When did you get your 1st home theater?

[Rob71]

I set my first dedicated room up in 2006 with a HTIB and a DVD player. Then in Feb. '07 I bought an LCD TV. In late June of '07 my cousin brought his PS3 over and I watched Ghostrider on it. In mid July '07 I bought my PS3 and have been addicted ever since. I don't consider what I have a home theater until I got into Blu-ray though. That's when I started buying speakers, subs and receivers and really started to fine tune everything.

[Moefiz]

My first home theater was a Pioneer LaserDisc hooked up to a Sears brand 27in Tv and a Fisher HTIB...good times...

Still have the TV and player.

[VinnAY]

I don't share ya'lls definition of "home theater", 9/10's of you have surround sound and a medium to large display in a multi-use room. A theater is a dedicated room, in my book.

That said, I've had surround and a >36" display since about Dec 2000. now, a "theater", since Aug 08.

*And that's not a knock on anyone here at all.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

I didn't get into the home theater setup until last year just b/c I went to the movies pretty often to see the blockbusters (Iron Man, TDK, etc) and would watch everything else at home not caring about how it looked/sounded.

[Galley]

I had Fischer Dolby Surround system in the late '80s that had a separate surround processor, and a Sanyo Hi-Fi VCR.

[Sciatti]

Originally Posted by VinnAY

I don't share ya'lls definition of "home theater", 9/10's of you have surround sound and a medium to large display in a multi-use room. A theater is a dedicated room, in my book.

That said, I've had surround and a >36" display since about Dec 2000. now, a "theater", since Aug 08.

*And that's not a knock on anyone here at all.

To back up th OP in the spirit of his question, what I think he means is...."when did you get your first gear that allowed you to rent or buy a movie, in whatever format, and watch it at home"...as opposed to going to a movie theater. I'll often skip movies at my local theater due to thier crappy sound systems, wait for the BD to come out and enjoy watching it on my "multi-use room home theater".

**Members, my reply is not meant to start an argument about the definition of "home theater", so please don't go there

p.s. - vinnAY, can you post some pics of your dedicated room? We'd all love to see it

[jk1138]

Originally Posted by Moefiz

My first home theater was a Pioneer LaserDisc hooked up to a Sears brand 27in Tv and a Fisher HTIB...good times...

Still have the TV and player.

Same here, I had a Pioneer LaserDisc with a 36 inch Sony Trinitron TV, and some off brand suround sound system, thta I first got in 1994. Later when DVD came out I got a Pioneer Combo Disc (LD/DVD) player as I was not sure DVD would catch on in the early days. I had 60 LDs and 5 DVDs for the first few months of DVD

[Deadset]

I had a 3 speaker setup with S video for my VHS player! It was fantastic.

My amp was an older pioneer (don't remember the model number), but I remember it had a LD input (which I ultimately used for my dvd player).

[Fors*]

2004 with an RCA Rear Projection 56" TV, a Sony HTiB and a regular DVD player. And to think I couldn't wait to "show this off" to my friends. LOL!!!!

[jk1138]

Originally Posted by Sciatti

To back up th OP in the spirit of his question, what I think he means is...."when did you get your first gear that allowed you to rent or buy a movie, in whatever format, and watch it at home"...as opposed to going to a movie theater. I'll often skip movies at my local theater due to thier crappy sound systems, wait for the BD to come out and enjoy watching it on my "multi-use room home theater".

**Members, my reply is not meant to start an argument about the definition of "home theater", so please don't go there

p.s. - vinnAY, can you post some pics of your dedicated room? We'd all love to see it

True, this is what I am going for. I almost added "Film" as a choice too, but left it out as it was not really an option for the average movie fan.

Originally Posted by jk1138

Simply put, what film media did you first start your home theater with. Not just a TV and say a VCR but a real (In your own opinion) home theater.

[KJacques]

1978 with a phillips/magnavox Laserdisc. I don't know if film counts because I was running a 16mm scope set-up with 17'x6' screen which was more my definition of home theater at the time.

