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Home theatre in a box system buyers guide

Anika Hillery- 19/10/2009

Tags: Anika Hillery, Blu-ray, home cinema, home theatre

Home theatre in a box systems have copped a bad rap, with rock bottom pricing on both yum cha and name brand offerings creating the impression of them as a cheap and nasty last-choice for surround sound. Cinephiles will almost certainly poo-poo the notion of a home theatre in a box as the centrepiece for surround duties in the primary viewing area of their home, but these all-in-one solutions can provide good sound and come packed with extra features.

They're compact, ideal for smaller living areas and limited budgets, and many are designed to complement a stylish decor.

Chances are, too, that when you open some doors in that cinephile's house you will find a home theatre in a box. It will be the system that began their home entertainment habit and is now in service in another room, or perhaps a recent purchase satisfying their need for surround in any room of the house with a TV. And that's the appeal of these systems; they're versatile, affordable, easy to position and setup and, most significantly, provide an immediate and noticeable improvement to the sound from any television.

What is a home theatre in a box system?

Unlike component setups that use discrete speakers that can be plugged into any audio device, home theatre in a box (HTiB) systems are, as the name suggests, all-in-one. They typically work only with their own speakers, and their own receiver, which integrates DVD or Blu-ray playback. All the necessary cables come in the box - all you need do is add a flat screen TV.

A typical HTIB is a 5.1 channel surround system, with four satellite speakers, a centre speaker and a subwoofer. Some Blu-ray capable packages provide additional speakers for handling the 7.1 soundtracks found on some discs, or offer them as an option. Often the sub will hold the power transformer, so you plug it into the wall and run a single cable to the receiver: this is the reverse of a component setup, where the AV receiver manages the power.

Speakers also often plug into the sub, but can also connect directly to the receiver. Often the connections are proprietary, making it hard or impossible to upgrade the speakers or electronics should you want to in the future. This is one of the limitations of the typical HTiB solution, but companies such as Yamaha and Sony are assembling HTiBs from their catalogue of AV receivers, DVD/BD players and speaker systems to provide a more flexible - and more expensive - package. While the 'instant cinema' principal still applies, this approach often occupies more than one box, allows the connection of more audio-video sources and provides better performance.

When it comes to conventional HTiB systems, however, the receiver component, for its part, will have an output to your display, ideally HDMI, but sometimes just component on cheaper packages. You'll also find some audio-video inputs for connecting other equipment, such as a PVR or games consoles, but the number of components you can add will be limited, most often to just two.

The receiver will be combined with an optical drive that plays DVDs and CDs, with premium models adding Blu-ray playback. The optical drive in most DVD-based systems is capable of playing discs that have MP3, WAV and Divx files on them too, so you can use your system like an old-fashioned hi-fi, just for music.

Sadly, Blu-ray drives support fewer disc-types than DVD drives and are slow to load DVDs and CDs - much slower than a DVD drive. Newer Blu-ray systems can play compressed audio CDs, but some still don't. You can add a CD player to your BD-equipped HTiB, though, by connecting it via a digital input for maximum quality! You can even use your old DVD player for this, especially if it has an optical or S/PDIF output. And if your HDTV has an optical output (many newer models do) connect it to BD or DVD home theatre in a box system and enjoy surround sound from broadcast programming.

Feature fest

There's so much variation in the HTiB category that it's impossible to make a blanket declaration about what features - beyond the basic operation functions - can be considered standard. Generally, though, most DVD home theatre in a box systems will upsample DVD video to a higher resolution, usually 1080p. BD-based systems now universally support 1080p/24 for jerk-free motion from discs created from film-based sources (ie. the bulk of movies coming out of Hollywood), and the latest BD Live profile. This allows you to connect to the internet and access additional materials related to the movie, such as interactive games and trivia.

There's also usually a USB port for playing a wide range of audio, video and picture files directly off a thumbdrive or external hard drive. Higher end packages also support iPod via a dedicated dock, allowing you to browse the Apple playlist on your TV via the system's remote control.

HTiBs with Blu-ray built-in will decode the full suite of Dolby and DTS formats when badged with high resolution 'Dolby True HD' and 'DTS-HD Master Audio' logos, meaning you won't want for choice in the surround sound stakes. Systems wearing the DTS-HD Master Audio Essential badge decode all the DTS legacy formats, bar DTS: Neo6, which considering everything else on offer, is no great loss.

Other inclusions appearing on the latest models include automatic calibration and setup features for optimising audio performance to your room; power saving modes; CEC control for operating like-branded equipment connected via HDMI with just a single remote; SD card slots and playback of high definition home video footage from AVCHD camcorders; direct access to online properties such as YouTube, and Wi-Fi networking for sharing multimedia on the home PC with the television in the living room.

Page 1 of 3  Next - Home theatre in a box systems - product round-up  

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In this article

• Home theatre in a box system buyers guide
• Home theatre in a box systems - product round-up
• Home theatre in a box systems - price guide and conclusion