What got you started in home theater? (1 Viewer)

[Jay Mitchosky]

Most of my sickness can be attributed to this very forum.

 

[Steve Armbrust]

I always liked movies. But in 1998 I went to work for an internet electronics company (800.com maybe some of you remember it). At the time, I had an OK stereo system, an ordinary VCR, and a fairly crappy TV. Then one of the sales guys brings an open Panasonic A110 DVD player to my desk (we were starting to sell of lot of them then)and says, "Take it home and try it out. If you don't like it, bring it back."

That was the beginning of the end. Through various employee sales, I bought my first home theater system, and I got hooked on owning DVDs, of which I now own way, way too many.

Last year I told my wife that my dream was to turn our basement into a real home theater and not scrimp on the equipment. I gave her an estimated price, and amazingly enough, she agreed. It's terrific entertainment. But this thing is a disease, I swear.

 

[Ric Easton]

I wanted Home Theater before there was such an animal. Back around 1981 I hooked up my top loading, wired remote, mono Betamax to my stereo system. Well, the sound was coming thru the speakers but it wasn't in stereo. So as an experiment, I recorded the sound of Star Trek: The Motion Picture off of HBO onto cassette tape, at the same time recording the movie onto my Beta.

As I watched the movie I would play with the sound levels. If Kirk was on screen right and Spock was on screen left, I would adjust the levels to favor the appropriate side. This obviously had mixed results, since any background noise or music would shift sides along with the characte's voices. I also had to re-synch up the sound whenever I had to flip the cassette tape over.

It was quite a hassle, and I never tried it again, but I could see the potential even back then. Thankfully technollogy has caught up with me!


Brett, did I read that right? All my dad had was old Playboys!

 

[Citizen87645]

That's where I bought my first DVD player and DVD. So it's all YOUR fault!

 

[DustinPizarro]

The Empire Strikes Back.

This is my "sentinel" that pretty much began my love for movies as a visual and audio experience. I remember seeing this in when I was 6 or 7 and I was completely awestruck by what I just seen. The story didn't make much sense at first since I didn't see Star Wars. I didn't care. I just knew that I loved it and that I wanted more. I didn't think it was possible for me to like any other movie. However a year later I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. Wow!!

Obviously back then I knew nothing about home theater or even aware if there even was a thing. I just wanted to replicate the excitement of watching movies at home. When my parents got Cable, the floodgates were open as more movies became accessible. But more needed to be done. I fondly remember tinkering with my parents stereo equipment and somehow trying to get the TV connected to the stereo. An impossible thing since our equipment had no real A/V inputs or outputs. After convincing my dad, our mission was clear. We need to "upgrade."

Within 2 months, we had all new "state of the art" equipment consisting of a Sony Trinitron, Sony 4-Head Stereo VCR, a Pioneer receiver with Dolby Surround, and 4 DBX satellite speakers with seperate subwoofer.

Surprisingly, I didn't buy any movies. LD was way to expensive at that time. I simply recorded movies from cable. My collection grew immensely over the next few years and I began to tinker with my equipment again to get most from it. Adjusting picture settings on the TV and speaker placement were new to me. Still, I enjoyed it.

As time went on other interests & responsibilities took precedent. But something happened to rejuvenate and change the way I saw movies. The Sci-Fi Channel was replaying the Star Wars Trilogy but they stated in a restored, "widescreen" format. I missed Star Wars, but was able to catch Empire. Once again, I was amazed at what I saw. To think that all this time I was only watching half my favorite movie. It was like watching the movie again for the first time. The battle on Hoth and the Millenium Falcon trying to outrun the Star Destroyers looked even more dramatic than ever before in its OAR. My collection just became obsolete.

Unfortunately DVD's were not yet around and Cable only had Pan & Scan so I had to endure. By the time DVDs came out, I couldn't afford a player and the new batch of movies did not interest me yet but I knew I would eventually get one. Dolby Digital and later DTS sound formats were becoming more common at theaters while HDTVs were just being introduced. My equipment had been obsolete.

I cam upon Home Theater Forum around 1999. I had not yet registered since I was to busy reading so many debates, movie reviews etc. I gained alot useful information from this site. 2000 had arrived and I was already living in my new home with a huge basement that would soon become my home theater. The time had come to upgrade. In the end I had purchased a new "state of the art" Sony Wega HDTV CRT with Progressive Scan player, Denon 6.1 receiver, and Atlantic Technology speaker system.

