Getting the Most Out of Your Audio/Video System 07/08/2010
You might think that if you put a Blu-ray disc into a Blu-ray player hooked up to a 1080p HD TV, you’re getting the best of the best. But simply purchasing a 1080p television doesn’t guarantee you 1,080 lines’ worth of definition. Just about every Blu-ray player has output settings that have to be configured properly to display full 1080p resolution. And if your player is hooked to an A/V receiver, it may also have output settings that will have to be set. Some sophisticated home theaters will then send the signal to an outboard video processor, which needs the same type of fine-tuning.
But even if your Blu-ray player, your A/V receiver, and your video processor are all configured in the right way, you might still not get exactly what you want out of your system. For example, if the display mode on your television isn’t set up properly, you won’t enjoy all 1,080 lines of detail that you paid for. With all of the menus and all of the options available on HD TVs – or any piece of electronic equipment – there are countless permutations. Every customization is different, based on anything from the room you choose for your set-up to the distance between your couch and the TV, and you may not even know what you want until you see the type of customization available.
Face it: You need help. You may be a computer whiz or remember fondly your time spent as president of the A/V club, but technology moves fast and you might not know what you don’t know. Not only that, the industry focuses on customizability and the user experience, so there are tons of options on every piece of equipment, whether it be part of a security system, a home theater, a lighting system, or a home computer network. And I think your baby just re-set your system to factory settings while she was chewing on the remote. So c’mon – call a professional. It’ll be our little secret.
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