Setting Up the Power Grid for Home Theater

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Reggie Hayes here with Expert Village. And we're talking about laying out your power grid. And a power grid is exactly what it sounds like. It's the base of your Home Entertainment System. Or your Home Entertainment Theater. Now what it means is that your Home Entertainment Theater can be spread out. Things that need power can be all around the room. Your Home Entertainment System will consist mainly of your t.v. and amplifier and your VCR and DVD and all those things. And they'll probably be grouped together. But what happens when lights like this one you see right here are on a dimmer, or even the subwoofer right here, which is beside the couch in this case. Those things take power, and they will have to be protected off the power grid as well. So what are we talking about? The first thing you pick out when you pick out a power grid is your surge protector. Now this is a commonly mistaken item. It looks like a surge protector, it has outlets like a surge protector, but it's not a surge protector. It has a switch, and it has these outlets, like we said, but this is more of a power strip. Whereas this one right here is your surge protector. This is a surge protector and a power conditioner. It has labels on it, it's a pretty nice one. And it cost a little bit more. This one was around, it would cost you between forty, fifty bucks on up. Clean power, what it means is this one right here and this one right here are both conditioners, power conditioners. And what that means is here in the United States, power runs at a hundred and twenty volts, sixty hertz. What is hertz? Well, hertz is pretty much frequency. And what it means is that ideally, you want your hertz to be like this. Or your electricity should come in wave forms like this. This is a pretty clean power representation. It's the same distance here, the same distance here below the line. They're rounded circles, it looks pretty good. But what happens is people turn on their air conditionings, people turn on, well their refrigerator's cut on by themselves. Things happen, and somewhere down the power grid, power can get spiked, it can get surges and things like that. Especially lightening. And what happens is, instead of having these beautiful rounded drawings like this, you get this, which are spikes. Inconsistencies in your power. Now these guys right here will help take out that power and make that power clean. This one right here, the reason it's a lot bigger is because this is a battery backup system. What it means is that this has a battery inside of it, where if you lose power, this one's good for eleven hundred watts for an hour. Which is quite a bit of electricity. These things are typically designed for computer systems, but they work great for Home Theater Systems. It's not designed to watch t.v. when you have a power outage or things like that. It can, it's nice, it's a good thing to have in a storm. But what it means is that this side right here is on a battery system in this particular one. And this side is on your standard surge. This is where you would hook up something like a light, which is not quite as valuable. You can lose electricity and it won't hurt it. But every time you have a power hit, and the electricity comes back on, it can damage your t.v. or your stereo. And so it's good to have a battery on this side right here to hook up things like your t.v. and your stereo, a subwoofer. Anything that might be damaged by taking a power hit. So that's pretty much a wrap on your power grid here. Hopefully by now you understand what clean power is, and how valuable it can mean to your Home entertainment System."