"State of the art" is more like state of mind but I am still satisfied with my current equipment. Eventually I'm hoping to upgrade again when 50+ inch HDTVs with 1080P become widely available. But I'm not jumping in to HiDef DVDs until those fools from the electronics manufacturers and movie studios get their act together and have one format!!!! But that is a post for another debate.

 

[Gary Seven]

1980. Much like Ric, I connected my mono VCR to my stereo (using a signal splitter on the mono input from the VCR). It was a top loader made before the six hour mode was available. Heavy as hell. Not only could I watch tapes (mostly bootlegs, B movies and porno, as that's all that was available at the time) through the stereo, but TV as well. It was mono but it sounded better than the three inch speaker of the TV. I remember I used to crank up Barney Miller when it came on to listen to the jazzy beginning.

From there, upgrades took place as the technology became available. By the late 80's, I was buying LDs.

And the rest is history.

 

[Brett_M]

Ric,

My dad is a film enthusiast in every respect. I, too, love porn, although the stag films he dubbed are not very good compared to the stuff you can get now.

 

[Joey Skinner]

I was one of the few people in the country that didn't have a DVD player in the summer of 2003. So I went shopping for one, noticed the HTIBs and almost pulled the trigger on a Sony "Dream" system. I didn't want to spend that much without a little research so I went to the internet and found "THE HOME THEATER FORUM" and I'm so glad I did. I ended up with a DIY 5.1 system with GR Research speakers, a 12" Stryke sub, a H/K receiver and a cheap Sony DVD player. It was so much better than VHS that I never watched another tape. Next came the 42" Sony Wega and soon after that Dish with HDTV. I also upgraded the DVD player to a Denon 2200 and recently completed an Infinite Baffle sub in the attic. HTF was the inspiration for my A/V hobby. I'm pretty well set for now; upgrades are approaching the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Dick]

Why not? Each to his own. It's a decent movie. No need to be embarrassed because you are a fan. There are people who love ARMAGEDDON. Need I say more?

My home theater experience began when I was ten years old and I had use of my dad's cast-iron Kodak 8mm movie projector. I was introduced to 8mm "digest" prints from Castle Films at a friend's and decided to start collecting them. Each time I mowed our entire lawn (2 acres) I earned enough to buy a 12-minute 8mm black and white/silent movie ($4.17 each at Masters Discount Store in Yonkers, NY). I set up our cellar as a theater and invited kids from the neighborhood in to watch half-hour double features. These were, I repeat, silent movies, so I provided all the sound effects and dialog myself (even vocalising "music" occasionally). I eventually accrued a collection of a hundred or more of these films, and in the late 60's bought my first 8mm sound projector. You can imagine the thrill of this. Full color and sound Looney Tunes (uncut); digest excerpts from HORROR OF DRACULA and CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in color! (How could I even have hoped that, thirty-some-odd years later, I would own these full-length in widescreen for about fifteen bucks apiece!!) As an adult I switched to Super 8mm and collected shorts and feature-length movies (I had 1.33:1 Super 8mm prints of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST; WAR OF THE WORLDS; STAGECOACH; KING KONG; HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME; ROSEMARY'S BABY and quite a few more). Then, in 1980, I discovered video. Yes, VHS. I was overwhelmed. True, I couldn't project that beautiful image on a wall, but the selection of titles was amazing and the price per movie a mere fraction of the $200-300. tag the Super 8 prints cost. I set up my then-apartment as a video theater (albeit now with a 25" screen) and then delved into laser disc, which was a vast improvement in picture and sound. You know the rest. I have rarely been without some sort of home theater arrangement since I was a pre-teen.

PS: By the way, as a post-script, I would like to inform those of you who are too young to recall Super 8mm collecting that it was in this format, not laser disc, that letterboxing was first introduced. Mountain Films, the home movie division of Paramount, letterboxed a number of their digest releases, including GREASE. Universal 8 (the new name of Castle Films) released a number of their Super 8mm 30-minute digest prints in widescreen (JAWS; THE HINDENBERG, etc.) These were not anamorphic and required no special lenses. The image was hard-matted to about 1.85:1. That seemed pretty special and quite theatrical in those days. After I sold off my Super 8mm collection in 1984 I became aware that some Super 8mm feature-length films were actually coming out in anamorphic widescreen (POLTERGEIST among others) from Ken Films, which offered MGM, Fox and American Intl. product. These DID require special lenses for projectors. I still kinda miss those reels and projectors and perfectly-timed changeovers, etc., but I don't miss the expenditure at all!!

