PC Home Theater - Is It The New Wave Of Home Theater?

The landscape of home theater is changing. For example, PC home theater continues to demand greater attention by consumers and that demand will only escalate over the next few years.

What Is PC Home Theater?

In a nutshell, PC home theater integrates the function of a PC and a digital video recorder and connected to a television. It's also known as a media center with the function of marrying up all the components of home theater into one source.

That makes life easier in many respects without having to fiddle around with different remote controls. Today, systems can be purchased pre-configured and this is the choice for most but those who have some technical ability can also create their own systems.

PC Home Theater Experience

To experience the full effects of a home theater, you will need DTS decoding enabling on the computer (though a Dolby Digital will give you the same effect) which will give a beautiful surround sound effect. There are two ways to achieve this:

- connect a good speaker system which has surround effect to the PC
- connect an AV receiver to your PC using an optical digital audio input/output

Both of these will give you a mind blowing home theater surround effect without blowing a hole in your pocket.

The software industry is also fully cooperating with this idea and has created tailor made software that will help you enjoy the feel of a home theater with the help of a PC. For example, the Microsoft XP Media Centre OS has all the ingredients you will ever need for the setting up of the pc home theater.

Pros And Cons

Apart from having the control actions located in one convenient source, the quality output is one of the benefits of a PC home theater.

But there are some disadvantages which with further improved technology, should be overcome in the not too distant future. These include things such as set up costs and maintenance of the system. Storage issues can also present problems.