- Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
- Language: English
- Region: All Regions
- Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
- Number of discs: 1
- MPAA Rating:
- Studio: Paradox
- Release Date: Nov 4 2003
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
- ASIN: 630551982X
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#33,415 in DVD (See Top 100 in DVD)
- #25 in Music > Miscellaneous > Instructional
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
Tastefully designed for both beginning and advanced home-theater enthusiasts, the AVIA Guide to Home Theater is a terrific gateway to system set-up and integration--perfect for either planning or upgrading your home-entertainment system. AVIA, which was written by David Ranada of Stereo Review's Sound & Vision, takes full advantage of the nonlinear DVD-Video format. It lays out simply and clearly the basics of home theater: source components, video setup, and audio setup. Its seven chapters range in topics from home-theater components to viewing environments to system tools, and the disc features a host of professional-quality test signals for complete system calibration. Handy "hot buttons" give more depth on a range of subjects for those who want it. The disc gives insufficient weight to the importance of audio cable (and it recommends optical digital connections over the better-sounding coaxial type), but by and large AVIA is a trustworthy and extremely informative presentation. --Michael Mikesell
Video Details
The most comprehensive and easiest to use reference for understanding, setting up and getting the most from your home theater. "The AVIA Guide to Home Theater" is the single essential tool for the home theater enthusiast--whether novice or expert. Authoritatively written by Sound & Vision's technical editor, David Ranada, "The AVIA Guide to Home Theater" explains simply and by example everything you need to maximize your home theater.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Avia vs. Video Essentials: No Comparison,
By
This review is from: Avia Guide to Home Theatre (DVD)
Having purchased both discs, I have very strong feelings about this. Avia bests VE in almost every respect:1. Navigation: On VE, the navigation is handled by a very confusing set of menus within menus. On my DVD remote, I could only access one of the menus using a button that I otherwise never use. Until I figured this out, the only way I could skip through the initial (not very useful) audio stuff was to fast forward! Avia's menus work like every other menu I have ever used. No problem with navigation. 2. Color calibration: VE offers only a blue filter. However, Avia provides red, blue, and green filters and allows you set each independently. 3. Sharpness: VE simply tells you to turn your sharpness all the way down. The pattern for setting sharpness is so under explained, it is useless. Avia provides a full explanation and resulted in my setting the sharpness level considerably above zero. 4. Brightness and Contrast settings: VE provides only static bars (and requires that your DVD passes pure black). Avia provides bars that flash. This makes getting proper settings much easier. Also, your DVD doesn't have to pass pure black.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must have for HT tweakers.,
By
This review is from: Avia Guide to Home Theatre (DVD)
The Avia disc is a must have if you have any desire to derive the full benefit from your HT expenditure. The color bar calibration alone is worth the price, as it adjusts for insidious red push. The picture that a weekender can get from a direct view, front projection or rear projection system by tweaking with Avia is stunning.The audio calibration section is amazing. The Radio Shack Sound Pressure Meter highlighted in the DVD is also a must have. The difference between calibrating the audio with the test tones built into the audio/video receiver versus calibrating the whole playback chain by including the Avia disc in the DVD is astounding. I thought my system was near perfect by using the test tones in the receiver until I did it again with the Avia disc and the SPL meter. Only then did the "sound stage" of my system become seamless and incredible. Guests now comment on the sound as often as they do the High Definition images on the screen. Invest an hour with this disc and you'll get several hundred hours of incredible HT enjoyment. Very highly recommended.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
overpriced and unnecessary for most,
By
This review is from: Avia Guide to Home Theatre (DVD)
I am a big home theater tweaker and love to set up systems, program remote controls, and calibrate the sound and video systems, but I was disappointed with this guide. The sound calibration section does not contain anything more useful than the calibration tools already built in all Dolby Digital and DTS receivers. The video calibration is more useful to people with rear projection tvs that need their lenses converged periodically. However, most newer tvs have an auto convergence feature anyway. As mentioned in other reviews, the Star Wars dvds have a simple calibration tool to help you set the contrast and brightness. Videophiles like to scare people into calibrating their displays by spouting off about manufacturers' settings being too bright, too red, etc. That may be true especially with CRT and rear projection tvs, but I have found the factory settings on my LCD front projector to be very close to the calibrated settings obtained with AVIA. AVIA does have some nice explanations of some of the theory behind display deives, but my advice is to find this for free on the Internet and save yourself some money. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is to watch some DVDs with dark scenes and adjust your contrast and brightness to give you the black levels you like while retaining the amount of detail you desire. Look at flesh tones to set the color and tint of the display. That is the easiset, least expensive way to give you a picture that you like.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
