I guess I missed having a home theater by 3.1!

My main viewing room has a 46" 1080p (native mode) 120Hz LCD HD TV with these attached devices: blu-ray player (1080p HDMI), Roku Netflix Player (720p HDMI), DVD player (480i/480p component video set to 480p), and a VCR (480i composite video).

My bedroom isn't so advanced, having a 32" 720p (native mode) LED TV with these attached devices: a Comcast HD DVR and a VCR/DVD player.

In both rooms I just use the TV speakers.

If I wanted to reproduce the theater experience, I would need to do a few things:

1. Have no control when a feature starts, and make sure I have to walk down a long hallway, at least a hundred feet, to get to the bathroom without being able to pause the feature, so I have to miss at least 3 minutes of the feature for a 1-minute bathroom break.

2. Spill beverages, pop corn, and maybe some gum on the floor so it is sticky and just a bit smelly.

3. Lock my TV volume at just about ringing level without ability to reduce the volume to comfort level.

4. Tell neighbors to crank up their TVs so that in the quieter parts of what I am watching what they are watching is clearly heard through the walls.

5. Have people talking during the show around me, and have a few smart phones in front of me with bright screens be clearly visible throughout the feature.

6. Have people walk in front of me at critical parts of the movie.

7. Have bright exit signs illuminating the screen and have the house lights refuse to go dark, so any scene in the shadows would be completely washed out by other lighting in the room. (I tell you, when I watched "House of Wax" at a local theater, 3/4ths of the film was washed out by the lights in the theater, most shots being a green haze from the exit signs instead of whatever the Director wanted us to see.)

8. Be forced to watch all commercials at the start of any program I watch, after having to wait 15 to 30 minutes before watching and not being able to do anything useful 15 to 30 minutes afterwards to simulate the drive to/from the theater.

Even with a poor-man's stereo instead of Dolby 5.1, I find most features are more enjoyable at home than at the local theaters.

However, I don't call my home setups "home theaters".