The central focal point of any home theater system is a big screen TV or  projector.  Almost every new big screen television on the market today is capable of displaying high resolution widescreen HD programming that's significantly  clearer and more detailed than conventional analog broadcast and cable TV.  While some televisions have a built-in HDTV tuner, other TVs are merely HDTV-ready and thus require that you connect an external HDTV receiver before you'll be able to get HDTV programming.  Of course, DVDs can also look incredible when viewed on most HDTVs.  Don't forget to connect your HD receiver or DVD player with the best possible HDTV cables.

A surround sound system includes a digital audio home theater receiver and 6 or more surround sound speakers located throughout your home theater room.  5.1 surround sound requires a pair of main front speakers placed to the left and right sides of the TV monitor, a single center channel speaker for mostly movie dialog placed directly above or below the television, and a pair of rear surround speakers located to the sides of, or slightly behind the home theater seating area.  The .1 is the low frequency effects channel, or LFE, handled by a powered subwoofer.