Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things techno. And we are back
Speaker 1: with our series about home theaters after a brief intermission.
Speaker 1: But hey, that happens sometimes with theaters, right anyway, So far,
Speaker 1: we have covered the basics of visuals with a breakdown
Speaker 1: of stuff like resolution, high dynamic range or HDR, oh
Speaker 1: LED versus l e D versus q LED, home projectors,
Speaker 1: and more. We also talked about surround sound and the
Speaker 1: basic variations that you can have with surround sound. But
Speaker 1: then I ran out of time before I could get
Speaker 1: to the next bit, which is sub waffers. And I
Speaker 1: talked about them a little in the last episode in
Speaker 1: this series, but I didn't really explain what it is
Speaker 1: they do and why they're so important for home theater setups.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about subwhiffers really quickly. Now, the
Speaker 1: job of any speaker is to project out a certain
Speaker 1: band of sound frequencies, which we you know, experience as
Speaker 1: different pitches. Right. Higher frequencies are higher pitches. Lower frequencies
Speaker 1: are much lower pitches. But how do speakers do this? Well,
Speaker 1: if you remember our rabbit hole of what sound is
Speaker 1: from earlier in this series, you know that sound is vibration,
Speaker 1: and that typically we hear sound as it moves through
Speaker 1: the air. The vibration in this case becomes a series
Speaker 1: of fluctuating changes in air pressure which propagate outward from
Speaker 1: the source of the sound. And when these fluctuations encounter
Speaker 1: the ear drums inside our ears, they cause our ear
Speaker 1: drums to vibrate. Those vibrations transferred to our inner ear
Speaker 1: thanks to some very tiny bones, and then through a
Speaker 1: couple of other steps that I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: to hear because I've covered this before, our brains eventually
Speaker 1: pick up signals from our inner ear and then interpret
Speaker 1: that as sound. Now, the reason I even said any
Speaker 1: of that is that a speaker creates sound kind of
Speaker 1: in a reverse process from how our ears pick up sound.
Speaker 1: So you've got an electric signal, and this is the
Speaker 1: signal that carries the sound information in it. We've encoded
Speaker 1: sound into an electric signal, and then we're gonna decode
Speaker 1: the electric signal to recreate the sound. Typically, this signal
Speaker 1: goes to an electro magnet, which is essentially a driver
Speaker 1: that can pull and push depending on how or if
Speaker 1: current is flowing through the electro magnet. This is inside
Speaker 1: the speaker. It's usually attached to the speaker cone itself,
Speaker 1: and there is a diaphragm covering the speaker cone the
Speaker 1: end of the cone. This is the part that you
Speaker 1: see when you look at the front of a speaker,
Speaker 1: those big round things. That's the diaphragm on the end
Speaker 1: of the own um. Then you've got this part of
Speaker 1: the back of the speaker where there's a permanent magnet.
Speaker 1: That's your typical way. You could have it the other way,
Speaker 1: where the permanent magnet is on the cone and the
Speaker 1: electro magnets in the back of the speaker. But more
Speaker 1: frequently the voice coil as it's called, is attached to
Speaker 1: the code itself. So when the polarity of the electro
Speaker 1: magnet changes, it exerts a magnetic force that then interacts
Speaker 1: with the magnetic field of the permanent magnet. So if
Speaker 1: those polarities match right, if the electro magnets magnetic field
Speaker 1: has a north pole pointed toward the permanent magnets north pole,
Speaker 1: then they repel each other right, Because like magnetic charge repels,
Speaker 1: So the cone gets pushed away from the permanent magnet
Speaker 1: and it's pushed forward out from the speaker. If the
Speaker 1: polarities are the opposite of each other, like one's north
Speaker 1: pole and one south pole, the electro magnet is pulled
Speaker 1: back toward the permanent magnet inside. Now the permanent magnet,
Speaker 1: it's magnetic field is not going to change because it's permanent.
Speaker 1: It's it's in a stationary position. But by reversing the
Speaker 1: the flow of electricity through the coil, you can change
Speaker 1: the direction of the magnetic field on the coil in
Speaker 1: the electro magnet and thus have this interaction. So the
Speaker 1: result is that the speaker's diaphragm gets moved in and out,
Speaker 1: and this happens really really fast. Now, the diaphragm consequently
Speaker 1: causes air to move, and it creates those fluctuations in
Speaker 1: air pressure. As the diaphragm pushes outward, it compresses the
Speaker 1: air directly in front of the speaker. If it moves inward,
Speaker 1: it pulls on the air. So you get these little
Speaker 1: fluctuations of air pressure that when they encounter our ears
Speaker 1: we experience as sound. To me, is so cool that
Speaker 1: we can take sound. We can transmit sound through a microphone,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, the exact same thing but
Speaker 1: in reverse, and in be able to play it out
Speaker 1: on a speaker this way and just have this material,
Speaker 1: this diaphragm material. Just through that vibration, we can recreate
Speaker 1: any sound that humans can hear. That still blows my
Speaker 1: mind anyway. That's a really high level way of how
Speaker 1: speakers work. So most speakers can replicate a fairly decent
Speaker 1: range of frequencies, but the lower end stuff gets pretty
Speaker 1: challenging because it requires a larger diaphragm in the speaker
Speaker 1: to produce good, powerful low frequency effects and more power
Speaker 1: to move that big diaphragm. So larger diaphragms will have
Speaker 1: more mass. That means it takes more energy to get
Speaker 1: them to move, particularly to move enough air to make
Speaker 1: the effects you want to make. So it might need
Speaker 1: so much energy that you could even require an extra
Speaker 1: plug to plug the speaker into, say an external source
Speaker 1: like a like a power outlet. In order to get
Speaker 1: the power, you need to to actually run the sub offer.
Speaker 1: So a good sound system needs a subworffer that is
Speaker 1: specifically a type of speaker specifically dedicated to replicating the
Speaker 1: lower frequency sounds, those really deep bass sounds that sometimes
Speaker 1: you can actually feel more than you can hear. Now,
Speaker 1: remember I said that sound is a vibration. Well, a
Speaker 1: good subwoffer will create vibrations that you can physically feel.
Speaker 1: They might be below the threshold for human hearing, which
Speaker 1: is typically defined as anything between twenty hurts to twenty
Speaker 1: thousand hurts in frequencies. They can also handle the lower
Speaker 1: frequencies that, while not sternham shaking, are lower than what
Speaker 1: your typical speaker can handle, and thus they fill out
Speaker 1: the sound that you will hear. Otherwise you would be
Speaker 1: missing all those low low ends. This is important not
Speaker 1: just for movies and television, but also for music. If
Speaker 1: you've ever listened to music on a cheap pair of
Speaker 1: headphones and thought, wow, this doesn't sound really that good, well,
Speaker 1: chances are one of the issues that that those cheap
Speaker 1: headphones have is that they're not reproducing all the frequencies
Speaker 1: that are actually present in the music, so it's like
Speaker 1: you're getting a narrow slice of what the music is,
Speaker 1: not the full audio experience. Now, subliffers don't need to
Speaker 1: be as directional as other speakers, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to have them sitting in a very specific spot in
Speaker 1: your setup the way you do with like your front
Speaker 1: left and front right and center speakers and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. However, depending upon the size and shape
Speaker 1: of your home theater space, you might actually need more
Speaker 1: than one sub wiffer to create the effects you want.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you could find out that the base distribution in
Speaker 1: your home theater set up isn't quite up to par
Speaker 1: and that there are some maybe some dead spots in
Speaker 1: that space. Now, I've looked at a lot of surround
Speaker 1: sound speaker setups, and many of the higher end ones
Speaker 1: have two sub wiffers. And I should add that these
Speaker 1: are well outside my ice range and probably outside most
Speaker 1: people's price range unless you got like ten or twelve grand,
Speaker 1: just burning a hole in your very very large pockets.