 

[Ruz-El]

Mine started from childhood. My dad worked in Hi-Fi all his life, up into his retirement last year. The shop he was working at in the eighties was one of the first shops in town to start renting movies. He bought a top loading Panasonic VHS (with the fabled wire remote that didn't have stop and play on it, just for/rev search, pause and slo mo!)and every weekend he would bring home a box of movies, everything from classics, to current dramas, to horror, to cartoons, and I would watch them all, and, in full discloser, dubbed a ton of them.

As I grew older, the love for these films didn't go away at all. I always pawed the Laser Disc's at "Sam The Record Man", dreaming about collecting them and awed by the special features listed. By the time I was old enough to buy a Laser Disc player and a decent surround sound system, it was the dawn of DVD. I waited a few years to make sure if the hype fit, and than on my birthday, a friend gave me "Fight Club" on DVD. I bought a HT in a box that weekend, along with "Clerks", "the Wizard Of Oz" and "The Hurricane", and have been collecting ever since.

I don't have a great set yet, and I haven't upgraded that HT in a box, hell, I don't even own a house yet. But I still love the format, and quite frankly, with a failed marrage, a death in the family from cancer last year and being diagnosed with the potential early signs of glaucoma last week, HT and films is about the only thing I can rely on for my mental health. As soon as I can clear up some debts and get settled in a place, you can bet my first splurge well be on a new HT rig with a projector in a dedicated HT basement.

 

[JeremySt]

3 memories planted the seed fo me...My dad hooked up his hi fi vcr to his quad stereo system to watch GRAND PRIX. The other was, I was visiting relatives over the holidays, and they rented a LD player to keep us entertained. We watched BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Then, 1992, I saw the widescreen laserdisc of TERMINATOR 2 on a 90" CRT projection screen, with surround sound.

 

[Paul_Scott]

it wasn't until 2001 that i really consider myself as having gotten into HT.
thats when i bought my first (and only) rptv. a spanky fine Sony 53" HD set (4:3 ratio). it was bought because shortly one of my favorite movies would finally be released on dvd, and i wanted to make the event something special.
a few months after that, i noticed a small insert in the case to my copy of The Thin Red Line which said something to the effect of "if you don't have a surround sound system, please turn the volume up on your television as this will more accurately convey the intended presentation".
i had been happy with the sound from the rp and didn't see the need to invest in audio, which was never a big deal for me, but that message got me thinking and shortly after i purchased a HTB and was amazed.

a few months later i traded the rp for a front projector, and i finally felt like i had the home theater i had always dreamed about (and mooned over in various showrooms) my whole life.
since then i've upgraded both the pj and the audio end and i feel truly appreciative that i can enjoy this hobby in the fashion i do. few things for me beat seeing a great movie projected large and accompanied by clean, clear sound.

 

[Kevin M]

If I was to make a link of my entertainment tree:

1978 Big Trax (you could "program" it to move, turn, fire....neat!) & Fire Bird (made Cooool swooshing sounds as you tilted it up or down...NEAT!)
- 1980 Atari 2600
- 1982 Boombox
- 1984 Walkman/Emerson cheap ass home stereo
- 1986 Ultra Home Tape Deck with Dolby B C & DBX
- 1986 Nintendo
- 1987 four fairly good radio Shack Realistic Speakers, two with eight inch woofers, & a Pioneer surround receiver (mom hated me)
- 1988 RCA "top notch" stereo VCR (still works though)
- 1990 Sega Genesis
- 1992 first Pioneer LD player.....after that it was an ever spiraling obsession that has given me much personal pleasure and my wallet much pain.

 

[Harry-N]

(Longwinded reply)

The earliest roots of my Home Theatre aspirations probably go way back to my childhood in the '50s. My dad was a home movie enthusiast, making films with stories that my mother would write, and he'd get us kids to act out the parts. Crude 16mm stuff, but fun.

Along with those home-made movies, he'd often go out and rent some 16mm films and show them to the family and friends and neighbors. Cook up some popcorn and we'd enjoy an evening's entertainment with a 'big' home movie screen.

Naturally I was also a prime target for the television age, watching all kinds of stuff on the small screen. First in black and white, later in the mid-'60s in color - a definite improvement to our viewing quality.

