, or cable hookup, you will learn all you need to know about high-definition. Try out TiVo. What good is television if you cannot watch it on your own terms? You will get some great tips for working with TiVo here. Table of Contents The 100 home theater hack tips are organized in twelve (12) chapters, including the following: Ch 1: Buying Gear Ch 2: Video Components Ch 3: Audio Components Ch 4: High Definition Ch 5: Speakers and Wiring Ch 6: Subwoofers Ch 7: Connectivity Ch 8: Calibration Ch 9: Do It Yourself Ch 10: Remote Controls Ch 11: HTPC Ch 12: TiVo Target Readers This is a fascinating book that is filled with 100 clever, important hacks for all of today's modern multimedia devices. The collection of advice, tips, tricks, warnings, and admonitions reflects the best wisdom in the significant home theater community. Those just started and want to know what TV to buy will find answers here. Those comfortable with computers and wanting to use their home PC to play DVDs will find answers in the book. The author will also show you how to get resolutions better than $1,000 commercial DVD players. Seasoned pros in home theater will find new challenges, and you will learn to wire up your own super-high-end power and speaker cables. Whatever your experience and interest level, you will find something to pique your interest and push the envelope of even the highest-grade home theater set-ups. This book explores and celebrates 100 of the most interesting nooks and crannies of the electronic world of home theater, whether new, old, or positively ancient. Among enthusiasts, the term hack refers to a "quick and dirty" solution to a problem or a clever way to do something. The term hacker is very much a compliment, praising someone for being creative and having the technical chops to get things done. O'Reilly's important, successful Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the ways people are hacking in a good way, and pass on the hacker ethic of creative participation to a new generation of hackers. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology. The material assumes some degree of comfort with electronics and electrical engineering, although you do not of course have to be an electrical engineer to perform the hacks. You will need to be comfortable with working with integrated circuits, electrical assembly, soldering wires, and dis-assembling electronic devices. Of course, you will also need to be comfortable with possibly ruining beyond repair the discussed device, if you fail to successfully complete the described hacks. This is a highly specialized book that specifically targets a unique audience, namely those confident in their skills and abilities to follow the excellent hacking instructions that are replete throughout this important book. Book Contents 404 pages; paperbound; acknowledgements; preface; tons of additional tips and warnings; figures; b/w photographs; tables; index; cover colophon Author Brett McLaughlin About the Author Brett McLaughlin has worked in computers since the Logo days (remember the little triangle?). In recent years, he's become one of the most well-known authors and programmers in the Java and XML communities. He's worked for Nextel Communications, implementing complex enterprise systems, at Lutris Technologies, actually writing application servers, and most recently at O'Reilly Media, Inc., where he continues to write and edit books that matter. His most recent book, Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook, is the first book available on the newest version of Java, and his classic Java and XML remains one of the definitive works on using XML technologies in Java. ISBN November 2004 - First Edition 0-596-00704-3 List Price $24.95 $36.95 CAN About O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O'Reilly books, known for the animals on their covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. O'Reilly conferences and summits bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to XML, open source, .NET, Java, and web services, O'Reilly puts technologies on the map. O'Reilly Media creates products that they
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