[Rovic]

I started with Philips 5 dvd changer HTiB 5.1 system....and i had a 43" RCA projection tv...

EDIT: That was around 1999

[Steve]

You know, now that I think about it, I did have a 27" Zenith CRT TV and 4 head HI-FI VCR along with a cheap Wal-Mart stereo for 2.0 audio while I was still in high school and living "at home." That must have been somewhere around '93 or '94 I guess.

[rded]

Around 1990-91 my parents gave me a Pioneer component stack(tape player, CD carousel, amp and pre with 2 large 3 way speakers)for my bedroom. Connected that to my panasonic VHS player and was just astounded by the sound. There was no DD 5.1 at that time(that I know of) and it was pure stereo bliss

[rkolinski]

1981! I didn't see RCA's "SelectaVision" brand name which was for their for their CED system. There was actually a place where I could rent disc back then but then I upscaled shortly thereafter with a Laser Disk player, Super Beta and then S-VHS. However, my first true HDTV I purchased in 1996 (55" Pioneer rear projection) because I was receiving HD TV broadcast via C Band and a 10 Foot Dish!

[Hammie]

My first "real" setup was not 5.1, but it was 2.0.

I had a Sony 27" TV, Kenwood receiver, JVC VHS, JVC 6-disc CD changer, and KLH towers. I got this setup about 1992. By 1995, I replaced the woofers in the KLH's with 12" JL Audio car subs. In 1997, I had my first DVD player (Sony 5-Disc DVD player) and a Sony 5.1 speaker system. I also upgraded to a Sony receiver (non-HTiB version).

Along the road, I had upgraded to an Oppo DVD player and Toshiba 34" HDTV.

My current set-up is in my signature.

[jk1138]

Originally Posted by rkolinski

1981! I didn't see RCA's "SelectaVision" brand name which was for their for their CED system. There was actually a place where I could rent disc back then but then I upscaled shortly thereafter with a Laser Disk player, Super Beta and then S-VHS. However, my first true HDTV I purchased in 1996 (55" Pioneer rear projection) because I was receiving HD TV broadcast via C Band and a 10 Foot Dish!

I left out a few others (i.e. VCD) just focusing on the items that were "mass market" available, they did not necessarily become mass market, they are just available to them.

[jk1138]

As I am thinking about it this was my first "Home theater" (quotes NEEDED!) I think I was 5 or 6 when I got one in '77 or '78 but it was cool for a kid! A Fisher-Price Movie Viewer Theater

[Downhere]

I got my first "bedroom" theater at the age of 14 in 1997. I had a 27" JVC TV, Toshiba VHS, and a Magnavox home theater in a box system. The first movies I watched on it were Men in Black and The Lost World. Feels like yesterday.

It was pretty sweet at the time.

[kingofgrills]

Originally Posted by neos_peace

Mine was a brand new Philips Magnavox 5.1 ??????WATT home theater in the box. It was "ONE" of the first that came out. retail at the time was around $300-$400 it didn't even have DTS tech in it and the highest input/ouput was optical. It worked at the time. I rememebr the frist tiem I got it I was so excited. adn the soudn for what i had was awesoem. Better then stereo style listening. And that was just a few years after DVD came to the consumer. I picked up DVD real fast. NOW it's BLU all the way.

I first got started with 2 channel audio back in 1986, with a Kyocera CD player directly connected to a Yamaha M-80 2 channel amp (540 watts total, I think) and A/D/S tower speakers. It was simply phenomenal.

I moved into the A/V surround sound world by purchasing a Magnavox 5 channel HTIB, and I think that was 1995. All it came with was a surround receiver and 5 small bookshelf speakers. It didn't include a subwoofer or a media player (DVD or VHS). I added a Toshiba stereo VHS player and a 25" Phillips TV, and I was off and running. Compared to my 2 channel setup, the surround setup seemed quite gimicky, with it's poorly separated pro logic surround sound, but it was enjoyable at the time.

Today that setup would send me running from the room.