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Today's Show:
We get email after email asking for advice on when is the right time to upgrade your home theater equipment. The answer, of course, is always "right now," but that isn't always possible. Often we have to compromise in one area to upgrade another. So what components are the most important to keep up to date? Which ones can wait a while? Let's take a look.

When to Upgrade

Television
If you don't have an HDTV, this is absolutely your first purchase. Beg, borrow, bribe, do whatever you have to do to get rid of that old, analog CRT you've had since the 80's. Now is the right time to upgrade. If you already own an HDTV, there are some good reasons to upgrade, but they drop in priority.
  • HDMI: HDMI is the wave of the future. If your TV doesn't support it, and especially if it doesn't support HDCP, you'll want to upgrade pretty soon. There are content protection mechanisms on media such as Blu-ray that can, if the content owner wanted to, disable high definition playback if you aren't using HDMI. Plus it eliminates a ton of cable clutter.
  • EDTV: If you own one of the early EDTV plasmas, you should start considering an upgrade. It isn't a huge issue, as those TVs support HDTV content at 720p and 1080i, and still look very good. But at some point you'll want a true HDTV.
  • 720p: Sure Blu-ray supports 1080p, and other content may come in the future as well, but there's no need to run out and make a change any time soon. 720p should last for you for a while.

High Definition Content
Of course your first purchase has to be the HDTV itself, but followed very soon after that you need high definition content to watch on that new TV. There are several ways to do it.
  • Over the air: This is free, unless you need to buy an antenna. It's a great way to get HDTV content without a new monthly fee. At some point, however, you'll probably want to upgrade to a pay package for channels such as ESPN, Discovery, TNT, Food Network, etc.
  • Cable, Satellite, IPTV: These will cost money every month, but provide a lot more content to watch. You may or may not need the extra channels, but you sure will like them.
  • DVR: This is a must have. You might be resisting it, but once you've tried it, you'll never be able to go back. They're easy to get if you have an HDTV service provider for a slight monthly fee. If you're over-the-air only, try a Tivo.

Receiver
The next big piece is surround sound. Without it you're really only getting half of the possible HDTV experience. Surround sound requires two parts the receiver or processor, and the speakers. If you don't have a surround sound receiver, now is the right time to get one. If you own one already, there are a few items that you may want to look at as potential reasons to upgrade.
  • Dolby Digital: If your receiver is old it may not support decoding of the Dolby Digital surround format. More than any other format this one is key because it's the one used in HDTV broadcasts. This is almost a "right now" kind of upgrade.
  • HDMI: Again with the HDMI. There are audio formats you simply cannot enjoy if you don't have an HDMI input on your receiver. Make sure when you do upgrade that the HDMI input on your receiver will actually process the audio. Some receivers just pass it thru, making the inputs almost pointless.
  • HDMI 1.3: The next step in HDMI is version 1.3. Support for this allows your receiver to decode all the newest surround sound formats including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. While this sounds super cool, it isn't incredibly urgent because your Blu-ray player will usually decode them for you and send the audio to the receiver as PCM over your pre-HDMI 1.3 HDMI cable.

Speakers
Speakers are the one piece of your home theater that will last the longest. Invest in high quality speakers and you won't need to upgrade for decades. Reasons to upgrade may include:
  • Not enough speakers: You want to have at least 5 speakers: left, center, right, and two surrounds. Ideally you'd have 7 to support all the new formats coming out, but the real minimum is 5. Start saving up so you can put 5 high quality speakers in your home theater. They're a great investment.
  • Cheap speakers: If you're still using the speakers that came with a home theater in-a-box setup, start putting some money aside for an eventual upgrade. Sure you're getting all the channels, so you have surround sound and the priority may not be as high, but you'll be amazed at how the experience changes when you replace those cheap speakers with really good ones.
  • No subwoofer: Many people think the subwoofer is optional, nothing could be further from the truth. It turns surround sound into a surround sound "experience" and really gets you so much close to a true movie theater feel in your home. If you don't have one, go get one.

DVD
By now DVD players are pretty much standard in every home. If you don't have one, wander down to your local grocery store or 7-11 and pick one up instead of your typical box of hot tamales or big gulp. Why would you want to get a new one? There are a few reasons,
  • Up-conversion: Your HDTV will up-convert DVD content to match it's native resolution of 720p or 1080p. It will do it well, but often not as well as a good upconverting DVD player. If you really want to get the most out of your DVD viewing, you need a good upconverting player.
  • Next generation player: The decision is easy now, you need a Blu-ray player. HD-DVD isn't cluttering the picture anymore (sorry for the really bad pun). Although not a "must have" you can't argue that Blu-ray provides the absolute highest quality high definition content you can playback in your home. If you really want to see what your investment in that HDTV, receiver and speakers can do, you need to get a Blu-ray player. If you already own one, eventually you'll want to replace it with one that supports BD-Live, but we haven't seen anything that would make that an urgent priority at all.

Other stuff
  • Cables: Unless you're getting dropouts in the picture or sound, your five dollar HDMI cable never needs to be upgraded to the 100 dollar one. If you are getting dropouts, try the 20 dollar cable before wasting too much money on stuff that won't provide any bang for the buck. We've already talked about countless other areas where you could spend you money more wisely.
  • Remote: If you're still using 5 remotes to control your home theater, stop it! Go pick up a universal remote, good ones start in the 50 to 75 dollar range. Gadget freaks like us will constantly upgrade remotes to the latest and greatest, but you don't need to do that. Invest in a good one and it should last a while ... unless it's stuck in safe mode :(
  • Game systems: For as much as we tend to ignore game systems, they really provide hours of fun for the whole family. Some of the high definition games available on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are amazing. If everything else you need is already in place, consider adding a game system. They're fun, trust us.