In the last five to ten years, the home theater industry got a lot right. High definition video has become readily available, and for the most part, a standard, with most mainstream channels broadcasting in HD. Surround sound has enabled new levels of realism, and the dream of a real movie theater experience at home became well within reach of millions of people. Today, the latest in home theater systems is built upon these advances to merge the home theater into the fabric of family life. The result is a more networked place where families can enjoy all types of media. Here are the four technologies that we think have changed everything.

1. Networked Audio

Home theater systems can do more than just play movies. With quality digital processors, powerful amplifiers and high quality speakers, they're also excellent places to listen to music. However, with music collections moving away from compact disks and towards digital downloads we are seeing hard disks and NAS drives (Network Attached Storage) located in homes. This is bridging the gap between growing music libraries and home theater systems. The popularization of networked audio components has changed other things too.

People are bringing music back in to a home theater with dedicated networked audio components. These components tap into an Apple AirPlay, SONOS system or into a network with DLNA to make your entire music collection accessible. Other options include smart home theater receivers that tap into digital music libraries over your Wi-Fi network.

2. Smart TVs and Set Top Boxes

What networked audio did for sound, smart TVs and set top boxes LIKE Roku and Apple TV have done for video. Today, home theater systems have access to just about every movie or television show ever made. Between subscription services like Netflix and Hulu Plus, pay-per-view systems like the iTunes Store or Google Play, and access to the media we all store on our computers, there's no reason to leave the home theater any more. It will be interesting so see what Google's new ChromeCast adds to this.

3. LED/LCD TVs Worth Watching

When they first came out, LCD flat panel television sets held the promise of revolutionizing television watching. Lighter, thinner and less expensive to run than plasma, their drawbacks became clear as we had to put up with blacks that were actually gray, pictures that faded if you weren't at the perfect angle and hopeless blurs in place of crisp motion.

Since those early days, manufacturers have enhanced LCD televisions with better LCD panels and new LED back lighting. Today, they're bigger and thinner than ever. They consume less power than their predecessors, and have black levels and viewing angles that are more like their plasma equivalents. Another growing advantage is increased size options over plasma, such as 75, 80 and 90 inch. With their high brightness, you can even leave the lights on while you're enjoying them.

4. The Lossless Revolution

In one key way, the advent of the original digital home theater was a step back. When digital files started to replace compact discs and laser discs, the concept of lossy compression crept into our systems. CDs and Laserdiscs sounded and looked every bit as good as the originals from which they were pressed, but MP3s and DVDs gave up sound quality and resolution to save space in order to fit on discs with limited space. Now, high bitrate video from Blu-Ray discs and other technologies provides amazingly lifelike images and lossless audio file formats like FLAC, ALAC high bit-rate PCM and DSD offer perfect audio reproduction with no compromises and even higher resolution than compact discs.

In some ways, the last five years has seen the home theater experience come full circle. Once, the living room was where families went to watch movies and TV. Then, home theaters became separate spaces for dedicated movie watching. Now, home theater systems are moving back into everyday life with new technologies that let you enjoy any type of entertainment at any time.