Speaker 1: But you can see things like you know, nine point
Speaker 1: two point two, and you know, these crazy systems that
Speaker 1: get to a point where you're thinking, how many speakers
Speaker 1: do you actually need? Apparently for some home theater enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: it's going to always be there will never be enough speakers.
Speaker 1: Now I think of anything, this discussion really shows that
Speaker 1: your physical space matters a lot when it comes to
Speaker 1: building out your home theater. If you want surround sound,
Speaker 1: you need the space to be able to do it,
Speaker 1: and you need to set up speakers according to which
Speaker 1: version of surround sound you're going with. That also means
Speaker 1: figuring out stuff like cable management. Now there are wireless
Speaker 1: home theater systems where you've got like wireless speakers. Some
Speaker 1: of them are really really good. When they first came out,
Speaker 1: wireless speakers were kind of looked down upon because the
Speaker 1: thought was that if you didn't have a physical wire
Speaker 1: connecting your components, it could not possibly deliver the same
Speaker 1: level of experience. But we've gotten a lot better with
Speaker 1: those over the years. However, you know some systems still
Speaker 1: just use physical wires to connect everything like speakers back
Speaker 1: to the mixer. Then you know, sub whiffers might need
Speaker 1: their own power cable and everything. So whichever set up
Speaker 1: you go with, you need to take all this into consideration.
Speaker 1: Cable management becomes a real high priority as you don't
Speaker 1: want to trip over cables or have unsightly wires all
Speaker 1: over the place. So that you know, one more thing
Speaker 1: for you to keep in mind. Now you might also
Speaker 1: think that seven point one, where you've got seven speakers
Speaker 1: plus a sub wiffer like Dolby Atmos, is one of
Speaker 1: those kind of levels, although they sometimes call it five
Speaker 1: point one point two, because you've got the five speakers
Speaker 1: of your typical surround sound set up, you've got your subwhiffer,
Speaker 1: that's the one, and then you've got to atmost speakers
Speaker 1: that are projecting above you. That's the point to. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you might think that a seven point one set up
Speaker 1: is inherently superior to a five point one set up,
Speaker 1: which is far more common, but that is not necessarily
Speaker 1: the case. The quality of the tech, as in how
Speaker 1: good your mixer and receiver are, how good the speakers are,
Speaker 1: and to some degree the cables. All of that matters.
Speaker 1: But that cables thing is a huge caveat because there
Speaker 1: are companies out there that market high end cables that
Speaker 1: really don't deliver any perceptible benefit to the experience. We'll
Speaker 1: talk a lot more about it later on. In fact,
Speaker 1: really when it comes to cables, the rule of thumb
Speaker 1: is that super cheap cables aren't great. They tend to
Speaker 1: have bad insulation, and we'll talk more about that a
Speaker 1: bit later too, But anything else is pretty much okay,
Speaker 1: unless you're just having to run miles of cable, in
Speaker 1: which case you might need to think more carefully about
Speaker 1: your options. Also, I should add that in the world
Speaker 1: of audio, there's this obsessive pursuit among audio files about
Speaker 1: going after the most pure or true replication of sound,
Speaker 1: and I get that, but I also get that a
Speaker 1: lot of that comes down to stuff that is beyond
Speaker 1: human perception and comes down to personal preference and psychology.
Speaker 1: It's subjective in other words, like if you walked into
Speaker 1: a room and you were told that this room was
Speaker 1: outfitted with a high end, extremely expensive system, and it
Speaker 1: turned out that really, in the background it was just
Speaker 1: a good system, but not like a super crazy one,
Speaker 1: well you might walk away thinking it was a life
Speaker 1: changing experience, like you might come away from it saying wow,
Speaker 1: that really makes a difference. Likewise, if you were to
Speaker 1: walk into a space that had a really super high
Speaker 1: end audio system, but you were told that you were
Speaker 1: going to be listening to a budget model, you might
Speaker 1: just think it's just okay. So typically, double blind studies
Speaker 1: where neither the person experiencing a test nor the person
Speaker 1: administering the test actually knows what kind of system is
Speaker 1: being used. A lot of those show that beyond a
Speaker 1: certain level of quality, our ability to discern different distinctions
Speaker 1: diminishes quickly. So while a system might at least by
Speaker 1: you know, finally tuned measurements and specifications say it's better,
Speaker 1: you might not ever notice it because of the limitations
Speaker 1: of human perception. So, in other words, don't buy the malarkey,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. I guess. Oh, and like stereo,
Speaker 1: your ability to enjoy surround sound depends upon what you're consuming.
Speaker 1: So let's say you've picked up a Blu ray of
Speaker 1: your favorite film and you see it supports Dolby five
Speaker 1: point one surround sound, and you've got a five point
Speaker 1: one system that supports Dolby. Well, that should be a
Speaker 1: pretty good experience. It should sound great. But what I
Speaker 1: You've got a seven point one system, but the media
Speaker 1: you're looking at doesn't support seven point one. It's five
Speaker 1: point one. Well, through technologies like Dolby pro Logic too
Speaker 1: X or digital sound processing, which a lot of these
Speaker 1: systems have built into them, whether it's your receiver or
Speaker 1: your media player or whatever, well, then your system can
Speaker 1: expand five point one soundtracks to meet the seven point
Speaker 1: one channels, and to go into how all that works
Speaker 1: would probably require a full episode, and let me just
Speaker 1: be straight with you guys, it would also require an
Speaker 1: expert on the subject matter because it quickly goes beyond
Speaker 1: my own understanding. But in a way, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like how four K and eight K television's upscale video
Speaker 1: sources that aren't natively in ultra high definition. Now, one
Speaker 1: thing I have not covered is sound bars. So these
Speaker 1: are those wide, horizontal speakers you find in a lot
Speaker 1: of sound setups these days. Are usually pretty short, and
Speaker 1: they can typically fit directly in front of and underneath
Speaker 1: a TV screen. So if you've got your TV screen
Speaker 1: on the stand, this is that bar that would sit
Speaker 1: in front of the TV and and act as a
Speaker 1: very large or very wide speaker. And it's it's an
Speaker 1: attempt to replicate the experience of surround sound through one
Speaker 1: array of speakers inside a bar, instead of having a
Speaker 1: bunch of separate units mounted around a seating space. So
Speaker 1: within a sound bar are multiple speaker drivers, and some
Speaker 1: of these might be pointed so that they push sound
Speaker 1: out at an angle from the viewers, So instead of
Speaker 1: it just being like an array of speakers all pointed
Speaker 1: directly at you. Some of them might be pointed off
Speaker 1: at an angle, with the idea being that the sound
Speaker 1: is supposed to bounce off the walls to either side
Speaker 1: of you and then come at you from a different
Speaker 1: direction to simulate surround sound that way, So instead of
Speaker 1: mounting a speaker you know a certain number of degrees
Speaker 1: off to your right and to your left, you're using
Speaker 1: the sound bar to bounce sound off walls so that
Speaker 1: it comes to you that way anyway, So the channel
Speaker 1: that might be meant for the front left, for example,
Speaker 1: can beam off to the left of the viewer, hit
Speaker 1: a wall, bounce back, and hit you at the right angle.
