Comparison Yamaha YHT-1840 vs Yamaha YHT-199

Rated power of the subwoofer supplied with the home theater. See "Front" above for details on power rating; here we note that subwoofers often have a fairly high power, because. they are designed to cover low frequencies in all audio channels.

The total power rating of all home theater speakers, including subwoofers. The value of the rated power is described in detail in paragraph "Front" above.

Home theater speaker system AC impedance. Impedance matters when connected to an amplifier: if the impedance of the speaker system is less than that of the amplifier, distortion in sound is possible, if it is higher, the acoustics may sound quieter than we would like. Naturally, in the original home theater sets, the speakers and amplifier are selected with the optimal impedance ratio, so in fact you only have to pay attention to this parameter when you need to connect acoustics to a “non-native” amplifier.

Subwoofer with its own built-in power amplifier. The presence of such an amplifier allows you to "unload" the main amplifier of the cinema, which has a positive effect on the overall volume and sound quality of the speaker system. In addition, active subwoofers are often equipped with fine-tuning tools that allow you to achieve the desired sound quality without moving the subwoofer around the room.

The number of amplifier channels may be greater than the total number of speakers in the system. This allows you to equip your home theater with new speakers and expand the sound quality of the system as a whole. More specifically, you can read about the appointment of the number of channels in the “Acoustics” paragraph. And this item is especially relevant for 5.1 systems, in which the receiver is equipped with a 7.1 amplifier thanks to it.

Rated power delivered by the built-in home theater power amplifier per centre channel. For more information about this characteristic, see "Front" above.

Rated power delivered by the built-in home theater power amplifier per subwoofer (low frequency) channel. For more information about this characteristic, see "Front" above.

Video formats supported by the home theater.

— DVD/VCD. In this case, not only the file format is implied, but also certain types of media — Video DVD and Video CD (VCD). The first variety is widely known from licensed DVDs on which various films, series, etc. are released; the quality of such video does not reach HD, but it still turns out to be quite high. VCD is a standard for recording video on CDs, similar to Video DVD, but earlier; due to the small capacity of the CD, such video has a low resolution and does not differ in quality, therefore the standard itself is rarely used. However, home theaters usually provide the ability to work with both formats, which is why they are combined into one item.

— MPEG4. A standard used for compressing digital audio and video. It is generally accepted, supported by most modern devices, from players to smartphones. It is used not only for recording movies, but also for video telephony.

— H.264. Digital video compression standard. Allows you to achieve good quality with higher compression compared to previous standards. It is sometimes also referred to as MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC. Supported by many modern devices.

— AVCHD. The standard, developed primarily for recording HD video on discs and memory cards, is mainly used in camcorders. It provides a high level of compression with minimal loss of quality, but is relatively "young", due to which devices with AVCHD support are quite rare.

— MKV...(Matroska). Open and unlicensed multimedia container format (sound + video). It provides numerous additional features, and according to the developers, it is a "project designed for the future" and has great potential for further expansion of functionality. Thanks to this, MKV, a relatively recent standard, is gaining more and more popularity (including as an HD video format), and is supported by an increasing number of devices.

— VC-1. Format developed by Microsoft; some consider it a worthy alternative to H.264. Provides high quality with high compression.

In addition to those described above, modern home theater systems may support other video file formats.

A decoder can be broadly described as a standard in which digital audio (often multi-channel) is recorded. For normal playback of such sound, it is necessary that the corresponding decoder is supported by the device. Dolby Digital and DTS were the first signs of multi-channel decoding, gradually improving and introducing new features. The final stage for 2020 is Dolby Atmos and DTS X decoders.

Dolby Atmos. A decoder that does not use a rigid distribution of sound across channels, but the processing of audio objects, due to which it can be used with almost any number of channels on a reproducing system — the sound will be divided between channels so that each audio object is heard as close as possible to its proper place. When using Dolby Atmos, in-ceiling speakers (or speakers facing the ceiling) are highly desirable. However, in extreme cases, you can do without them.

— DTS X. An analogue of the Dolby Atmos described above, when the sound is distributed not through individual channels, but through audio objects. The digital signal contains information about where (according to the director's intention) the object audible to the user should be and how it should move, and the processor of the reproducing device processes this information and determines exactly how the sound should be distributed over the available channels in order to achieve the required localization. Thanks to this, D...TS X is not tied to a specific number of audio channels — there can be as many as you like, the system will automatically divide the sound into them, achieving the desired sound. Also note that this decoder allows you to separately adjust the volume of dialogues.