How to Set Up Your Home Theater System

You need to have the right devices and cables for you to be able to set up a home theater system yourself. In order for the system to work together as a whole, you need to connect each device using an S-video cable and other accessories.

The types of connector cables to connect your electronic devices vary as much as the devices themselves. The original audio-visual component cable can easily be identified from afar as soon as the three color-coded heads on each end of the cable are seen. Each head is responsible for an aspect of the whole viewing experience: one head for the video aspect, and the other two for the left and right side audio for the speakers. Another way to connect two devices is through two cables instead of one. You can get an S-video cable and an audio cable separately. This option gives you the advantage of each component working independently from each other. During times when an upgrade of one of the components is necessary, you can easily do this without having to worry about the connection of the other component. Because S cables only produce standard video images, you can choose to have better video in high-definition quality by using HDMI or DVI cables, if your devices allow it.

You would also need to look at the back side of your devices to see what connector types are on them, as these connectors will give you an idea of what kind of signals the devices are able to send or receive. A video or a music-playing device is almost always the sender of a signal and the television is the one that receives the signals sent. Before you buy any new home theater component, you need to do this visual check to make sure the device still accommodates an S-video cable or other older cable versions because not all of the latest releases may have it. If such is the case, you will have to get the more modern cables like HDMI or DVI, unless your devices came with them already.

Now that you have all your devices and cables sorted, it's time to set up the system. When done in a systematic fashion, this activity will not take too long to finish. Remember to gently insert each end in the right way; when the pins break, the cable becomes useless.