Building A Home Theater Cinema On A Budget
Have you ever wanted to build your own home theater but couldn't afford it? Tom's Guide's Katie has been set the challenge of building a home theater setup for under $999!
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00:00 Today is a very exciting day. I've been given a budget of $999 and told to go to Best Buy to build the best sort of starter home cinema that I can.
00:10 I have come here with a bit of a plan. I am the queen of budget TVs after all, so I'd like to think that I'll be able to find a great deal.
00:17 Of course, audio is also important, so I'm going to look at soundbars to help elevate the setup.
00:22 Now, there's not a whole lot you can get for $999, so I'm going to have to choose wisely. Let's go see what they got.
00:30 The first and probably most important decision I have to make for building my home cinema is what kind of TV to get.
00:38 There are two traditional TV types to choose from, OLED and LED/LCD.
00:43 In the simplest terms, OLED TVs have self-emissive pixels that can be turned completely off so you get true blacks and amazing contrast.
00:51 A couple of downsides of OLED TVs is that they tend to pick up glare in rooms with lots of ambient light and they're also not the most budget-friendly.
00:59 That said, if I didn't have a budget, I would totally go for something like the LG G3 OLED or the LG C3 OLED.
01:06 I'll still link the latest deals to both down below in case you're interested.
01:10 In general, with LED or LCD TVs, the biggest benefits to picture are brightness and color vibrancy.
01:16 There's also a larger selection of models and prices to choose from.
01:20 With that, there's also a lot of jargon to look out for. You're going to see QLED TVs. Q means the addition of quantum dots.
01:27 Companies like Samsung also say the word "Neo" to indicate mini-LED TVs, which is another type of technology that's quite premium and out of our budget.
01:35 These premium TV brands do sell relatively affordable QLED TVs, but I happen to think that budget TV brands do budget TVs the best.
01:46 Compared to some of the TVs I've seen here today at Best Buy, these TCL TVs might not look that impressive, but here's why I like them.
01:53 We've recently tested this TCL 6 Series up here and found that it has decent brightness and covers pretty much the entire Rec. 709 color gamut.
02:01 I happen to like that it's a Google TV platform, which means it has access to all the streaming services most people care about.
02:08 From streaming to sports, it's also a great gaming TV since it measures some of the lowest input lag that we've ever measured for a TV.
02:15 What's even better is the price. I cannot stress to you how rare it is to find a solid 65-inch TV for under $500, especially when it's not Black Friday.
02:24 So the TV is settled, half of our budget is gone, and now it's time to talk audio.
02:33 If you ask me, a soundbar is essential, and these days most TV manufacturers are pushing customers to get soundbars and surround sound systems that go with their TVs.
02:43 Kind of like with iOS and Android, there are a lot of benefits to staying within the same ecosystem.
02:49 For one, setup and pairing is often much easier.
02:52 Some brands even have a feature where the soundbar works with the TV's native speakers to create the fullest soundscape possible.
02:59 There are also so many excellent soundbars that come from brands that actually specialize in audio.
03:05 Sonos is probably one of the best known ones because they have a whole home system approach.
03:10 So if you have Sonos speakers throughout your home, your soundbar could theoretically pair really nicely with the whole setup.
03:16 The Sonos Arc is extremely popular, but it's also extremely out of budget.
03:21 Instead I'm going to look at the Sonos Beam and Sonos Ray.
03:24 I like the size, but I really like the price of the Sonos Ray right here at $280, this is very tempting.
03:30 The Sonos Ray is in our budget and it is a good starter first-time soundbar, but I don't think that its size is going to go very well with our 65-inch TV.
03:39 So I've weighed my options between a Sonos soundbar and TCL's 5.1 channel kit, and I think in the spirit of building a home cinema, I have to go with TCL's.
03:51 That's good, there's even a recommendation here that says that this is good for 55-inch TVs and larger.
03:56 I'm going to move this and go for the 5.1 channel because not only does it come with a subwoofer, it has two surround sound speakers.
04:07 If you want your entertainment setup to look more expensive than it actually is, it would be smart to mount it to the wall, but I'm a renter and I had something a bit more fun in mind using our budget.
04:19 I love smart lights period, but I really love smart lights as part of an entertainment setup to make the whole experience more immersive.
