The world has been advancing technologically since before most of us were born but it may seem like the concept of advancing technology is a recent thing. The reason for this seems to be the rate of progress.

We are scarcely digesting the magic of big-screen high-definition TV and all of a sudden the next big thing is arriving. For fans of technological wizardry the big talking point in the middle of 2010 is the magic of 3D TV.

It may seem like a kitschy throwback to the 3D technology of the 80s, but the technology is now so advanced that it is a world apart.

Many people are a little circumspect about paying for a 3D TV for a very good reason. At the present time, spending all the money it takes to get the most advanced technology is like paying for a statue of yourself – you’ve shown you have a lot of disposable income, but there is nothing to appreciate that you haven’t seen more than a few times already.

Most TV shows and films are not made for the purposes of 3D viewing, so once you’ve watched the promotional DVD that came with the television itself, there are limits to its use.

This is of course set to change. One thing that the past few years have shown is that the creative side of an industry develops to meet the technology available.

Some movies are already being made in 3D and TV companies are launching dedicated 3D channels.

Sports are now being broadcast using the technology, too, and although it’s not just like being at the game, it does add something to the experience.

If money were no object, what kind of system would you install in your own home for the purposes of entertainment?

As time goes on, the restrictions on what we can reproduce in our houses are disappearing, with only the issue of cost to really hold up what we can do.

Admittedly that issue is a very real one for the majority of people, but there are more and more options for people below the top income brackets that are getting closer and closer to the point where we can set up a viable home theater or a disco in our own living rooms.

Much of this has come about due to an increase in the level of choice available to the consumer.

There was a time when you could buy just one kind of TV, one kind of stereo system and a basic home computer, and any link-up between any two of those would be beyond anyone but the most technologically gifted.

Now it is possible for the majority of people with enough money to hook up a system that combines the three and allows for greater use of the technological wizardry that is present in the market right now.

If you want, you can link up a PC with an extensive music library to a dedicated stereo system and combine the results with a big-screen TV showing videos or other media in time with the music.

There are some cases where people will spend the money to do this without considering that the money they have spent could have been split somewhat to allow them to rent or borrow to buy a bigger house in which the package could be better showcased, but then that is the consumer’s choice.

Watching a film on a dedicated home entertainment system is not a new idea, per se. For many years the average family has had the option to watch a film of their choice on their own TV screen, as the commercial market in video technology has grown.

But there has always been, and will continue to be a difference, between watching at home and watching in a cinema – unless you have a cinema in your home, of course.

What the improvement of home entertainment technology has achieved is to give us more of the cinema experience in our own homes.

When a film is conceptualized – at least, after the point where the script has been written – the intention is to get the fullest experience possible for the watcher, to make it “as though you were there in person“.

Think back to your first TV and video combination. If you were to watch films that way now they’d still have a lot of their charm, but you would be startled by how different the experience was.

The sound was less crisp and defined, the picture less clear. Many of the nuances were distorted out of all recognition.

With the developments in things such as surround-sound technology, plasma screens and larger televisions, it is possible to pick out a lot more detail in any film that you watch and to feel almost as though you were there in person.

You can pick out slight differences in light, the look in the actor’s eyes and the changes in their breathing – all things which contribute to a sense of witnessing things in the first person rather than as a detached witness.

There was a time – and it is not in the far-distant past, either – when if you wanted to see a film you would have to go to the cinema to enjoy it.

As time went on, the possibility of watching a film of your choice was extended into the home by the development of video playing machines, which would let you either buy or rent a movie for the purpose of watching on your home television – but the difference in picture quality between the video and the cinema screen, among other issues, was so vast as to be astonishing.

At present, it is impossible for anyone but the very rich to get the same movie-watching experience in their home as they would in a cinema.

Only those who can afford to purchase and host a cinema screen and the correct projecting equipment can do that.

However, now it is more imaginable than ever that you can sit and watch a movie in the way that the director, producer and the rest of the technicians working on the movie really intended, and this is a result of the development of large-screen televisions and DVD technology.

Of course, there is a vast range of equipment available that runs from the bargain-priced but technically limited to the state-of-the-art home entertainment systems that will set you back considerably more money.

The limitation is still in what you can afford, but home entertainment in the present day is now closer than ever to the quality that you could expect in a cinema.