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I Hope you enjoy shopping at the Racing Ahead store and that you find what you are looking for. From time to time, new additions will be made to departments so please do come back and look again.
Home EntertainmentHome Entertainment systems also called home theaters, are entertainment systems that seek to reproduce cinema quality video and audio in private homes. In the 1950s, home entertainment movies became popular in the United States with Kodak 8 mm film projector equipment becoming affordable. The development of multi-channel home entertainment audio systems and home entertainment laserdiscs in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home entertainment cinema. In the early to mid 1990's, a typical home entertainment cinema would have a Laserdisc or S-VHS videocassette player fed to a large rear projection television. In the late 1990s, home entertainment theater technology progressed with the development of DVD, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio ("surround sound"), and High-Definition Television.In the 2000s, the term " home entertainment " encompasses a range of systems. The most basic home entertainment system could be a DVD player, a standard CRT television, and a "home theater in a box", a 2.1 speaker system with left and right speakers and a small 8" subwoofer cabinet. An expensive home entertainment cinema set-up might include a High-Definition video format such as Blu-ray, a 60" High-Definition Television with a "cinema-style" 16×9 format, a several thousand-watt home entertainment theatre receiver with five to seven surround sound speakers, and a powered subwoofer with a 12" subwoofer. The most expensive home entertainment theater set-ups, which can cost over $100,000 US, have digital projectors, expensive screens, and custom-built screening rooms which include cinema-style chairs and Audiophile-grade sound equipment.
Home Entertainment System DesignToday, " home entertainment cinema " implies a real "cinema experience" and therefore a higher quality set of components than the average television provides.A typical home entertainment theater includes the following parts:
Home Entertainment Component Systems vs. Home Entertainment Theater-in-a-BoxHigh-quality home entertainment cinemas are assembled from component pieces purchased separately to provide the best combination of equipment for the cost. It is possible to purchase a home entertainment theater in a box kits that include a set of speakers for surround sound, an amplifier/tuner for adjusting volume and selecting video sources, and sometimes a DVD player. Though these home entertainment kits often pale in comparison to a custom-built home entertainment cinema, they are inexpensive and easy to set up; one needs only to add a television and some movies in order to create a simple home entertainment theater. This makes them popular in the public's eyes.
Dedicated Home Entertainment TheatersSome home cinema enthusiasts go so far as to build a dedicated room in the home for the home entertainment theater. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates sound and provides the potential for a nearly ideal listening environment. These installations are often designated as "screening home entertainment rooms" to differentiate from simpler installations.This idea can go as far as completely recreating an actual cinema, with a projector enclosed in a projection booth, specialized furniture, a piano or theatre organ, curtains in front of the projection screen, movie posters, or a popcorn or snack machine. More commonly, real dedicated home entertainment theaters pursue this to a lesser degree. Presently the days of the £50,000 and over home entertainment theater is being usurped by the rapid advances in digital audio and video technologies, which has spurred a rapid drop in prices. This in turn has brought the true digital home entertainment theater experience to the doorsteps of the do-it-yourself people, often for less than what you would expect to pay for a low budget economy car. Current consumer level home entertainment equipment can meet and often exceed in performance what you would expect to experience at a modern commercial theater.
Home Entertainment Theater SeatingHome entertainment theater seating consists of chairs specifically engineered and designed for viewing movies in a personal home entertainment theater setting. Most home entertainment theater seats have cup holder built into the chairs' armrests and a shared armrest between each seat. Some seating is movie theater-style chairs like those seen in a movie cinema, which features a flip up seat cushion. Other home entertainment seating systems have plush leather reclining lounger types, with flip-out footrests. Additional features like storage compartments, snack trays, tactile transducers (nicknamed "Bass Shakers"), or even electric motors to recline the chair are available, depending on the model.
Home Entertainment Backyard TheaterIn places that have the proper outdoor atmosphere, it is possible for people to set up a home entertainment theater in their backyard. Depending on the space available, it may simply be a temporary version with foldable screen, a projector and couple of speakers, or a permanent home entertainment fixture with huge screens and dedicated audio set up poolside. Due to the outdoor nature, a home entertainment backyard theater is quite popular with BBQ parties and pool parties. Some specialist outdoor home cinema companies are now marketing home entertainment packages with inflatable movie screens and purpose built AV systems.Some people have built upon the idea, and constructed mobile drive-in home entertainment theaters that can play movies in public open spaces. Usually, these require a powerful projector, a laptop or DVD player, outdoor speakers and / or an FM transmitter to broadcast the audio to other car radios.
History of the Home Entertainment Theater1950s and 1960sIn the 1950s, home entertainment movies became popular in the United States and elsewhere as Kodak 8 mm film (Pathe 9.5 mm in France) and camera and projector equipment became affordable. Projected with a small, portable movie projector onto a portable screen, often without sound, this home entertainment system became the first practical home entertainment theater. They were generally used to show home movies of family travels and celebrations but also doubled as a means of showing private home entertainment stag films. Dedicated home entertainment cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing commercial films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the very wealthy, especially those in the movie industry. Portable home entertainment cinemas improved over time with color film, Kodak Super 8 mm film film cartridges, and monaural sound but remained awkward and somewhat expensive. The rise of home entertainment video in the late 1970s almost completely killed the consumer market for 8 mm film cameras and projectors, as VCRs connected to ordinary televisions provided a simpler and more flexible home entertainment substitute. 1980s The development of multi-channel audio systems and laserdisc in the 1980s added new dimensions for home entertainment cinema. The first known home entertainment cinema system was installed as a sales tool at Kirshmans furniture store in Metairie, Louisiana in 1974. They built a special sound room which incorporated the earliest quadraphonic audio systems and modified Sony trinitron televisions for projecting the image. Many home entertainment systems were sold in the New Orleans area in the ensuing years before the first public demonstration of this integration occurred in 1982 at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois. Peter Tribeman of NAD (USA) organized and presented a home entertainment system demonstration made possible by the collaborative effort of NAD, Proton, ADS, Lucasfilm and Dolby Labs who contributed their technologies to demonstrate what a home entertainment cinema would "look and sound" like. Over the course of three days, retailers, manufacturers, and members of the consumer electronics press were exposed to the first " home entertainment like " experience of combining a high quality video source with multi-channel surround sound. That one demonstration is credited with being the impetus for developing home entertainment in what is now a multi-billion dollar business. 1990s and 2000s In the early to mid 90's, a typical home entertainment Cinema would have a Laserdisc or S-VHS player fed to a large screen: rear projection for the more affordable setups, and LCD or CRT front projection in the more elaborate. In the late 1990s, the development of DVD, 5.1-channel audio, and high-quality video projectors that provide a home entertainment cinema experience at a price that rivals a big-screen HDTVs sparked a new wave of home entertainment cinema interest. In the 2000s, developments such as High Definition video and newer HD display technologies enable people to enjoy a cinematic feeling with their own home entertainment at an affordable price.
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