Acronyms, What do they mean? Part 2

ARC, AUDIO RETURN CABLE

ARC is a really handy feature, what this acronym means is returning audio in the opposite direction in regards to the direction of the video. Where this is used in a home theatre it is through a HDMI lead, one end is plugged into the output of a receiver and the other end of the cable is plugged into an input on the TV so you can watch your favourite movies, the input on the TV is important, there is only one port on the TV that will carry ARC the receiver is just as important as well, not all receivers are able to do the ACR function so you need to make sure they are both are ARC compatible. When ARC is action you will get audio from a normal TV channel through your home theatre system without a fibre optics lead, this function actually saves on using a one lead, but unfortunately a lot of retail outlet will still sell you a fibre optics lead even though you don’t need one, you need to watch out for this.

HDMI-CEC, CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CONNECTION

CEC is a useful feature; different manufactures will add their own little twist to this name but what CEC does is send remote control functions to other devices through the HDMI cable, so take for example if you bought a Samsung TV and Samsung home theatre system and if the CEC function is turned on you can pick up the TV remote control, change channels on the TV and as adjust the volume on the home theatre system with one remote control, all without doing any programming of the remote control. This function will work with other different manufactures but depending which ones you have, not all manufactures will communicate with each other’s brands. If you feel like this is an option you would really like to have, our advice is to stick with the same brand throughout your system, also you’ll have to make sure all the devices you are purchasing will do the CEC function

DLNA, DIGITAL LIVING NETWORK ALLIANCE

DLNA or dLNA as it’s known by is a protocol that streams data to your TV, PVR or home theatre system that is dNLA enabled. It’ll stream from anything like a NAS (network attached storage) drive or USB thumb drive, and soon from the internet. dLNA will work if you want to stream over a Wi-Fi but we don’t recommend it if you can run a data cable to the TV, the Wi-Fi in your house could slow down depending on what your doing at that time or even stop all together to give priority to the TV.

LFE, LOW FREQUENCY EFFECT

Low Frequency Effect, is used for subwoofers, the frequency range is 20 Hz to 120 Hz. This is your boom boom sound, a home theatre system without a subwoofer is not a sound system at all, a subwoofer can either improver or degrade a home theatre so just as speaker selections is important, so it a subwoofer to match.

DHCP, DYNAMIC HOST CONFIGURATION PROTOCOL

DHCP is used data networking, in a home environment this will including a computer or TV or gaming console, anything that uses the internet has a unique number to identify that unit so data can go to the correct unit, the router/modem will automatically give that unit a number.

HDCP, HIGH-BANDWIDTH DIGITAL CONTENT PROTECTION

HDCP in a home theatre environment is a type of copy protection, one way to notice this is if you have a Foxtel box and a home theatre system connected, you will see a message from the Foxtel box say that it is waiting for a HDCP signal from the TV for a split second, Basically when transmitting digital signals between devices, this copyright protection technology encrypts the signals to prevent content from being copied without authorization, for example a recorder will not send a HDCP signal, so the recorder will not be able to record any picture untill the source can see a HDCP signal being received.