Speaker 1: Of course, we all know that the law of reflection
Speaker 1: tells us that the angle the sound will take after
Speaker 1: the bounce is equal to the incoming angle, which means
Speaker 1: that the distance between the sound bar and your walls
Speaker 1: will matter. So if your television happens to be closer
Speaker 1: to one side of the room than the other, like
Speaker 1: if it's a little closer to the right than it
Speaker 1: is to the left, well, that means that the channels
Speaker 1: from the left and right are going to be bouncing
Speaker 1: off at slightly different points on their respective walls, so
Speaker 1: you might not get a really immersive surround sound effect
Speaker 1: like I have a sound bar in my setup, but
Speaker 1: my setup also my living room's weird, y'all. It is
Speaker 1: open to the dining room and kitchen on the left side,
Speaker 1: and the right side ends at a wall with windows
Speaker 1: on it, so that means that you know, stuff can
Speaker 1: bounce off to the right and hit that wall, But
Speaker 1: if it goes off to the left, it's going all
Speaker 1: the way towards the dining room and kitchen, so there's
Speaker 1: no there's no wall for it to bounce off off,
Speaker 1: so I don't get that effect. In addition, some sound
Speaker 1: bars even come with speakers that aim at an angle
Speaker 1: up towards the ceiling to get you that Dollby Atmos effects,
Speaker 1: so the sound reflects off your ceiling and back down
Speaker 1: towards where you're sitting. And generally speaking, sound bars are
Speaker 1: much easier to set up because I mean, there's usually
Speaker 1: only two components to the system. There's the sound bar
Speaker 1: and there's a subwhiffer. Some somewhoffers also serve as receivers,
Speaker 1: which will talk more about in a bit, so like
Speaker 1: my system is that way. My subwhiffer is also my receiver,
Speaker 1: and so I just have two units and that makes
Speaker 1: it really simple. They can provide much better sound than
Speaker 1: just a television alone can by itself, and in the
Speaker 1: right room, it can be a really immersive experience. Not
Speaker 1: so much for mine, but you know it's okay. Um,
Speaker 1: if you aren't lucky enough to have a symmetrical space
Speaker 1: perfectly set up for a home theater, then they don't
Speaker 1: deliver quite that surround sound experience you might be hoping for.
Speaker 1: So again, the space you are in is going to
Speaker 1: have a big impact on your experience, and it's really
Speaker 1: worth taking a good look at what you're working with
Speaker 1: before you go on a very expensive shopping spree. I
Speaker 1: would recommend getting someone from a company that builds out
Speaker 1: home theater systems to consult with you on it. However,
Speaker 1: I hesitate to make that just a blanket recommendation because
Speaker 1: I mean, you also need to do your own research,
Speaker 1: because I'm not saying that everyone out there is going
Speaker 1: to try and steer you toward the most expensive system
Speaker 1: you could possibly buy because they happen to work on commission.
Speaker 1: But it's a possibility and it's good to be aware
Speaker 1: of it. Now. I think that's a pretty good stopping
Speaker 1: point for audio in general, although we'll obviously touch on
Speaker 1: it some more later. So we're gonna talk about receivers
Speaker 1: after we come back from this quick break. So a
Speaker 1: lot of home theater setups include at a V receiver
Speaker 1: and audio video receiver, and the receiver really has a
Speaker 1: couple of big jobs. One of those is that it
Speaker 1: acts as an amplifier, So it takes audio signals from
Speaker 1: various media sources and it boosts those signals. It amplifies
Speaker 1: them before sending them onto the appropriate speakers. Uh, the
Speaker 1: output of audio signals from a media source might not
Speaker 1: be strong enough to really power the speakers sufficiently, so
Speaker 1: that's why you need an amplifier. But there's another really
Speaker 1: important job that the receiver does, and that's that it
Speaker 1: acts kind of like a media switch. So if you
Speaker 1: have a lot of components connecting to your home theater system,
Speaker 1: Let's say you've got an antenna and maybe a cable connection,
Speaker 1: and maybe video game console and perhaps a different type
Speaker 1: of set top box that's providing content. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: Blu ray player or something um or maybe it's you know,
Speaker 1: a streaming service box or something. Then this can act
Speaker 1: as like the switch between all those different sources so
Speaker 1: that you can have the right stuff being sent to
Speaker 1: your television screen and to all your speakers. So the
Speaker 1: a V receiver kind of acts like a nexus point
Speaker 1: for all of that stuff. You would plug all the
Speaker 1: inputs into the a V receiver and then you would
Speaker 1: use a single connection to connect your a V receiver
Speaker 1: to something like your television or a different one to
Speaker 1: connect to your speakers. That way, when you want to
Speaker 1: watch say a U h D Blu Ray, you switch
Speaker 1: the a V receiver to that setting to whatever you
Speaker 1: know input devices you're using to watch that Blue ray on,
Speaker 1: and the receiver essentially makes all the proper connections between
Speaker 1: your Blu ray player and your television and speakers. Or
Speaker 1: let's say you want to watch cable TV, while you
Speaker 1: would switch to that setting on your a V receiver,
Speaker 1: and then the cable feed would be what's going to
Speaker 1: your television and to your speakers. And one big benefit
Speaker 1: to this, and it sounds small, but trust me, it's
Speaker 1: really nice, is that the a V receiver will plug
Speaker 1: into one port in your television, one input typically you
Speaker 1: do this using an HDMI cable, which we will talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit later. And so let's say you
Speaker 1: plug your a V receiver into h d M I
Speaker 1: port number one on your television, and everything else is
Speaker 1: going through your a V receiver to your TV. That
Speaker 1: means when you switch from Blu ray to cable on
Speaker 1: your a V receiver, you don't also have to switch
Speaker 1: the input on your television. Now, I know that sounds small,
Speaker 1: but trust me, I have seen so many situations in
Speaker 1: which someone was not using an a V receiver, so
Speaker 1: they had all of their different components connecting to their
Speaker 1: television directly, and then they have to fuss around with
Speaker 1: a remote control and try to figure out which input
Speaker 1: on their television they needed to select in order to
Speaker 1: make something specific happen. Like let's say they switched from
Speaker 1: playing a video game and now they want to connect
Speaker 1: to like a Roku or something. They would have to
Speaker 1: go through and choose the correct input setting in order
Speaker 1: to do that. Because they had each of these things
Speaker 1: connecting to their television's directly, that can get a little frustrating.
Speaker 1: It gets a little clunky. So reducing the number of
Speaker 1: times you have to switch inputs on your television is
Speaker 1: a pretty nice thing. Also, receivers tend to have radio tuners.
