With the increasing popularity of HDTV, watching a DVD movie at home is a great entertainment experience. The picture is sharp, clear, and vibrant. But what about the sound? After all, that is one of the real attractions of going to a movie theater, the wraparound sound that lets you hear every detail. So is there a way to bring that kind of audio into our homes too? Absolutely!

Actually surround sound has been around for a while now in one form or another, but it just never had a platform to bring it into the mainstream before HDTV and digital media like the DVD became so prevalent. But now by combining the right equipment, a person can actually very closely simulate the movie theater experience right in the comfort of their home whenever they want.

For surround sound, you will need three things, (1) a digital source that has surround sound already encoded into it such as a DVD or a HDTV broadcast, (2) equipment to decode that surround sound signal, and (3) at least 6 speakers including a subwoofer to take full advantage of the most popular 5.1 surround sound format. It's called 5.1 because it use 5 channels of sound to drive 5 separate speakers, and the .1 stands for the low-frequency subwoofer.

Once you have the equipment you need to establish a surround sound setup that will be right for your home. Much of the seating area will be determined by the size and type of TV that you have. If it is a 40" HDTV, which is a very common size, you can probably sit about 5-8 feet away and not notice any degradation in the picture quality. Just experiment with the seating distance until it seems comfortable though. Then the two front speakers usually flank the TV, but make sure that they are wide enough to form a triangle with the seating area so everyone will be in the sound sweet spot.

The two back speakers are often placed somewhere around the seating area and faced either to a side or rear wall. The middle speaker needs to be situated somewhere close to the TV, and the subwoofer can be put anywhere in the room that you like, since it puts out such low frequency bass that seems to come from everywhere.

Every room has different listening characteristics though due to it's configuration and furnishings, so feel free to experiment around until you find the combination that works best for you. A surround sound installation may seem challenging, but it's just simply getting the right equipment and placing the speakers where they produce the best overall sound.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including audio and video. You can find out more about surround sound setup and surround sound installation by visiting our Home Theater website.