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By: Richard Del Cazzo
Web site: http://www.hdtv-hdtv.com
Best Buy wants to convince customers that it's inexpensive
to turn spare rooms into home theaters systems, so the chain
has built two of them inside its Braintree store, just feet
from walls lined with big-screen TVs and DVD players that
are selling at lower prices than ever.
Tape measure in hand, Paul Giannini of Carver measured a
$1,399, 43-inch rear-projection TV that he and his wife were
considering buying from the Braintree Best Buy in early March.
Giannini said he was planning to spend up to $1,600 to build
a home theater system on which he could enjoy NFL football
games next season, and he wanted to make sure he was getting
every inch of screen promised for his money.
Still, he acknowledged that a year ago, the television he
was looking at was out of his price range.
''We didn't want to get into anything above $1,500 or $1,600,
so we waited a bit," he said, still wielding his tape
measure.
Welcome to the mainstreaming of home theater, where -- thanks
to innovation and competition -- the price of admission is
plummeting. Instead of paying tens of thousands of dollars
for high-tech projectors and screens at a specialty electronics
boutique, today's consumer can now pay as little as $1,500
for a huge high-definition monitor, DVD player, and surround-sound
system.
''It's pretty much the super home theater for under $2,000.
You could add another $1,500 and have all the furniture to
go in your room, too," said Rob Enderle, president and
principal analyst at the Enderle Group, a San Jose, Calif.,
technology practice.
The term ''home theater" was popularized in the early
1980s, when high-profile movie stars, professional athletes,
and the just-plain wealthy paid king's ransoms to replicate
movie theaters in their houses. That meant extensive contracting
work and the installation of movie theater-style seats, speakers,
and projectors.
Today, though, it generically means the coupling of a big-screen
television (a ''monitor" in home theater parlance, which
generally has a screen that measures 40 inches or more diagonally),
a DVD player, and a five- or six-speaker surround-sound system
that allows sounds from movies or TV shows to be heard from
every angle in a room.
Prices for systems started dropping about a year ago as a
glut of big-screen televisions began showing up on the market.
Just a few years ago, there were two categories of big screens
on the market: first-generation plasma models, only inches
thick but carrying price tags of upward of $15,000, and boxy
rear-projection sets that then cost between $3,000 and $4,000
for an entry-level model.
Since then, several intermediate categories have popped up,
including LCD screens and digital light processing, or DLP,
monitors. Each technology varies in picture quality, but experts
said they're all adequate for the casual at-home movie watcher.
And they've all helped push the overall cost of home theater
systems down.
''There are just a huge number of choices, and its going
to get worse as we get into the fourth quarter, and that's
going to drive prices down even further," Enderle said.
The drop in prices has stimulated the already hot market
for home theater sales. Sales of big-screen projection TV
sets grew from $4.4 billion in 2002 to $5.1 billion last year,
according to NPD Techworld, a unit of market research firm
NPD Group. Home theater audio systems -- the all-in-one DVD
and surround-sound systems grew just slightly last year, from
$1.38 billion to $1.4 billion, according to NPD data.
Home theater sales and installations were once the exclusive
province of high-end shops, but now even ''big box" home
electronics retailers Best Buy and Circuit City have to compete
with discount king Wal-Mart for home theater component sales.
Computer-maker Gateway sells plasma screen televisions directly
to consumers via its website for about $2,500, while other
players from the computer world like Microsoft and Intel are
eyeing the home theater market with products of their own.
The end result is a new level of ubiquity for home theater
systems in middle-class homes, provided they're disciplined
enough to skip a few dozen movie outings and put the cash
toward having the same experience in the den.
''Definitely competition, as far as different companies jumping
in and selling these things, has affected the price, even
if it's only as far as the availability," said Steve
Mullen, a spokesman for Richmond-based Circuit City.
The home theaters on display at Best Buy are an indication
of how the chain hopes to grow its share of the market. The
Braintree store is one of three in the Boston area known collectively
as ''Project Hub," in which the chain has set up displays
of elaborate and expensive home theater systems as a lure
to get customers to look at more affordable fare.
''It's a way for people to get the idea," said Chris
Koller, business team leader for Minneapolis-based Best Buy's
home theater department.
Circuit City has installed similar setups at many of its
stores and plans to eventually expand the program to all stores,
Mullen said.
Once customers are lured in, sales associates move in with
a combination of incentives and offers of special services.
Best Buy and Circuit City offer free gift cards worth up to
$300, just enough to cover the cost of a decent DVD system,
when customers buy a big-screen TV. For about $200, both stores
will send an installer to hook up the system and attach peripherals
like a satellite connection or video game console.
When Chase Kurinskas of West Bridgewater bought his new 51-inch
Sony rear-projection television from the Braintree Best Buy,
he also purchased high-quality cables that the salesman told
him provided a better connections than the cables the store
threw in for free. While he got a 10 percent discount off
the cables, they still added a few hundred dollars to the
purchase of his $1,699 monitor.
''I waited a few months to buy because the prices have dropped,"
Kurinskas said. A year ago, he said, the same television cost
$2,500.
Kurinskas would have gotten no such help at a Wal-Mart, though.
The chain, which is aggressively competing with other retailers
for a share of the home theater market, is trying to beat
its competitors on price by any means.
A recent trip to Wal-Mart's store in Quincy found a 47-inch
Panasonic rear-projection TV on sale for $1,184 and audio
systems as low as $69.93. But don't expect a Wal-Mart installer
to show up at your house.
''Our customers don't expect that," said Karen Burk,
a spokeswoman for the chain. ''As with everything, our goal
is to be the low-price leader in every category and that's
going to include home theater."
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