Speaker 1: I mean they are receivers, they have radio tuners in them,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they have satellite radio tuners. So either way
Speaker 1: you have an added benefit there. You've got a device
Speaker 1: that can pick up radio signals and you can listen
Speaker 1: to radio on your home theater, you know, in case
Speaker 1: you ever want to do that. A V receivers also
Speaker 1: decode the surround sound signal formats that are on various
Speaker 1: forms of media, and then that's how they make sure
Speaker 1: that the right speakers are playing the right sounds. That
Speaker 1: way you're getting, you know, the front left channel is
Speaker 1: going to the front left speaker and it's not like
Speaker 1: suddenly going to the center's speaker or something. That's another
Speaker 1: important job receivers do. Now, there are some folks who
Speaker 1: do forego the a V receiver. Typically they don't have
Speaker 1: surround sound setups. As a result, they might have, you know,
Speaker 1: simple stereo speakers hooked up to their television. So it's
Speaker 1: not like an a V receiver is an absolute requirement,
Speaker 1: but for a lot of serious home theater enthusiasts, they
Speaker 1: consider it a critical component of their setup. Now let's
Speaker 1: switch over and talk about media sources. So you've got
Speaker 1: your television or your projector and screen, you've got your
Speaker 1: sound system, you've got your a V receiver ready to
Speaker 1: connect to everything to you know those other components. So
Speaker 1: what are you putting on this thing? Like, how are
Speaker 1: you getting the actual media to consume? Well, the good
Speaker 1: news is you have way more options today than you
Speaker 1: did when ultra high definition was first becoming a thing. Um,
Speaker 1: since four KTVs are now kind of the standard in
Speaker 1: most most stores, Like if you look at their television's,
Speaker 1: four K is by far the thing that takes up
Speaker 1: the most shelf space. Well, the first four KTVs hit
Speaker 1: store shelves back in two thousand twelve, but at that
Speaker 1: point there really wasn't any content for four KTVs. Like
Speaker 1: you can still watch HD content, High definition content, or
Speaker 1: even standard definition, but you couldn't find much four K content.
Speaker 1: Buying a four K TV was more like future proofing
Speaker 1: your home theater because you couldn't really enjoy content on
Speaker 1: it right out of the box. And this has happened
Speaker 1: multiple times before, like when h D t V first
Speaker 1: became a thing, there actually wasn't that much HD content
Speaker 1: to watch on that either you could find like an
Speaker 1: hd TV promotional channel that would just run stuff like
Speaker 1: nature scenes and maybe a couple of clips from like
Speaker 1: specific sporting events or a sunset or sunrise. Like. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of these kind of standard things that
Speaker 1: were meant to show off how beautiful the screens, but
Speaker 1: for real content there was a distinct lack, so there
Speaker 1: was a bit of a gap between having the capability
Speaker 1: to see stuff in higher resolution and actually having any
Speaker 1: higher resolution media to watch. The first pay TV provider
Speaker 1: in the United States to offer a limited selection of
Speaker 1: four K content was the satellite TV provider Direct TV.
Speaker 1: That was in two thousand fourteen. The first uh D
Speaker 1: Blu ray players went on sale in North America in
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, and luckily there were some media companies
Speaker 1: making four K Blu ray discs as well, because again,
Speaker 1: you know, it drives home the fact you need all
Speaker 1: the pieces in the puzzle to match up to get
Speaker 1: the experience you want. You can have a four K
Speaker 1: TV and nothing to watch on it, or you could
Speaker 1: have a four K Blu ray player, But if no
Speaker 1: one's making four K Blu ray disks, that doesn't do
Speaker 1: you a whole lot of good. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: still probably watch standard Blu rays. But you know the
Speaker 1: same thing with stuff like HDR high dynamic range. If
Speaker 1: any piece of the puzz doesn't support HDR, then you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to take advantage of that technology.
Speaker 1: These days, a lot of the four K content comes
Speaker 1: from streaming services. So this means that your home theater
Speaker 1: will need a connection to the Internet, either wirelessly or hardwired.
Speaker 1: And a lot of televisions these days can connect directly
Speaker 1: to a range of streaming sources without any additional equipment.
Speaker 1: You know, the so called smart TVs that have these
Speaker 1: these uh these interfaces built into them. The television will
Speaker 1: have a user interface that lets you select stuff like
Speaker 1: HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus, Apple
Speaker 1: TV YouTube. You know, these are the types of services,
Speaker 1: and there are a few others that carry four K content. Now,
Speaker 1: in some cases, in order to access that four K content,
Speaker 1: you've got to actually pay a little bit more than
Speaker 1: these standard subscription to those services. So, for Examp Apple
Speaker 1: here in North America, if you wanted to watch four
Speaker 1: K content on Netflix, you would need to shell out
Speaker 1: the eighteen dollars a month for a premium subscription plan
Speaker 1: in order to get that. Other services like Disney Plus
Speaker 1: include four K content that even has hd R support
Speaker 1: built into it right there at the basic subscription price.
Speaker 1: But you do just have to have the system capable of,
Speaker 1: you know, taking advantage of that. But you can, you
Speaker 1: can do it right on the box. You don't, you
Speaker 1: don't have to subscribe to a higher tier of service.
Speaker 1: This also means that whatever device is connecting to the
Speaker 1: service also needs to be compatible with that four K standard. Now,
Speaker 1: if it's your television, then that's probably covered right. If
Speaker 1: you bought a four K TV and it has these
Speaker 1: uh these interfaces built in so that you can actually
Speaker 1: directly access a Netflix through your television without any other
Speaker 1: device needed, then you're good. But if it's an additional
Speaker 1: set top box, like if it's a Roku, then that
Speaker 1: device need to be four K compatible as well in
Speaker 1: order to be able to watch this stuff. Most of
Speaker 1: the more recent devices do meet that requirement, but if
Speaker 1: you happen to be sitting on an older one, it's
Speaker 1: always a good idea to take a quick look online
Speaker 1: just to see what resolutions it supports. Um if it's
Speaker 1: fairly recent you might be okay. For example, Roku started
Speaker 1: offering devices with four K support back in October two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, though not all devices Roku has made since
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen are four K compatible, so again, making
Speaker 1: sure that everything meets the minimum standard that you're hoping
Speaker 1: for is important. In addition to that, modern video game
Speaker 1: consoles are four K compatible. This started with the PlayStation
Speaker 1: four Pro and the Xbox one X and Xbox one
Speaker 1: S models. Uh, the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation
Speaker 1: five actually have eight K capability, so if you want
Speaker 1: to really future proof your home theater and you want
Speaker 1: a video game console to be part of it, you
Speaker 1: could get one or both of those. Good luck, they
Speaker 1: can still be pretty hard to find in most markets.
Speaker 1: The PS five in particular, is tricky to find. Game
Speaker 1: consoles like the PS five and Xbox Series X also
Speaker 1: can serve as streaming devices, so if your TV doesn't
Speaker 1: have that capability natively built into it and you don't
Speaker 1: want to buy another set, top box consoles can pick
Speaker 1: up that slack. All right, So let's recap for a second.
Speaker 1: Your home theater is going to need media sources. You know,
Speaker 1: something to watch you can get some four K material
Speaker 1: through cable or satellite feeds, but it's a pretty limited amount.
Speaker 1: So depending upon your provider, you'll have some stuff there
Speaker 1: that will look and sound great on your system. Some
Speaker 1: providers might only have on demand like pay videos that
Speaker 1: you can access that that can take advantage of those
Speaker 1: sort of systems. You can also stream content from the
Speaker 1: Internet to your home theater, though I should add that
Speaker 1: will require and least a pretty decent Internet connection of
Speaker 1: at least megabits per second. You probably want to find
Speaker 1: a plan that also has a really high data cap
Speaker 1: or no data cap, because four K video can eat
Speaker 1: up a lot of that data allowance. Um Netflix estimated
Speaker 1: back in late that if you watched an hour of
Speaker 1: four K video, it's equivalent to consuming about seven gigabytes
Speaker 1: of data. That's just one hour of content. So if
Speaker 1: you're someone who plans to use a home theater a lot,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna lean heavily on streaming services to provide
Speaker 1: four K content, you could be bumping up against some
Speaker 1: data caps. Like Comcast has a data cap that seems
Speaker 1: incredibly high. It's one point to terabytes. That's a huge
Speaker 1: amount of data. But if you're a home theater fiend,
Speaker 1: you can hit that after forty hours of watching uh
Speaker 1: D content, So if you're gonna be doing it a lot,
Speaker 1: that's something you could take into consideration. I think we
Speaker 1: can now switch over to finally talk about cables, and
Speaker 1: in a way, I think that cables has become a
Speaker 1: little less confusing over time, maybe by a little bit.