04:29 I know that the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is really popular. I've never tried it myself and I think I see why.
04:36 This alone costs $250, it doesn't include the actual lights, and you still have to buy a Philips Hue Bridge for an additional $46, so we're going way over budget if we were going to go this route.
04:47 If you've been to this channel before, you know that Govee is my favorite budget-friendly smart lighting brand, so I was thrilled to see this Govee setup here at Best Buy.
04:56 This is the TV backlight with camera, and then this is the TV light kit that comes with the light strip as well as two additional lights for ambience.
05:04 Hmm, I had planned on getting the kit that just comes with the light strip, I mean that's a phenomenal price, but I have the budget and this setup looks a lot more fun.
05:14 You're coming home with me.
05:22 What a haul. I think we killed this. All that's left to do is check out, get everything home, and set it up.
05:29 Setting up a 65-inch TV is definitely a two-person job, so I called my dad over to help me get it installed before doing anything else with what I bought at Best Buy.
05:41 It took about a half hour start to finish, including running the out-of-box software update and pairing the TV to my Google Home account.
05:51 A lot comes in the box for this sound system, but setting up the soundbar was much easier than expected. Well, at least after a little troubleshooting.
05:59 The soundbar doesn't fit. Oh, you know what? If we want to make it look right, we're going to need to take the TV down and redo its feet. Not an issue.
06:09 So when I initially set up the TV over the weekend, I failed to account for the size of the soundbar that needs to go beneath it when choosing which way to mount the feet.
06:19 I went for the narrower option, but I have to go for the wider option now. Luckily, having two choices is pretty standard on TVs these days.
06:26 Important when you're setting up a soundbar, you want to make sure that you're plugging it into the TV's HDMI-E arc or arc input. So on that case for this TV, it's the HDMI 3.
06:41 Very nice. Getting the subwoofer and surround speakers situated is next, but after we left the store, I quickly realized that we'd need speaker stands since I wouldn't be mounting them to my wall.
06:51 Oh boy. I ordered a set from Best Buy that still kept us in budget and assembled those. This was honestly the most time-consuming part of the speaker setup.
07:01 The placement of your subwoofer and surround speakers will vary based on your living room layout, your couch shape, but in general, you want to have your subwoofer next to the couch.
07:10 And then you're going to put your two surround speakers, one's for the left channel, one's for the right channel, and we're going to put them in their respective spots on either side of the back of the couch.
07:18 Ideally, you do not want it right behind where the sweet spot of the couch is. Instead, you want it just off to either side of where people are going to be sitting and watching.
07:29 The TV looks good, the sound is great, but this is really going to take my setup to the next level.
07:34 What I love about these light strips is that they're really forgiving. Placement doesn't need to be perfect thanks to the calibration process.
07:41 Now this camera here is how the magic happens. It's going to read my screen for a color profile that can then command the light strip and the supplementary lights to reflect what it's seeing on the screen.
07:57 Now that all the hardware for this lighting kit is in place, the last thing I have to do is sync it to my Govee Home app, which I already have some Govee lights around, so no issue there.
08:08 And then I'm going to need to use these things to calibrate the screen.
08:11 During calibration, the Govee app walks you through step by step to make sure the camera is reading the TV picture properly.
08:18 I was able to tweak the field of view just right using adhesive calibration markers that come in the box.
08:26 So it's nice and fiery along the top.
08:28 Then it's blue, and then the red.
08:33 Between the TV's bright picture, the all-encompassing speaker sound, and the next level immersion of the lights, I'm thrilled by the quality of setup we were able to get for the price.
08:47 Obviously, there are more premium options of these products with premium features and premium price tags to match.
08:54 But if we're talking about what's possible within a budget, this goes to show that you can still get a great setup without overspending.
09:00 I know I'm impressed with the home theater I was able to build within the budget, and if you're impressed too, all of the products you see here are linked in the description.
09:08 In case you didn't know, you can go to TomsGuide.com for in-depth reviews of TVs, soundbars, and more, and be sure to check us out on social @TomsGuide.
09:17 As always, I'm @KateKozich, and I'll catch you next time.
09:20 [music]
09:26 (bell ringing)