Here is a useful tip to consider when trying to make your buying decisions. When going to a dealer to check out home theater components, make sure you take some of your own favorite CDs and DVDs with you. This way you can see and hear how your own CDs and DVDs sound and look with the products you are considering. Although the sound and video rooms aren't exactly the same environment as your own home environment, you can still get a good idea on how these components will work with CDs and DVDs that you are familiar with.
In addition to your favorite CDs and DVDs, here are examples of some CDs and DVDs that I often use in my own product reviews that are good tests for sound and video.
CDs
Heart - Dreamboat Annie
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon
Nora Jones - Come Away With Me
Blue Man Group - Audio, The Complex
Eric Kunzel and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Telarc CD) - 1812 Overture
DVDs
DVD Surround Sound and Subwoofer Demo Examples:
Master and Commander
Pirates of the Caribbean
Godzilla (U.S. Version - 1998)
The Day After Tomorrow
Superman Returns
Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
U571
DVD Video Quality Demo Examples:
Moulin Rouge
Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2
House of the Flying Daggers
Finding Nemo
Aeon Flux
Once Upon A Time In Mexico
Pitch Black
Also, if you are shopping for a Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD player, here are some good discs that really show off the video and audio capability of the two high-def formats:
Blu-ray Disc:
Spiderman 3
Meet The Robinsons
Casino Royale
Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2
HD-DVD Discs:
Hot Fuzz
Transformers
Aeon Flux
Serenity
300
In addition to the above examples, a very useful tool to take with you when shopping for an HDTV, is the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark DVD. This DVD is an easy-to-use tool that can reveal whether an HDTV can process various types of video signals accurately.
The CDs and DVDs listed on this page are just a few examples that can assist you in testing the overall audio and video quality of components that you may be interested in purchasing for your home theater setup.
One issue you may encounter at your local dealer with regards to actually testing TVs yourself, is that many dealers do not have DVD players connected to them, but are using a satellite feed or are playing video footing off of a hard drive device. However, some TVs on display may be running a Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD player. These players can also play standard DVDs as well and may give you another testing option.
Also, keep in mind that the "big box" retailers, such as Best Buy, Frys, Circuit City, etc... may be very reluctant for you to test their TVs. However, their audio demos should provide a good oppourtunity to test audio performance with regards to CDs. In fact, in terms of audio testing, almost all dealers have a display or room that allows the consumer to check out various speakers using the same receiver or amplifier, or different receivers or amplifiers using the same speakers.
With regards to video testing, going to a smaller independent home theater dealer may provide a more realistic and accommodating testing environment for your DVDs, as most smaller dealers have several setups that are fully operational, with various DVD players and components connected to the TV you may be interested in checking out.
