Home Theater with HDTV: We
installed a 34-inch HDTV Flat-screen CRT,
an A/V receiver, a DirecTV HD receiver,
a HiFi VCR, and a DVD player.

See how we did it in in the Operation Gadget
Photo Gallery. [ Photo: Dave Aiello ]

On Thursday, I installed a very nice HDTV home theater at a friend's house in Central New Jersey. The system includes the following components:

• Sony WEGA KV34HS420, a 34-inch, 1080i-capable, direct view, flat-screen HDTV set,
• Pioneer VSX-1014TX, an Audio/Visual receiver,
• RCA DTC210 DirecTV HD receiver,
• a DVD player,
• JVC HR-A63U, a HiFi 4-Head HQ Video Cassette Recorder from the previous television system,
• a 6-disc CD Changer, and
• two stereo speakers that were in used in the previous television system.

This was the first time that I helped install HDTV, so I learned a lot in the process. All I had ever done was watched HDTV at bars, restaurants, and in stores, so I didn't know what 1080i, 720p, and 480i specifically meant. Now I do. I also got some experience installing fiber optic audio which was new to me.

I was really impressed with the quality of picture that the Sony WEGA KV34HS420 receiver produced. This is a great flat-screen HDTV for the price. It intelligently handles the different picture formats it receives, making each format look as good as possible. The 1080i picture we got on HBO HD and the 720p picture from ESPN HD looked amazing.

I wanted to get the first set of photos up on the site and captioned as quickly as possible. I'm going to come back in the next couple of days to add more photos, follow-up comments, and reflections, so check back regularly.