Speaker 1: So we'll do a quick recap on audio and video
Speaker 1: cables to see where we came from, because I mean,
Speaker 1: some home theater systems still use these legacy cables because
Speaker 1: they still include legacy components. If you have like an
Speaker 1: old VCR, for example, and you want to be able
Speaker 1: to watch VCR cassettes, then you may need some of
Speaker 1: these old cables. It also could probably mean that you're
Speaker 1: gonna need some adapters in order to connect these older
Speaker 1: devices to your newer television sets because a lot of
Speaker 1: manufacturers stopped including those ports. Keep in mind, the the
Speaker 1: like I said, the stuff I'm talking about right now
Speaker 1: or the I'll start talking about, is really mostly obsolete. Um,
Speaker 1: so this is more for completion sake than anything else.
Speaker 1: First off, let's mention coaxial cables, because these are pretty common.
Speaker 1: These are those cables with the copper connectors. They typically
Speaker 1: have black cladding. They're fairly thick and not always super flexible. UH.
Speaker 1: You usually use these to connect from your cable outlet
Speaker 1: to a cable box or maybe a satellite connector, and
Speaker 1: you might even use one to connect from the cable
Speaker 1: box to your television. UH. These cable send audio and
Speaker 1: video signals both. However, they're really only good at carrying
Speaker 1: resolutions of up to ten eight on them, so they
Speaker 1: can carry up to h D t V quality, but
Speaker 1: not four K UH, and that's a problem. It means
Speaker 1: that you have to have a different kind of connection
Speaker 1: if you want to get four K quality video streaming
Speaker 1: to your your system. But let's talk about some other
Speaker 1: types of audio and video cables. So way back in
Speaker 1: the day, when you've got something like, you know, a
Speaker 1: game console, you would typically have a cable that would
Speaker 1: end in three connectors. And I'm starting with our c
Speaker 1: A connectors that could go even further back, but we
Speaker 1: have to draw the line somewhere. So you would have
Speaker 1: three connectors, one that was red, one that was white,
Speaker 1: and one that was yellow, and they all had little
Speaker 1: like copper plugs sticking out of them. These were r
Speaker 1: c A connector cables, so called because the company r
Speaker 1: c A developed them, and the red and white cables
Speaker 1: were actually just for audio. The red cable carried the
Speaker 1: audio channel for the right speaker, and the white cable
Speaker 1: carried the audio channel for the left speaker. That left
Speaker 1: the yellow cable to carry all the video signal all
Speaker 1: bides lonesome, and we called it composite video. This yellow
Speaker 1: cable only had the capability to carry video signals of
Speaker 1: standard definition, so that meant it was either four eight
Speaker 1: or five seventy six, depending on whether you were in
Speaker 1: like the United States or you know, Europe. So using
Speaker 1: the cable, even if the source somehow could put out
Speaker 1: HD content, the cable would not be able to carry
Speaker 1: that to a television. The best you can manage is
Speaker 1: standard definition resolution. Then we get s video cables. These
Speaker 1: were an improvement over a composite video. It was a
Speaker 1: single again, a single cable, but it was not an
Speaker 1: enormous leap in quality. They could still only carry standard
Speaker 1: definition resolution signals, so still you're limited to four a
Speaker 1: D or five sony six in resolution. But the composite
Speaker 1: video cable would crunch all the video information into a
Speaker 1: single signal across a single wire. S video cables actually
Speaker 1: had two separate wires to carry information to the display,
Speaker 1: and you would have one wire carrying the information that
Speaker 1: relates to the color of the signal, and the other
Speaker 1: wire would carry the information relating to the brightness of
Speaker 1: the signal. And by separating this out, the S video
Speaker 1: cable could deliver a higher quality set of signals to
Speaker 1: a television. Now, the resolution wasn't like magically better, but
Speaker 1: the quality of the colors and the subtle shifts and
Speaker 1: brightness were better, so you did get a better picture,
Speaker 1: just not necessarily a more detailed picture, at least not
Speaker 1: detailed informs in the form of resolution. This is another
Speaker 1: reminder that resolution isn't the end all bell. It's a
Speaker 1: very important part, but it's just one component as to
Speaker 1: you know, the quality of an image. S video cables
Speaker 1: only carried video information, so you still needed separate cables
Speaker 1: to carry audio to speakers, so those white and red
Speaker 1: wires would stick around. Also, S video didn't get a
Speaker 1: real good chance to take off because of a superior
Speaker 1: technology that came out around the same time. And I'll
Speaker 1: talk more about what that was after we take this
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay. One other set of cables that had
Speaker 1: a fair amount of popularity briefly at longer in the
Speaker 1: home theater space for real enthusiasts were component video cables.
Speaker 1: And I know this gets confusing. You've got composite video.
Speaker 1: That's that our c A cable that had the yellow
Speaker 1: into it that carried all the video. Then you had
Speaker 1: component video cables. These in the United States anyway, came
Speaker 1: in sets of three, similar to our c a composite
Speaker 1: connector cables, but instead of red, white and yellow, these
Speaker 1: were red, blue, and green. And unlike composite and S
Speaker 1: video cables, these could carry high definition video signals, so
Speaker 1: you could actually get up to ten eight resolution using
Speaker 1: these cables, assuming again that all the other components in
Speaker 1: your system were compatible, that you had HDTV source of media,
Speaker 1: and you had an hd TV compatible television. They did
Speaker 1: not carry audio signals, so again you needed to have
Speaker 1: separate cables to carry audio if you wanted to listen
Speaker 1: to something more than just out of the television speakers.
Speaker 1: And I should add that this was the common form
Speaker 1: factor here in North America. Now in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, component video used different kinds of ports and cables,
Speaker 1: But to go through all of that would be way
Speaker 1: too much, so we're just going to leave it for now. Now,
Speaker 1: you might think that because video signals relate back to
Speaker 1: r g B being red, green, and blue, and that
Speaker 1: you use combinations of those colors to create all the
Speaker 1: other colors with video, that that would mean these cables
Speaker 1: were each carrying signals for red, green, and blue. Right,
Speaker 1: not quite um. It was a little different than that.
Speaker 1: It did not quite break it down to that level.
Speaker 1: So instead you had one cable. They carried the brightness
Speaker 1: information for the pictures, so the luminosity or looma and
Speaker 1: it also carried some synchronization information, but we won't get
Speaker 1: into all the technical details there. Another cable carried information
Speaker 1: about the difference between the luma the luminosity or brightness
Speaker 1: and the blue signal, and then the other cable would
Speaker 1: do the same thing but for the red signals, so
Speaker 1: the difference between red and luma. And combining all of
Speaker 1: these together you could create signals that would result in
Speaker 1: high definition video images that could reproduce all the colors,
Speaker 1: which is pretty neat. But once again you would need
Speaker 1: different cables to carry audio signals. Right, and while you
Speaker 1: could go with the old left and right r c
Speaker 1: A connectors for stereo. There were other options. Now, I
Speaker 1: really liked component video cables back in the day, just
Speaker 1: to stay on that for a second. They were great
Speaker 1: for handling analog ten A signals to televisions. That is important.
