The house lights slowly dimmed as shuddering explosions and the heavy thrumming of helicopters seemed to break from every corner. Fire and gunshots burst across a wall-to-wall screen. And, as usual, Arnold Schwarzenegger came strolling out of the flames.
But Jon Robbins wanted to make a point. It was time to hit “pause” on the “True Lies” laser disc. “A real good movie-theater experience is a lot more dramatic at home than it is at the movies,” he said. “It’s fun. We’re selling enjoyment.”
No argument there, as Robbins, chief operating officer of Hi Fi House in Broomall, recently demonstrated the goose bumps he can home-deliver for about $50,000.
Most people spend far less for the experience — the average is about $1,600 — but the sky’s the limit in the fast-growing world of home theater.
In the last two years, businesses such as Hi Fi House and Bryn Mawr Stereo have transformed their showrooms to devote as much floor space as possible to big-screen televisions and the sound equipment that makes them thunder.
The $50,000 system Robbins showed off is in a special room with sofa, soft lights and motorized proscenium curtains that open to reveal a 130-inch diagonal screen. A projection television hangs from the ceiling.
The stores have good reason to showcase this equipment. Americans are definitely big on owning their own big screens.
The number of “home-theater households” doubled in 1995 — to just under 11 million, according to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association in Virginia. Sales of home-theater components, which reached $8 billion in 1995, are expected to top $9 billion in 1996, the association says.
“Home theater is driving the home-electronics business this year,” said Brent Butterworth, editor of the two-year-old, 100,000-circulation Home Theater magazine.
“The appeal is that it is more family-oriented than a lot of consumer electronics,” which typically are geared toward a male audience, Butterworth said.
A typical home theater, as defined by the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, consists of a minimum 25-inch-screen television set, stereo VCR or laser-disc player, five speakers and audio/video surround- sound receiver. Area retailers, who sell rear-projection screens of up to 80 inches, say 50-inch sets have become the most popular size among their customers setting up home theaters.
“It’s becoming, for a lot of people, more than just the TV in the corner,” said Mel Rainer, a Houston video producer who hosts a weekly “chat” session about home theater on America Online.
Rainer said the 45-inch projection television in a corner of his house is part of a $4,000 setup that he surrounds himself with for about three or four hours a night.
Ironically, said Rainer, the technology is so seductive, perhaps even addictive, that “it has the potential to isolate us more.”
Rainer credits technical innovations for the interest in home theater. For starters, cable companies and digital satellite systems are delivering an avalanche of movies, sporting and other entertainment events to a growing number of homes.
One technology just hitting the market is the sound enhancement called Dolby Digital Surround sound, also called AC-3. Older Dolby surround sound cleverly splits standard stereo into five channels. But Dolby Laboratory’s new digital system provides separate channels for each of three front speakers, two rear speakers and a bass subwoofer.
The digital video disc, or DVD, due out soon, packs a two-hour movie onto a disc the size of a common CD or CD-ROM. With its advertised versatility and superior image and sound quality, this could eventually replace both the laser disc and the 1970s technology of the VCR. Of course, playing a DVD will require a new piece of hardware.
In addition, the combination of computer functions with “traditional” television may bring even more people into the glow of the big screen. Earlier this year, computer-maker Gateway 2000 introduced a home computer with a 31-inch television monitor meant to function as a family information and entertainment center.
And several companies, including Sony, Mitsubishi and Sharp, say they will soon be marketing “gas plasma” screens — a technology that will allow television screens of 40 or 50 inches to be less than 6 inches thick and capable of being hung on a wall.
Robbins said he expects to have the first of these, a 40-inch screen by Mitsubishi, in his showroom in the first half of 1997. But at $7,000, it will be priced strictly for the early adopter.
Somewhere off in the future is high-definition television, or HDTV. But the industry is still debating standards for this next generation of video.
