Ultimate home movie theater
HOW TO BRING THE MOVIES HOME
BETTER LIVING THROUGH SMARTER TECHNOLOGY
Want the best movie theater experience, without interruption? You can have it right from your couch
BY ALEX COX
> EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT…
You don’t have to include a roaring fire and room–filling screen in your home movie theater setup, but it helps…
ticky carpet, a 95% markup on popcorn, that guy two rows in front messaging with key sounds on and his phone on 100% brightness. The fact that your cat is not allowed to go. These are just some of the things we will not miss about the movie theater experience as was. We’re not about to say that we don’t miss settling down in an auditorium to take in the latest blockbuster, and we’ll certainly be back when the industry rebuilds itself. But if there’s one positive thing to come out of the recent worldwide catastrophe, it’s a change in focus: those blockbusters are coming home sooner, and they’re becoming more and more accessible.
It’s the perfect time to make your own setup to bring movies home, particularly because you can also use a home theater to binge your favorite series in an epic way. You don’t need to break the bank to get a better experience — sometimes little tweaks will do. But if you do want to spend big, there are some very impressive options out there.
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If you just want to get a better experience from the equipment that you already have, make sure you have your settings and connections correct. Some of us, either knowingly or unwittingly, run our TVs in the shop demo mode — this might be great for a bright, poppy picture, but it’s going to lower the TV’s lifespan and it’s certainly not the sort of mode that brings out the best in moody cinematic scenes. Poke through your TV set’s options until you find something you like that works across different styles, remembering to switch off functions like motion smoothing and switch on features like HDR if available. If it’s a modern TV with Filmmaker Mode, that’s the way to experience a movie in the way it was intended. Ambient light compensation can be useful when just mindlessly watching TV, but it’s a big distraction if you’re taking in a film.