Pulling off a killer demo is definitely fun, but it's also a lot of work. You now have to wear the hats of producer, director, and, of course, editor. Before selecting a demo for a show, we, in the industry, review countless movies and scenes to find something that fits all of the criteria for a great demo listed below.

I admit it: I'm a recording junkie. For years, I recorded my favorite TV shows on VHS videotape, only to watch them gather dust in the garage. Now that I have a DVR and a DVD recorder, what use have I for those clanky, cranky cassettes? Actually, more than you might think; some of those cassettes have irreplaceable moments from my TV-watching past, moments I'd rather not lose as the tape disintegrates with age.

Anyone who's looked at the back of a new, high-end TV or receiver and gazed upon row after row of ports knows that there just might be too many ways to connect other devices. Believe it or not, more inputs are going to become commonplace in the next few years (a number of high-end TVs already have seven video inputs in four different formats). Whether you fall into the category of those who are just discovering the merits of S-video or those who like to argue the merits of their projector's five-wire RGB inputs, the number and type of connections, ports, and inputs has exploded in the last decade, and it isn't going to get any simpler in the next few years.

It's funny how everything old is new again. Forty years ago, you might have watched from the backyard as Dad carefully climbed up a ladder to the roof, strapped a bracket onto the chimney, and attached a large T-shaped television antenna so that you could watch those glorious black-and-white (and sometimes color) images from I Love Lucy, Bonanza, The Wonderful World of Disney, Gunsmoke, and other TV programs of that era.

The holy grail of home theater simplicity is to have fewer remote controls and one-touch operation without confusing programming. HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) promises to control components that are connected via HDMI cables with just one remote. Turning components off and on and one-touch play and record are some of the first features enabled on these initial HDMI CEC home theater offerings. But they often prove to be not so easy. You must set up the HDMI CEC in each component’s menu, and controlling the components can be inconsistent. Plus, each brand has its own nomenclature for menu and action items. But perhaps being forewarned will enable you to be forearmed.

Bass: It is undoubtedly the most misunderstood aspect of a home theater system's performance and, in some ways, the least appreciated—especially among the higher-end ranks. Bass' bad rap (no pun intended) derives from a number of sources, but its fundamental undoing is its poor implementation in the vast majority of audio systems—from the genius who cruises around with 10 $50 monotone subwoofers in the trunk of his car to the home theater owner who hasn't put forth the considerable time and effort it takes to properly calibrate low-frequency output. Poor-quality subs, of which there is no shortage, are as much to blame in this situation as user error. The bottom line is that quality bass performance is critical to any audio, music, or home theater system, and its journey begins long before the signals ever reach our speakers.