Back then, I also noticed an odd fact - that the audio portion of channel 6 (in Philadelphia, the ABC affiliate) came in on the FM band, down around 87.7 mHz. So when I got my first FM-Stereo radio, I'd tune in any channel 6 program that I wanted to watch with that much better FM sound. Coming out of the stereo's speakers, movies sounded WAY better than they did coming through the TV's speakers. It wasn't stereo, but it still sounded pretty good.

My favorite film of all time came out around then, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and seeing it in the Cinerama theatre was a memorable experience. I'll never forget that moment early on in the Dawn Of Man segment where the opposing ape community was beaten off, and the sound of them retreating was imaged in sound towards the rear of the theatre. Since this was before home video, there was no way at this point that I could envision being able to replicate that at experience at home, but the seed was planted.

In the mid '70s, NBC managed to air 2001 as one of its weekly movies. All I could do at that point was record the audio - and if there's one movie that doesn't do much for you with audio exclusively, it's gotta be 2001 - or a silent film, perhaps!

In 1978, I was an early adopter of the VHS format with one of those two/four hour machines with the piano keyboard buttons, top loader, wired remote that only paused, and the ability to time-shift. Hooked up to cable, I was now able to record whole movies and watch them over and over, perhaps save them for posterity if they were worth it. (Blank tapes were over $20 then!)

I experimented with renting movies, buying movies, etc., and the idea of Home Theatre was finally becoming somewhat of a reality. Sure, it was low-definition, panned-and-scanned, with mono sound, but I was at least in control of what I would watch.

In the early '80s, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY finally arrived both on HBO and home video. Around 15 years had passed since I'd first seen it, and now I was able to screen a crude home copy of it. Hey, at least I could SEE who was on-screen and not talking!

In the late '80s, after acquiring yet again other copies of 2001 (first a stereo version, then a HI-FI stereo version, I managed to catch a local PUBS station airing the film - in a letterbox format. My jaw dropped to the floor as I realized how much I'd been missing, and that really, I hadn't actually seen the whole film in nearly 20 years.

Now wanting to be able to replicate THAT experience, I delved into the world of LaserDiscs, and literally my first purchase was 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in widescreen - first the Criterion CLV set, later springing for the Criterion CAV set.

I added to the LaserDisc collection throughout the '90s, impressing friends and relatives with our little home theatre - really just our family room with decent audio and video equipment. I continued upgrading the stereo components and speakers, through plain old stereo, into Dolby Surround, and finally Dolby Digital 5.1/dts 5.1 sound, just as DVDs were becoming a reality.

I let the DVD initial wave pass me by as I was at the time reasonably contented with LaserDisc on the new 32" Sony XBR. I even found myself secretly hoping that DVD would just be a fad and that everyone would come to their senses and adopt LaserDisc as the format of choice.

But of course I kept reading and hearing about how good DVDs were and ultimately got a player the following Christmas, along with a few discs, naturally including the latest and greatest MGM version 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, now with 5.1 sound. Though the old LaserDisc player hooked up to the Dolby Surround system sort-of replicated that fateful day in the Cinerama theatre, with the apes now retreating behind my couch, it still wasn't quite as good as this new 5.1 system. Now the apes had directionality to them as they retreated behind my couch!

Someday, I knew we'd take the plunge into a bigger screen, and just within the last few weeks have gotten a 55" Sony LCD/RPTV/HDTV to nearly complete the lifelong transition into Home Theatre. We don't have special seating (and our floors aren't sticky), but the theatrical experience is darn close to better than the local cineplex (and the popcorn is a lot cheaper).

 

[T r o y]

After seeing Aliens and Diehard at the Theater in 70MM , I knew from that day forward I wanted to have some kind of system hooked to my tv where I could experience the best possible sound from movies at home which at the time was LD and VHS. I couldn't afford LD, so I went out and bought a 4 head Mitsubishi HiFi VCR and hooked it to my Yamaha prologic surround processor fed through my Boston Accoustic speakers. I was in heaven when I finally watched Diehard through it. Then in 97 when DVD came out, I thought I hit the lottery. 5 independent channels of digital audio from a DVD audio soundtrack. I thought this is going to be an amazing and exciting hobby I'm in and enjoy it. I've been hooked ever since ! Now I have a crt front projector, 92" screen, scaler, separate amp, processor , etc etc. I love my system and my room. It does not get any better than this except the cinema itself and I would prefer my room anyway. No sticky floors !!

