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.

High-definition television isn't just about movies. Another killer app is making the case for an HDTV in every home: sports. Highfalutin videophile talk about the ability to see what the director intended pales beside the sports fan's visceral need to follow the ball and watch the action develop. Sports bars are where many fans get their first taste of sports on HDTV. The falling price of HDTVs has created the irresistible urge to bring the experience home. Plus, at home you can add a good surround sound system. A Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that captures the roar of the crowd only adds to the excitement.

The next generation of prerecorded video content is here. The new machines use a blue-violet laser to read discs with far more storage capacity than current standard-definition DVD, and they can play high-definition content in full 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. The big attraction is the promise of the best picture quality you have ever seen on a display. The prerecorded, high-definition content offers pristine, near-perfect images with fewer artifacts (noise and blocking) than is possible today with broadcast or D-VHS content.

The HDMI standard was developed with noble intentions. Most people in the home theater hobby know the hazards of cable clutter. When you have a lot of equipment connected this way and that by separate audio and video cables, you wind up with a tangled mess of wires behind your equipment rack or entertainment center. The problem is compounded by component video (three cables just for picture) and multichannel analog audio (six to eight more cables!). Now factor in a DVR, a couple of DVD players, a Blu-ray player, a video processor, and an A/V receiver all interconnected in one theater room. If you want to add or remove any piece of equipment, you’ll have to squat behind the rack with a flashlight and trying to trace each cable from end to end. Which unit did this blue one come from? If I plug that red cable into here, will I get my picture back, or will my speakers start blaring obnoxious noises?

For all the dramatic improvements they’ve given us in the picture and sound quality of movie playback in our homes, sometimes it feels like the new high-definition disc formats—both Blu-ray and HD DVD—also make our lives needlessly complicated in some respects. Case in point is the process of getting high-resolution surround sound audio from the disc player to an A/V receiver or processor. Let’s be frank here and admit that, in this regard, things were a lot simpler with standard DVD, where there was far less confusion about the different audio formats and hardware hookup requirements.

You used to be able to buy a TV, plug it into an antenna or cable outlet, and start flipping channels. It was an amazingly simple system. Digital television and its high-resolution subsystem, high-definition television, aren't quite as plug-and-play . . . yet. Antennas only pick up high-def signals in some markets; cable usually doesn't pick them up at all. Satellite seems like a good bet, but it doesn't offer everything. Plus, certain DTV tuners don't work with certain displays. It's enough to drive any self-respecting videophile to drink (not that we'd fault you for that). But there is hope. The following three-step guide is intended to make setting up an HDTV system easier than following that other multistep program. First, figure out what sources are available to you, then find a tuner that works with those sources. Finally, buy a high-definition display that works with that tuner.