Speaker 1: They were for analog signals, not digital. But the industry
Speaker 1: would get behind a totally different technology for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. And um I'll go into all of that
Speaker 1: in just a minute, but quick note on audio cables.
Speaker 1: We talked about the r c A connector types with
Speaker 1: the white and red for left and right channels, but
Speaker 1: obviously that isn't sufficient if you want something like surround sounds.
Speaker 1: So to get surround sound, you might use Coacts Digital
Speaker 1: s SLASH p d I F cables, which can be
Speaker 1: easy to confuse with our CIA cables because they look
Speaker 1: kind of similar. I mean, they don't have the red
Speaker 1: and white ends the way our CIA cables do, but
Speaker 1: they the plug part looks really similar. However, these are
Speaker 1: capable of handling signals for surround sound systems, so you
Speaker 1: might use these to connect your receiver to your output devices.
Speaker 1: Then you've got an optical TS link digital cable. So
Speaker 1: these cables provide the same sort of you know, audio
Speaker 1: quality as coax cables do, except they use fiber optics
Speaker 1: rather than a copper or you know, gold or whatever connection.
Speaker 1: These are good over short distances. UH. The by short,
Speaker 1: I mean like ten feet or less. The longer the cable,
Speaker 1: the less performance you tend to get out of it.
Speaker 1: It might actually take you a bit of distance to
Speaker 1: notice the difference, but you do have a decline in
Speaker 1: signal performance as the length of the cable increases. At
Speaker 1: one time, they were pretty much the height of audio
Speaker 1: cables for home theater systems, and any serious home theater
Speaker 1: enthusiast was probably using optical digital cables to connect to
Speaker 1: their various devices so that they could get the best
Speaker 1: audio output. There are also then speaker wires. These typically
Speaker 1: come in twisted pairs. Each speaker has a negative port
Speaker 1: and a positive port. Then you want to connect the
Speaker 1: speaker wires accordingly, with your negative lead going to the
Speaker 1: negative port and the positive lead going to the positive port.
Speaker 1: This is called connecting speakers in phase. UH. If you
Speaker 1: were to connect speakers out of phase, meaning that at
Speaker 1: least one of the speakers would be wired wrong with
Speaker 1: the wrong leads connected of the wrong ports, then your
Speaker 1: system can end up eliminating certain frequencies of sound. Now
Speaker 1: that might not be blatantly obvious to you in the
Speaker 1: moment while you're listening to stuff, but it would affect
Speaker 1: the overall experience. So it's good to take your time
Speaker 1: and get that right if you're using wired speakers. All right, Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about h d M I. So HDMI stands
Speaker 1: for High Definition Multimedia Interface, and this type of cable
Speaker 1: can carry both audio and video signals, so you don't
Speaker 1: have to split them up the way you do those
Speaker 1: previous ones I was talking about. However, there are a
Speaker 1: few different kinds of h d m I that have
Speaker 1: come out over the years, and they aren't all equal. See,
Speaker 1: the HDMI standard has evolved as our video capabilities have
Speaker 1: also evolved, and so older cables don't necessarily support the
Speaker 1: latest technologies. So there are four different sets of specifications
Speaker 1: for HDMI cables as defined by the h d m
Speaker 1: I Forum Technical Working Group, and I'm sure their parties
Speaker 1: are spectacular, and those specifications are in order. You have
Speaker 1: standard h d m I, which can carry up to
Speaker 1: ten a d I video resolution. With a refresh rate
Speaker 1: of thirty hurts. If you need a refresh on refresh rates,
Speaker 1: you can listen to the first episode in this series
Speaker 1: that published earlier. I go into it there. Then you
Speaker 1: have high Speed h d M I, which up the
Speaker 1: anti to four K resolution but with a refresh rate
Speaker 1: of just around thirty hurts. Then you've got Premium high
Speaker 1: Speed h d M I that's up to four K
Speaker 1: resolution with support for high dynamic Range or h d
Speaker 1: R and a refresh rate of around sixty hurts. And
Speaker 1: finally you've got Ultra high Speed h d M I
Speaker 1: that has support for resolutions of up to ten K
Speaker 1: with HDR at add twenty hurts, or you could do
Speaker 1: four K video with a refresh rate of up to
Speaker 1: two forty hurts. This, by the way, is another reason
Speaker 1: why it was in portant to pay attention to what
Speaker 1: your television can do, because again, your TV might be
Speaker 1: capable of doing certain things like having a two forty
Speaker 1: hurts refresh rate, but the cable you use doesn't support
Speaker 1: that at that specific resolution, you're never going to get it.
Speaker 1: So another important thing to keep in mind. So in
Speaker 1: that sense, the type of cable you buy absolutely does matter.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if your cable is older and it
Speaker 1: doesn't support certain formats, you're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to experience them. So if you have a four K setup,
Speaker 1: really you probably want a premium high speed HDMI cable
Speaker 1: or ultra high speed. You want one of those two.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at the HDMI version designation, like you know,
Speaker 1: if it says HDMI one point three or one point four,
Speaker 1: what you want is HDM two point oh to cover
Speaker 1: your basic needs for four K. That means that it
Speaker 1: meets the specifications for premium high speed hd M I
Speaker 1: because they happen to fall on line. If you get
Speaker 1: hd M I two point one cables, then you're good
Speaker 1: for ultra high speed HDM I. You have future proofd
Speaker 1: your home theater for the foreseeable future, or at least
Speaker 1: the near future. I shouldn't say foreseeable because things change
Speaker 1: so fast. But again, remember the performance you get out
Speaker 1: of your home theater is again going to depend upon
Speaker 1: the weakest link. I know, I keep nailing that home.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like a broken record, but it is
Speaker 1: the most important thing to keep in mind because if
Speaker 1: you trick everything else out, you're still not going to
Speaker 1: get the experience you want if that one component is
Speaker 1: not matching everything else. So if your TV is a
Speaker 1: four K television, then an h d M I two
Speaker 1: point one cable could be overkill, unless again, you just
Speaker 1: really want that super fast refresh rate, in which case
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't understand you, unless unless you're watching
Speaker 1: a lot of sports. If you're watching a lot of sports,
Speaker 1: high refresh rate I get, But in all others I
Speaker 1: can't stand it. Otherwise, maybe that's just my own bias.
Speaker 1: All right, So why did the industry adopt h d
Speaker 1: M I. I mentioned that, you know, they really got
Speaker 1: behind that and component cables kind of got left behind. Well,
Speaker 1: part of the reason was that there was this transition
Speaker 1: from analog to digital, and HDMI supports digital which is
Speaker 1: all zeros and ones, and component video supported analog, which
Speaker 1: is a continuous signal sent through a wire. These are
Speaker 1: two different things. But another big reason is that, you know,
Speaker 1: HDMI cable is really versatile because it can carry all
Speaker 1: sorts of information across it, not just you know, audio
Speaker 1: or video signals. And it's also fully capable of covering
Speaker 1: both video and audio transmission at the same time. So
Speaker 1: that makes it way simpler to use. Then that set
Speaker 1: ups that requires separate cables for audio and for video.
