Home Theaters: Past & Future

The home theater experience from 8 mm film to Blu-ray DVD.

There is a seldom-cited statistic that offers surprising evidence of how important home theaters have now become: less than 15% of the money made by film studios comes from movie theater tickets. That may seem shocking, considering how faithfully the media reports every weekend about the latest $40 or $50 or even $100 million movie opening. But then home theaters aren't what they were 50 years ago.

The origin of home movie theaters

A proper history of home movie theaters would begin with Kodak. It was the Kodak Super 8 camera that was responsible for the emergence in the 1950s of primitive home theaters. Even today, the term "home movies" recalls the amateur quality of that era's home theater equipment: a small movie projector playing 8 mm film on a white wall without the benefit of sound.

There was another type of home theater at that time. It was the screening room, typically a small theater used by studio executives or film stars to watch 16 mm or 35 mm films. This type of home theater was mostly confined to the wealthiest homes.

Kodak introduced the film cartridge in 1965, but it wasn't until the introduction of home videos and the VCR in the 1970s and 80s that Hollywood began to perceive home theaters as a threat to their industry.

The birth of modern home theaters

If one had to pick a year when modern home theaters were born it would be 1982. That year, Dolby Laboratories introduced a home version of its noise-reduction and playback system known as Dolby Surround. For the first time, the combined use of audio-visual equipment that defines today's home theaters was possible.

Through the 80s and into the 90s, VHS eventually triumphed over Beta, though laserdiscs and similar technologies signaled the eventual ascent of DVD. Most home theaters are now set up exclusively for DVD, though the promise of high definition and Blu-ray DVD technologies likely means more format wars are in store for home theater enthusiasts.

Though technology continues to change rapidly, most modern home theaters now feature a large-screen television (typically LCD, plasma, or HD), a surround sound audio system, and in true home theaters, cinema-style seating and sound insulation - a far cry from watching silent 8 mm images of your uncle's dog on the living room wall.

The future of home theaters

Film industry observers such as Edward Jay Epstein suggest that home theaters are the inevitable future of the movie industry. Video windows - the period of time between a movie's theatrical exit and DVD release - are continuing to shrink, and in some cases, disappear altogether. Ocean's Eleven director Steven Soderbergh's film Bubble, for example, was released simultaneously to DVD and theaters.

The success of online film rental companies such as Netflix and GreenCine also indicates the enthusiasm many Americans feel for the home theater experience. And though at the present time online movie downloading is rudimentary at best, the Internet does hold the promise that some day, home theater owners will have access to the entire catalogue of cinema history. Whether traditional movie theaters will be able to adapt is as great a mystery as the identity of Citizen Kane's Rosebud.
 

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