Muted wall colors, drapes to block light from a viewing room, and some attention to your TV's settings can bring video to life.

If you followed some of our tips in Home Theater Tweaks 101, you already have your home theater system sounding pretty good. With a little attention to acoustics, and calibration according to the amplifier's instruction manual, your system should be singing. But how does it look?

Lesson One: Movies are made to be seen in the dark
That's an obvious statement, but one many consumers wrestle with at home. Decades of watching television in brightly-lit rooms have conditioned them to expect to do that with movies too. If you want to see films and television programs at their best, you need to get accustomed to doing so in subdued light.

Draperies are the usual solution to blocking light from windows. Many custom installers favor electrically operated "blackout" shades that close automatically when the video system is turned on. Room lighting can also be linked to dim at the same time. Take care when selecting light dimmers: some of them generate electrical noise — and some types of halogen lighting put out enough infrared energy that they can interfere with remote controls.

Make your home theater as dark as possible without making it impossible to navigate. Paint the walls with muted, matte colors — slate gray or moss green, and choose darker rugs and furnishings. Bright white walls and glossy accessories may look wonderful in furniture stores, but they'll wreak havoc with your home theater. To get the most out of your video display, give it the best opportunity to shine.

Dark doesn't mean pitch black, however. Many home theater experts advocate the use of "bias lighting" behind a video display — a low-level light that glows just enough to make your monitor or flat panel TV look like it's floating off the floor and in front of the wall. It sounds counter-intuitive, but bias lighting can sometimes make video black level look even darker than it does in a completely darkened room. The better your black level, the better your contrast ratio, and hence, the better your picture.