Speaker 1: Cable management gets way easier if you're dealing with just
Speaker 1: h d M I. But another really big reason why
Speaker 1: the industry got behind h d M I is because
Speaker 1: of a different technology called h d s EP that
Speaker 1: stands for high bandwidth Digital Content Protection. And if you
Speaker 1: think that name makes it sound like it's DRM or
Speaker 1: digital rights management, you win a cookie. So the purpose
Speaker 1: of this technology is to prevent unauthorized copying of protected material,
Speaker 1: and the technology prevents media that has been h d
Speaker 1: c P encrypted from being played on unauthorized devices, meaning
Speaker 1: gadgets that could potentially copy h d c P content.
Speaker 1: So here's kind of how it works. From a really
Speaker 1: high level. Let's say you've got two devices connected via
Speaker 1: hd M I and device number one is a media
Speaker 1: streaming device, and device number two is a media capture device.
Speaker 1: Maybe it saves stuff to a hard drive or burns
Speaker 1: it to an optical disk or whatever, doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: Device number one, before sending any media to device number two,
Speaker 1: does a quick check to see if device two is
Speaker 1: equipped to copy HDCP material and if device number one
Speaker 1: figures out that that is the case, then you end
Speaker 1: up getting a fail message like content could not be
Speaker 1: displayed on this device. And it's that built in DRM
Speaker 1: that really got the industry behind it. And for that reason,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of home theater enthusiasts in the
Speaker 1: h D t V era who stuck with component video
Speaker 1: cables for as long as possible because it meant that
Speaker 1: you weren't limited in how you were consuming your media.
Speaker 1: There's this constant battle between the consumer and the industry
Speaker 1: where the consumer just wants to be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: their media on their own terms. The industry wants to
Speaker 1: control how the media can be consumed because obviously, if
Speaker 1: the consumer is able to replicate the media and duplicate
Speaker 1: the media and distribute it, then that could affect the
Speaker 1: bottom line of the industry, you know, companies. So there's
Speaker 1: this constant back and forth and for a lot of
Speaker 1: home theater enthusiasts, they were saying, I want to be
Speaker 1: able to enjoy the media I have purchased in any
Speaker 1: way I like, and I don't like having companies create
Speaker 1: DRM that could stand as a potential barrier. And to
Speaker 1: be fair, DRM can sometimes affect legitimate users accessing their
Speaker 1: their material that they have purchased like that can happen.
Speaker 1: We've seen it happen multiple times where a bad DRM
Speaker 1: implementation actually disproportionately has a native impact on legitimate consumers,
Speaker 1: and so then that leads to pirates figuring out ways
Speaker 1: to circumvent DRM protection, and ultimately it doesn't do anyone
Speaker 1: any good. It just becomes a rule that only punishes
Speaker 1: the people who are following the rules in the first place.
Speaker 1: So that's why a lot of home theater enthusiasts, at
Speaker 1: least a certain subset of them, we're really reluctant to
Speaker 1: let go of component video cables because those analog signals
Speaker 1: could not be uh subjected to the same sort of
Speaker 1: DRM as the digital signals that we're going through h
Speaker 1: D M I, And that meant that a lot of
Speaker 1: those home theater enthusiasts had to rush out there to
Speaker 1: start buying compatible equipment because a lot of manufacturers stopped making,
Speaker 1: you know, televisions and media devices that supported component video cables.
Speaker 1: So that meant that you might have to run out
Speaker 1: and buy like a DVD player and maybe a Blu
Speaker 1: ray player because they weren't always compatible with each other.
Speaker 1: Maybe a television and like more stuff like that before
Speaker 1: the component video cable capability just went away, So it
Speaker 1: was pretty wild. Also means that a lot of like
Speaker 1: home theater enthusiasts who have been doing this for a
Speaker 1: while have a lot of legacy systems connected. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got a little bit more to say about cables and
Speaker 1: home theaters before I get to that. Let's take one
Speaker 1: last break. So before the break, I was telling you
Speaker 1: about h d c P and how that's a form
Speaker 1: of DRM, and how a lot of home theater enthusiasts
Speaker 1: were kind of reluctant to go to h d M
Speaker 1: I cables because of that. Um that whole technology came
Speaker 1: out of Intel. And I should add that that h
Speaker 1: d c P encryption has long since been cracked, Like
Speaker 1: people were able to crack that encryption years ago. Intel
Speaker 1: says they suspect it was done through brute force. So
Speaker 1: in other words, someone just dedicated an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: time working through all the different possible combinations to break
Speaker 1: that encryption and eventually hit on the right one. Now,
Speaker 1: hardly any one bothers with circumventing HDCP at this point,
Speaker 1: because honestly, the way we consume media has fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: over the past decade. When h d M I was
Speaker 1: first coming out, like twenty years ago, we were firmly
Speaker 1: in the realm of purchasing media like DVDs and blue
Speaker 1: rays and that kind of thing. Maybe occasionally getting an
Speaker 1: on demand video through our our provider, like a cable
Speaker 1: provider or satellite provider, but mostly we were buying physical
Speaker 1: media like or we were renting them from places like
Speaker 1: you know, Blockbuster. Do you remember Blockbuster? If you want
Speaker 1: a reminder of Blockbuster, actually have a a series on
Speaker 1: Blockbuster in tech stuff, So go and search the archives.
Speaker 1: That was a fun one to do. However, these days
Speaker 1: we get more of our content on demand via streaming
Speaker 1: services through various providers. And that might be a cable company,
Speaker 1: it might be a content platform, it might be you
Speaker 1: know whatever. Now there's a whole conversation we could have
Speaker 1: about that about how the way we access media has
Speaker 1: really shaped the business of media. Uh, it's like the
Speaker 1: pandemic has done that even more so, right because you
Speaker 1: have movie theater or movie studios rather like Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: choosing to release films both in theaters and on streaming platforms.
Speaker 1: At the same time through the necessity of conditions brought
Speaker 1: about by the pandemic. But that again is going to
Speaker 1: reinforce this new model of media distribution, and that in
Speaker 1: turn has meant that a lot of people just don't
Speaker 1: worry about hdc P anymore because are are The way
Speaker 1: we access stuff has changed so much. However, even with
Speaker 1: this approach, you might occasionally have some downsides, like, for example,
Speaker 1: and this is from my own personal experience, you could
Speaker 1: discover something that you really like that on a streaming service,
Speaker 1: but then eventually the service or the studio behind the
Speaker 1: content chooses not to renew the license to stream that content,
Speaker 1: and so the content leaves the streaming service and you
Speaker 1: no longer have access to it. Obviously, if you purchased
Speaker 1: a DVD or a Blu ray, you would have access
Speaker 1: to that content for as long as the disc was
Speaker 1: readable and you had a compatible player that could access
Speaker 1: the media. This, by the way, is a big problem
Speaker 1: that goes well beyond just home theaters. There's this whole
Speaker 1: issue of the way we record stuff and the way
Speaker 1: we access it can limit and and create a limited
Speaker 1: shelf life for content if we don't transfer that to
Speaker 1: newer types of media. Anyway, this happened with me with
Speaker 1: a British sketch show called that Mitchell and web Look.
