Our Home Theater

We got tired of the high prices for theater tickets, lines, dirty floors, overpriced popcorn, and noisy crowds so we made our living room double as a home theater.

We bought a Mitsubishi WS-55805 55" wide screen (16 by 9) HD ready rear projection TV in January 2000. This is a state of the art digital TV with plenty of inputs including HD, component, several S-video, as well as good old composite. It is capable of displaying 1080i HDTV. It has a line doubler for conventional video sources so scan lines are not detectable unless you are a few inches from the screen. With the addition of a set top box it will display HDTV.

We already had a DVD player and Dolby Pro-Logic surround sound system. The DVD player is a Panasonic DVD RP-56 that is connected to the component inputs on the Mitsubishi 55805.

The sound system was a little dated, so we upgraded the receiver to an Onkyo TX-DS696. The Onkyo supports Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Pro Logic 2. This was a tremendous improvement over the old Pro-Logic system.

We also have the models 6000 and 4900 satellite receivers from Dish Network. This gives us over 150 channels (with the AT-150 package) and 7 channels of HBO (with the HBO package). HD channels we subscribe to include Discovery HD Theater, ESPN-HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, and HBO-HD. This is set up with a pair of dishes, one to get the 110 and 119 degree satellites, and one to get the 61.5 degree satellite. Once we got this we reduced cable to the minimum, soon to be dropped completely. The 6000 is connected to the digital component inputs of the TV giving us HDTV. We also have the 8VSB tuner cartridge installed that allows over-the-air analog and digital reception. This is connected to a roof top antenna. We can receive ABC, CBS, NBS, UPN, and FOX digital from Boston. Only one Providence channel (CBS channel 12) is broadcasting digital now (as of Jan 2004). The 4900 is connected to a JVC SVHS VCR using an S-Video connection. The RF output of the 4900 passes through the VCR and on to the bedroom TV. The UHF remote allows channel changes on the 4900 from the bedroom.

The first thing I noticed with our new home theater was the lack of pounding bass in special effects such as explosions, rocket launches, and crashes. We needed a subwoofer. Our old Dolby Pro-Logic surround sound decoder, a Paramount Pictures FX3000, already had a line out jack for a subwoofer. I just needed to add a sub and amplifier. I decided to build the speaker and amp. Go to my Subwoofer Project pages for more details. The subwoofer is now connected to the Onkyo receiver.

The next upgrades are as follows:

My DIY Projects