Get your living room in sporting shape
May 29th, 2012
With London less than two months away, it’s time to start getting in shape. Not to compete, or to travel to London, but to watch at home.
Here are a few pieces of AV equipment that you’ll need to get the best possible experience in cheering on our athletes from the comfort of your living room:
A 3D HDTV
A common criticism of 3D TV is that there’s not enough content available for the format to be worthwhile. Other than a library of 3D Blu-rays, what else would you watch?
London, that’s what. Highlights are being broadcast in 3D, so now is the perfect time to see the 3D format put to good use.
3D TVs are available in both Plasma and LED versions. Plasma is traditionally the better option for watching sport, due to the complete lack of motion blur, though the newest LED TVs have refresh rates high enough to be of comparable quality.
If you plan on turning yout TV-watching into an event in itself, inviting all your friends, then a Plasma TV is probably the better choice – their wide viewing angles and large picture size allow the most people watch at any one time. Though if you want a REALLY big experience, there’s always the 3D Projector option…
If your home isn’t made to accommodate a giant TV though, or if you plan for more of an intimate experience, LED TVs are available in a variety of sizes to suit any home.
Once it’s all over, your home will be ready to receive other 3D broadcast content in the future, and your can always go back to your 3D Blu-rays and digital recordings of London.
Speaking of which…
A PVR
Thanks to those pesky time zones, Australia’s live HD simulcasts will be taking place during the nighttime hours when most of us will be sleeping. What’s more, the 3D coverage is planned to be shown in daytime hours, when many of us will be at work.
For those of us unwilling to give up our day job, or develop nocturnal sleeping patterns, how can we get our fix of the events that don’t make it to the prime-time highlights reel?
With a digital PVR, you won’t need to worry about missing out on the live HD broadcast of the women’s weightlifting, or the men’s beach volleyball in 3D – you’ll be able to experience all its glory at the time that suits you.
Even though 3D broadcasts aren’t the norm (yet), your PVR will still be able to record the broadcasts and play them back in all of of their 3D glory later, or even burn them to Blu-ray for sharing.
A Smart TV connection
We’re living in a digital, multimedia world, so in addition to the TV broadcasts, true aficionados will want to access the related online content and share their favourite moments by getting online with a Smart TV.
Several 3D-capable TVs are Smart TVs to begin with, making getting your TV online a breeze. If you don’t have a Smart TV, you can still get your home theatre online with many network-capable PVRs, allowing you to access online content and stream your recorded events between compatible networked devices in your home.
A surround sound system
Sound plays a big part of the experience of watching sport. The roar of the crowd. The grunts of the tennis players. The meaty slap of the Greco-roman wresting. The incomparable commentary.
A good Hi-Fi home theatre system attached to your TV will help to bring these sounds completely into your home. Once such a sound system has been properly calibrated, you may start finding it hard to believe you’re not actually in London…
What events are you looking forward to? And what kind of preparations will you be making to get your home theatre ready?
