5 Lessons to Help You Build a Cheap Home Theater

A home theater system makes a great addition to any home. It is a place for the whole family to get together, watch a movie and spend some quality time at home while having fun at the same time. However,  buying a complete HDTV based home theater can be quite expensive. Here are some tips to help you build a cheap home theater without compromising quality.1) Determine how much you a willing to spend. Planning a budget is perhaps the most important task to consider before planning to build a home theater. Failure to create a budget can result in spending more than the amount that was intended or even worst, spending to much on a television set causing the other necessary components to get out of reach. Budget planning helps to put a stop on compulsive shopping and is a tried and tested method when it comes to avoiding being caught in a money spending frenzy. 2) Determine what you need.Home theaters have basic components: the monitor in this case the HDTV set, speakers, media or disc players and connection cables. These are four basic components that every setup that qualifies as a home theater has.  All the others are optional add ons and should not have top priority when trying to build a cheap setup. Of course, add ons are can be given top priority of they are to be used very frequently or substitute one of the basic components.2)  Choosing an HDTV set.Choosing an HDTV set is the most important aspect of any home theater. It is widely known that LCDs are cheaper than Plasma and most of the other HDTV display technologies out there. A very important factor to consider is the highest resolution offered by the  HDTV set. The higher the resolutions offered the higher the price. It is quite a rule of thumb that a 1080pcapable HDTV set will have a considerably higher price tag than one that offers a maximum resolution of 720p. In this case since we are building a cheap home theater a maximum resolution of 720p is more than enough. Another factor to consider is the brand. Buying a product from a good brand is important when it comest to electronic equipment and is highly advisable even if there are lower priced products from unrecognized brands. Building a cheap home theater does not necessarily mean that its components have to be unreliable products. Last but not least and if not most important is screen size. This one is on the obvious side but it is important to be realistic and this is where budget planning is very useful. In summary, the amount of money that was assigned for the HDTV set in the budget planning step is better spent on an LCD that allows up to 720p resolutions than on a 1080p plasma of a ton of inches less in size if we are planning to build a cheap home theater.3) Choosing a disc player and speakersChoosing a media player or in this case something to play HD capable discs is the easiest part, it all boils down to preference. There are two mayor formats that dominate the market for high definition media discs. These two formats are HD-DVD and BLU-RAY. Of these two, BLU-RAY emerged victorious in the race for the best format so we can discard HD-DVD as a reliable format to add to our cheap home theater. Our decision is further reduced to buying a BLU- RAY player and speaker combo or buying them as separate products.From these two options the one that tends to give the best results is buying them as separate products. This option lets you choose a good player while having the flexibility to buy cheaper speakers. Keep in mind that speakers should be 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound ready in order to achieve a good sound experience. It is worth mentioning that in the case that you are a gamer that is planing to buy a Play Station 3 console, you would not need another BLU-RAY player since the PS3 video game console  has one integrated as the disc reading device. If in fact you own a Play Station 3 you might just purchase the best speakers your budget allows or buy a bigger screen.4) Deciding to buy accessoriesAccessories are mostly cables and other connection gear. Additional gear includes stands and related items. In this case, quality cables can be purchased for cheap online if not provided with the products. As for stands,  they must be purchased only if needed since they are generally used for speaker positioning. Consider hanging your speakers to the walls. A lot of speakers have holes to hang them anyway. This speaker positioning strategy doesn't look as good as speakers in stands do but may save you almost a hundred bucks. 5) And finally the add onsIn this section we find HDTV tuners, recorders and devices that are not the bread and butter in a home theater. In the case of tuners, if the HDTV set has one built in forget about them completely instead with the money you will be saving choose an HDTV with bigger screen if not, save them for something else that is not related to home theaters. If in fact you are subscribed to satellite TV or digital cable you may even not need one in the first place. As for recorders, if you were looking to build a cheap home theater system forget about them, they are not necessary in a home theater they are just a luxury for those who can afford them.