Speaker 1: Netflix had it available once upon a time. I absolutely
Speaker 1: loved it. It became like my go to. Even after
Speaker 1: I seen every episode, I would go back and watch them. Eventually, however, uh,
Speaker 1: Netflix lost its license. Like the license expired, it was
Speaker 1: not renewed, and so the program left Netflix's US service
Speaker 1: and I found myself unable to watch it. At least
Speaker 1: I was unable to watch it legally. There are illegal
Speaker 1: ways to do it, but I don't really want to
Speaker 1: do that. I'd rather like do it in a way
Speaker 1: that supports the show. Now, the contents region locked, and
Speaker 1: at least the last time I checked, there was no
Speaker 1: way to access that content in the United States. Like
Speaker 1: the DVDs and blue rays are all region locked, so
Speaker 1: I can't get a US region version of that. There's
Speaker 1: no US streaming version of it as far as I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it may have changed since the last time
Speaker 1: I checked, but that gets into region locking. That's another
Speaker 1: conversation that we should probably have in the future, but
Speaker 1: I'll leave it for now, and let's conclude with a
Speaker 1: quick word about cable quality. I touched on this earlier,
Speaker 1: but I thought, I think it's really good to cover
Speaker 1: in more detail. Now I don't see it as being
Speaker 1: as big a discussion point these days in home theater
Speaker 1: circles as it used to be. But at one time
Speaker 1: there were numerous companies claiming that their high tech, super
Speaker 1: expensive cables would provide a superior experience compared to cheaper
Speaker 1: cables on the market, and for the most part, those
Speaker 1: claims were rubbish. There were plenty of tests that showed
Speaker 1: that the claimed benefits were either not present or were imperceptible.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about why cable quality matters to a
Speaker 1: point now. Apart from whether or not the cable is
Speaker 1: carrying the specific type of signal you want to carry,
Speaker 1: you do have some other things that you need to
Speaker 1: know about. So when electricity flows through a conductor, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned with electro magnets, it creates a magnetic field.
Speaker 1: This is one of those basic features of a electromagnetism.
Speaker 1: So if a cable carrying electricity has poor insulation or
Speaker 1: shielding around that cable, that can mean a couple of things. One,
Speaker 1: the cable could cause interference in other nearby cables because
Speaker 1: you have induction, right, if you bring a conductor close
Speaker 1: to a fluctuating magnetic field, that will induce electricity to
Speaker 1: flow through that conductor. So if you've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of cables saying next to each other, then it's possible
Speaker 1: for that you to have interference between those cables, Like
Speaker 1: signals traveling through one cable could interfere with the signals
Speaker 1: traveling through a neighboring cable if the shielding and insulation
Speaker 1: is not sufficient. Same thing can happen with speaker wires.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you've ever had, like say, really
Speaker 1: cheap desktop speakers, I noticed this all the time with
Speaker 1: with those because they typically had very cheap wires. Then
Speaker 1: maybe your phone goes off and you start hearing this
Speaker 1: weird digital chatter through your desktop speakers. That's because they're
Speaker 1: getting interference from the radio signal that's going to your
Speaker 1: phone and it's playing out over the speakers like they're
Speaker 1: they're interpreting that as signals that are being sent to
Speaker 1: the speakers themselves. So you want to make sure you
Speaker 1: have decent shielding on your cables to avoid interference. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: with home theaters, you're dealing with tons of cables, even
Speaker 1: if you're just sticking primarily with H D M I
Speaker 1: and speaker cables, So it means you do want to
Speaker 1: have decent cables that have good shielding to prevent any
Speaker 1: interference between the two, Otherwise it's going to affect your
Speaker 1: viewing or listening experience. Most modern cables have adequate shielding.
Speaker 1: You're fine, So you're usually okay unless you're buying the
Speaker 1: super super duper cheap cables. But you know, you definitely
Speaker 1: don't need to go with premium, high end gold cladded cables.
Speaker 1: You're probably not going to see any benefit from that.
Speaker 1: There are other elements that are important with cables as well,
Speaker 1: such as electrical resistance that could be theoretically impact your
Speaker 1: experience and make it slightly less ideal if you're set
Speaker 1: up means that you're using really long cables because I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe you've got your entertainment nexus system set
Speaker 1: up in one room and then all the way across
Speaker 1: the house you've got the TV. I don't know why
Speaker 1: you would ever do that, but if you do have
Speaker 1: to run really long cables, then electrical resistance can actually
Speaker 1: come into play. You might need a a thicker cable
Speaker 1: in order to have less electrical resistance over that distance.
Speaker 1: But most of the time it's not gonna have any
Speaker 1: perceptible impact on your experience. For most of US, standard
Speaker 1: cables will serve just fine because the loss due to
Speaker 1: electrical resistance will be negligible. Uh. And if you're using
Speaker 1: optical audio cables, then you don't even have to worry
Speaker 1: about interference because those are using fiber optics and light,
Speaker 1: they're not using electricity and conductors. However, they do become
Speaker 1: less efficient over longer distances. So if you are having
Speaker 1: your TV on the opposite side of the house from
Speaker 1: your receiver and you're running optical cables between the two,
Speaker 1: for some reason, it would be a less than ideal experience. Um.
Speaker 1: Bottom line, if you're buying a reputable company's cables, and
Speaker 1: if you're you know you're making sure that whichever cables
Speaker 1: you're buying are ones that can actually carry the signals
Speaker 1: that the rest of your system depends upon, you should
Speaker 1: be fine. There are purists out there who will disagree
Speaker 1: with me. They will say, no, no, no, you need
Speaker 1: to get this specific brand and these specific components. But
Speaker 1: usually we're talking about performance differences that are imperceptible to
Speaker 1: anything other than super sensitive electronic equipment. And since as
Speaker 1: far as I know, you are not sensitive electronic equipment,
Speaker 1: you should be fine. Okay. That concludes our epic series
Speaker 1: on the basics of home theater. I know clearly I
Speaker 1: did not go through and start naming out specific brands
Speaker 1: and specific models of of components and such, because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that comes down to personal taste,
Speaker 1: like what features do you want what's already part of
Speaker 1: your system. You know, maybe you want to have a
Speaker 1: universal remote that works with stuff. You want to make
Speaker 1: sure that your universal remote is going to support whichever
Speaker 1: components you have. Otherwise there's no point in having it.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be an extra remote that you'll have
Speaker 1: to have and in line with a ton of others.
Speaker 1: So because of that, and because of the very subjective
Speaker 1: nature of what one person thinks of as being a
Speaker 1: superior experience, it didn't make much sense to go into that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I did not talk about like the Xbox
Speaker 1: and the PlayStation, but those are the two leading consoles
Speaker 1: on the market, so that's why I talked about those.
Speaker 1: There are other type supports, like video ports that I
Speaker 1: didn't really talk about like d v I. But they
Speaker 1: also are not really heavily used these days unless you're
Speaker 1: doing something like connecting your computer to your television. Um,
Speaker 1: but for like the basic stuff that we think of
Speaker 1: for a home theater, I didn't think they were really important.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the series. I hope you've learned something.
Speaker 1: I hope you feel better about whatever purchasing choices you
Speaker 1: might have made so far for your home theater system,
Speaker 1: including you know, like, oh, should I have sprung more
Speaker 1: money for super fancy cables. Probably not again unless you're
Speaker 1: in one of those more extreme situations. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a fun one to do, a fun series
Speaker 1: to go down. And I'll probably do some more related stuff,
Speaker 1: like I'll talk more about uh DRM, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: more about the nature of how we access and consume
Speaker 1: media and how that has changed and how that has
Speaker 1: shaped technology, because that's a big part of it. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach
Speaker 1: out to me. The best way to do that is
Speaker 1: over on Twitter, the handle we uses tech Stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: This has been a very long episode and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.