Lab

Home cinema kits

Prices of LCD TVs have come crashing down recently, with big 37in models now available for under £500. If you've picked up one of these monster screens, you may have noticed that the built-in stereo speakers don't match up to the big-screen action.

What you need to make your movies go with a bang is a home cinema kit. These consist of a set of five speakers to immerse you in the film, plus a subwoofer to re-create those blockbusting explosions. Many kits also include DVD players with digital HDMI outputs, so if you have a flat-screen TV you should get a better-quality picture as well.

Home cinema kits don't have to be expensive, with prices starting as low as £93. We've gathered nine different kits for you to choose from, so you'll find plenty of practical advice about which is best suited to you and your living room.

While it's tempting to buy the biggest and loudest home cinema kit you can afford, there are a number of things you should consider before you buy. A home cinema kit will be useless if it doesn't fit in with your current equipment and provide the features and ports you need.

Home cinema kits can vary considerably when it comes to audio and video outputs and inputs. You'll want one that will work with both your TV and any AV sources you want to plug into it, such as a games console, a Freeview or Sky box or a media centre PC.

You should also consider the physical size and appearance of the kit. Some kits have tiny speakers that can be easily hidden away, while others have large main units and powered subwoofers that you'll have to find space for. Read on to work out which kit is best suited to both your AV desires and your living room realities.

If the kit fits

Home cinema kits come in a number of varieties. The most common consists of a main unit that combines a DVD player, surround-sound decoder and amplifier. The five speakers and subwoofer connect to and are driven by this main unit. Some kits, such as Logitech's Z-5500 and Sony's DAVIS10, have the amplifier built into the subwoofer unit, with the other speakers being driven from the sub. A smaller control unit is then connected to the subwoofer, usually by a proprietary captive cable.

Finally, there are kits made up of an AV receiver and speaker set. These are separate components that have been bundled together by the manufacturer. The AV receivers look like hi-fi amplifiers, and can be used for that purpose as well. All the speakers are driven from the amplifier, except for the subwoofer, which has its own built-in amp and receives a signal via a phono lead.

A little output

If you've got a new flat-screen TV but still connect your DVD player to it using a SCART lead, you're not getting the best possible picture. All the DVD home cinema kits here, with the exception of JVC'S TH-P3, have either component or HDMI outputs, both of which will give you a better-quality picture. Check your TV's manual to see what kind of inputs it has.

A component connection is superior to SCART because it supports progressive scan. This means that each frame of the movie is transmitted to the TV whole, rather than as two interlaced fields, as happens with a SCART connection. This gives you a crisper image, with clearer motion.

HDMI outputs send a digital signal from the DVD player to the TV and can give a better result than component. Over HDMI the player can upscale the video to HD resolutions such as 720p or 1080i, instead of letting the TV take care of the upscaling. On cheaper LCD TVs the improvements can be significant, but if you have a new TV from a big-brand manufacturer you may find it hard to spot the differences compared to a component input.

If you want your new home cinema kit to work with your existing kit, you'll need to make sure it has the right audio inputs. As well as playing DVDs, your player should be able to accept and output audio from your TV or set-top box. All the units here support Dolby Pro Logic II, so you will get surround sound from many movies and programmes.

If you're using a tuner built into your TV, then a DVD home cinema kit with a bi-directional SCART socket should be able to receive audio from it, although you should check your TV manual to see if this is the case. Alternatively, you could use a phono stereo output on your TV or set-top box to connect to a phono input on the home cinema kit.

If you have devices with digital audio S/PDIF outputs, such as a games console, DVD player or some media centre PCs, then you'll probably want to connect them to your home cinema kit to take advantage of its surround sound. Check the type of S/PDIF output on your device to see whether it's either optical or coaxial, and make sure you have the corresponding input on your chosen home cinema kit.

Setting the scene

Whichever kit you choose, you're going to end up with lots of new boxes and wires to fit in your living room. The box shows the optimal way to set up your new speakers for the best possible effect. This is all fine if your living room is a perfect oblong with a single sofa. But in the real world you'll just have to do the best with what you have.

Speakers should be at ear level when you're sitting down, or higher for the left and right surrounds. You may wish to mount them on the wall, or use a bookshelf if possible. If that's not an option, you'll have to invest in some speaker stands or buy Panasonic's SC-PT850 kit, which comes with floor-standing speakers.

It's also worth considering the aesthetic impact the speakers will have on your living room. You'll need somewhere to hide the big subwoofer, but luckily all the systems here have relatively small satellite speakers. Sony's DVD home cinema system has absolutely tiny speakers that you'd be hard pressed to notice.

Once you've got the speakers in position, you should use the kit's menu system to tweak the levels to match your setup. Some kits come with calibration microphones that do this automatically.

Audio-file

All the DVD home cinema kits here can play a variety of audio, photo and video file formats. Some have USB ports that let you attach storage devices, or you can burn the files to disc and play them from the optical drive. We've described how well this works in the individual reviews.