Cheers to the HT hobby!
Over and Out ,
Troy

 

[RyanAn]

I remember when I was really young seeing my cousin who was only 4 or 5 years older than I dismantling our grandmother's VCR because it just would not work at all. In a matter of minutes, the hub was removed and he was 'vestigating. It was fixed, and we watched a bountyfull of a movies. He was like 11 and knew a lot more than I did - after that, I vowed to spend all my time learning and enjoying everything I could about audio/visual goodness.

Around that same time, I saw my first big-screen TV. It was top of the line for it's time, but it was one of those TVs were if you looked at it from the wrong angle, it would be so dark you could not see anything except gray. I remember playing Nintendo on the 50 inch screen and just going crazy!While I began to slowly start collecting Disney VHS tapes and trying to understand the MUCH-cooler BETA tape was going out (I'm 6 or so) I was also immeresed in Terminator, Friday the 13th, and Ninja Turtles. It was only a matter of time before we upgraded the home theatre from a faded out 17'' or so with a broken dial to a RCA 27'' that shined so bright at the click of a button.


Ryan

 

[Jerome Grate]

I guess it started with my first Stereo VCR. Right around 1997 I bought a Kenwood receiver VR106 with these Jensen speakers that I still have in the boiler room. I was viewing cable and going through the t.v. made some broadcast in stereo. So I decided to dump my Sears brand mono vcr and go for the Pro-Scan Hi-Fi vcr. It set me back about 260 bucks and I remember being in debt because of it, but when I bounced back I was buying every previously viewed movie from Blockbuster I now I would like. I remember saying to myself I would never get into DVD, it was to rich for me it's just a smaller version of laserdisc. Well when I saw and heard Lost In Space in a store in 5.1 I said I had to get into it. Never looked back only to tell the tale. What's so weird is where this stuff end up.

Where are they now:
Kenwood VR 106 - in the Garage with my first generation Sony 5 carosel cd player

Pro-Scan Hi-Fi VHS - I donated it in perfect condition to a friend

Jensen Speakers - in the boiler room and unfortunately speakers ripped apart by mice. Hey they were good for something.

Toshiba 32 inch t.v. - upstairs in the den for the wife and kids through the day.

Pioneer DV 414 DVD player - upstairs with the t.v. one great team, no need to break it up.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Harry Neyhart: Enjoyed your post, as we share a love for the same film. FYI, I once had joint-ownership of a 16mm MGM lab print of 2001, back in the early and mid-'70s. Optically, you just could not beat it. But its soundtrack was optical mono. In one instance, we took it to an aquaintence's house, a man who had a genuine home theater in the mid-'70s -- two 16mm projectors fed into separate amplifiers and a pair of Altec-Lansing A-7 horn-loaded speakers. It was heavenly seeing our print projected in that system. (For our own 16mm Graflex projector, we scored an anamorphic lense at a swap meet for only $20!) JB

 

[Holadem]

'96, I first got the idea of connecting the Play Station to the stereo. Much better than TV speakers. It wasn't possible to do the same with TV, I didn't have cable.

2 years later, as a budding film freak, I walked by a roomate's door and heard what sounded to my virgin ears like theater quality sound. I asked "wazdat?" and he told me he had hooked up his VCR to his sound system. He had a mixing table as well, he was something of a DJ. Cool, I ran back to my room and hooked my VCR to my new $300 JVC mini-system (3CD changer, 2 tape decks, EQ, etc...), which happened to be prologic, and had 5 speakers. My jaw was on the floor.

I took me a couple of weeks to realize that the smaller speakers were meant to be center and rear speakers, not huddled together on top of the mains. And that Pro-Logic was the correct setting for movies. Better late than never. And ya got to start somewhere.

--
H

 

[Harry-N]

Thanks for your comment - and it's always nice to find that 2001 is high on others' lists.

It sounds like your experience with the actual film was rather impressive. It could be fun to try to synch up the actual print with a current DVD's soundtrack into a 5.1 system.

By the way, have you ever tried to synch up the film with the Alex North score? I managed to attempt it once at least through the Dawn Of Man sequence, feeding the actual soundtrack of the ape-men sounds to the TV set and running the CD sound through the main stereo speakers. It gives a sense of what could have been had Kubrick used North's score.

Ahh - to relive the Cinerama experience - that's what it's all about.

Harry
...whose TV screen isn't nearly curved enough...