DVD Player Setup

What’s the best DVD player to fit on their home theater system. Frankly, who’s going to buy a DVD player when there is already HD DVD and Blu-ray available? And using a DVD to play media on an HDTV is like using your Porsche to haul a load of timber. While it is possible, the fact just doesn’t cut it.

But why then is DVD still the persistent media? Today’s Blu-ray and HD DVD players aren’t worth buying –hands down. The smattering support by the formats, the intense rivalry, and firmware foul-ups makes certain that there wouldn’t be a clear winner anytime soon. And that is also saying indirectly that there would still be more and better options for movie viewing in DVD than in Blu-ray and HD DVD combined. So that means, even if it hurts, the Porsche should still carry the cargo.

A DVD player is still a worthy addition to home theater system, if only because it provides you more (but not necessarily better) options. And if you can resist it, try holding in that purse yet until the format wars subside.

And so that leaves me still teaching you the basics about DVD player setup. Read on.

The DVD’s predecessor formats, the VCD and the VHS can’t compare to the capability of the DVD. One of the biggest reasons is the audio video output capacity of the DVD compared to the former two. While the early two formats can support only two independent audio channels routed traditionally to two loudspeakers, the DVD allows the support of the six independent audio channels, known better by their cryptic abbreviation as L, C, R, LS, RS (Left, Center, Right, Left Surround and Right Surround) and the last one, the low frequency effects (LFE) channel. That makes the DVD player a long time standard component for home theater use.

Granting that you know the rest of your home theater structure, the DVD player’s signal is connected to the Receiver where the signal is then divided, video signal going to the TV and audio to the speaker systems. Connecting the DVD to the receiver can have many ways: you can connect using an HDMI cable (which I suggest) or you can connect using an audio/video cable. On HDTV setup DVD, HDMI is the norm. On really simple systems, you can have a direct connection on your TV setup to DVD. And you can also have a direct analog connection to the speakers themselves. Nothing is lost here, well maybe a bit of versatility, since in this mode of structure, you have to reconfigure if you are adding another source component, like for instance a satellite receiver. If you have several source components, I would stress the importance of having a receiver.

Once everything is connected and cranking up, you need to set up the DVD itself. This is where the DVD player setup gets tricky, since DVD models offer different interfaces and designs. I won’t tackle so much this subject since most of the time, DVD setup configurations are subjective to personal preference. The most common menus I’ve seen has onscreen language, shape of your TV (if it is a widescreen), tint, contrast among several more options. However, I would stress out the option for surround sound. Like most DVD players, there should be an option in the Audio Menu to set your sound preference to 5.1 channel speaker surround sound or the DTS.

So as a DVD player setup walkthrough, go to the Menu Settings (or whatever the equivalent labels you got there), go the DVD input, and choose Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. This should set your audio to the surround speakers, not just feeding them to your front speakers.