During the summer several local parks in my area have movies that you can watch outside for free. If the idea of movies outside appeals to you; but you don’t want to have to sit around watching with a bunch of stinky, sweaty strangers Open Air has exactly what you need with its new backyard home theater kits.

The kit is called the CineBox Home and comes with everything you need for showing movies in your backyard. Options for either a 10-foot or 12-foot inflatable screen are available. In addition to the screen the kits also include the other gear you need to get started.

Is your room configured to handle 1080p video footage streaming over a network? Then you’ll like the Aztech WL850MS Wireless Multimedia Streamer. It’s got some specs that make it different: 802.11n Wi-Fi technology, Multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antennas for extra coverage, 2.4/5GHz dual-band capability.

It will be less prone to interference from cordless phones, bluetooth and the like with the dual-band capability. It will cost you about $263 for the WL850MS transmitter/receiver kit.

Here’s a way to satisfy your Stargate fetish if you happen to have lots of spare change in your pocket. A guy by the name of Andrew Caldwell worked with a home theater outfit called Visual Concepts and others to build a Stargate-themed home theater room. Sweet!

The centerpiece of the theater is the 10-foot diameter “Stargate” screen, according to CE Pro. The ceiling sports a dome with “a sky mural and twinkling stars” and there’s even air-piston doors which open at a hand swipe as well as replications of the wall panels from Atlantis.

If you’ve got some dough to drop and are uber-fanatical about having that perfect audio tuning in your media room, Audyssey Labs has a product you might want to check out. It is called the Audyssey Sound Equalizer and you’ll find it pricing for around $5,000.

The Audyssey Sound Equalizer uses the company’s MultEQ XT room correction technology and a special PC application to “capture up to 32 points of acoustical information throughout a listening area. Based on these measurements, MultEQ Pro automatically calculates an equalization solution that corrects for time and frequency response problems in the listening area, creating a fully automated surround system setup.”

Marantz America is out with a few new home theater components designed to add a little extra pop to your personal entertainment options. These are the AV8003 and MM8003, priced at around $2,600 and $2,400, respectively.

The AV8003 preamplifier is, according to Marantz, a multi-zone processor and controller offering streaming A/V capability, while the MM8003 amplifier works with either a 7.1- or 5.1- channel system. Full details of both are found after the jump.

Audiophile specialist McIntosh Laboratory has just unloaded a flotilla of new high end (i.e. pricey) components for the “price is no object” home theater. The one we picture above, for example, is the MC2301 Vacuum Tube Power Amplifier, priced at around $11,000. That’s right, $11k.

Full details on this vacuum tube piece of audio equipment and four other new McIntosh releases are found after the jump.

LG put out more detailed information today on some new home theater systems first shown off at CES earlier this year. These include, besides the LHT888, the new LHT874, LHT854, LFD850 and LFA840.

These systems are in the processing of appearing at retail locations such as Best Buy and Circuit City. LG describes them as featuring “distinctive designs” and “advanced technology. We detail the other items in this new line up after the jump.

This should make a lot of people happy. After a bit of a wait, I present the first Netflix set-top-box. Previously, Instant Viewing was available only to Windows PC users through the IE browser. But now, thanks to Roku, users can finally tap into at least a chunk of the Netflix library without having to wait for those damn discs in your mailbox for just $99.99.

The Netflix Player can even use a wireless signal to stream, but performance may differ here and there. It’s got HDMI, component, composite, Ethernet, S-Video and a Toslink optical audio jack as far as ports go. No HD support, but things look quite positive so far.

Pansonic has itself its first new home theater in a box (HTiB) system with an integrated Blu-Ray Disc player set to go on sale. It is called the SC-BT100 and you’ll find it for around $1,000.

The Panasonic SC-BT100 includes speakers and a subwoofer for a 5.1 channel experience. It can be upgraded to wireless full 7.1 channel sound with the optional purchase of two side speakers and a transceiver. The included Blu-ray Disc player has “the Final Standard Profile for advanced functions such as Bonus View and audio mixing, which allows the consumer to switch the sound between the main and sub windows.”

Gefen wants to help you push HDMI over a distance as well as offering control from a remote source. It is introducing its HDMI RS-232 CAT-5 Extender for around $600.

The Gefen HDMI RS-232 CAT-5 Extender lets one adjust their displays, change settings and access audio/video sources from up to 50 meters (150-feet) in distance. Sender and receiver units connect the A/V source to the remote display using category-5 cables that transmit 1080p full HD resolutions as well as RS-232.

Onkyo has released an upgrade to its TX-SR605, HDMI 1.3a home theater receiver with the announcement of the TX-SR606, while still keeping the price under $600. This new model comes similar to the original but with two more HDMI inputs added in which bring the total to four. They’ve also added in 1080i video upscaling, Audyssey’s new Dynamic EQ loudness compensation technology and the companies new Music Optimizer.

This is an impressive set up for the price, allowing four high-definition video inputs each with high-def 7.1-channel surround sound, and will also convert non-high-def signals up to 1080i. Aside from the new add-ons, the TX-SR606 receiver comes equipped with a 90 watt-per-channel amp, Remote Interactive HDMI control, has a number of surround sound codecs and is equipped to handle Sirius Satellite Radio.

Onkyo wants you to feel the home theater in a box (HTiB) love as it unleashed today three new entry level systems which only require a HDTV to get them going. The Onkyo HT-S5100, HT-S4100 and HT-S3100 will be available in April with suggested retail prices of around $580, $480 and $380, respectively.

Key highlights of these systems include a HDTV-capable audio-video receiver, five or seven surround-sound loudspeakers, powerful subwoofer and an included iPod docking station. These of course vary depending upon the specific system. For more details, read the full release after the jump.

This HTPC has some really nice specs, which include a quad-core Intel processor at 3GHz, 3GB of RAM and NVIDIA’s GeForce 8600GT with HDMI out and PureVideo HD support. Plus, you can get the unit in the color of any automotive paint you want from a basic glossy black to $10k gold-flaked. Nice!

It’s also got a 32GB SSD drive for the OS and a 1TB drive for media storage, although you’ll probably want to upgrade that to 2TB if your media collection is huge. It can also play both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Windows Vista Ultimate comes pre-installed and of course card readers and everything else you might expect. Which is good because the base price is just under $6k.

How many well known consumer electronics brands can be shoved under one stable? We may soon find out as word has come from the Land of the Rising Sun that Harman International has bid for D&M Holdings in a sale which could run the former around $700 million.

This bid, according to Bloomberg, first surfaced on Friday. This potential acquisition bumped up D&M stock in Tokyo. If this purchase were to go through, a news article from the Japan Corporate News Network suggests Harman would ending up taking “a dominant share in the global audio market.” For its part, D&M issued a statement saying reports on this are not based upon information it has provided.

To put it in perspective, D&M Holdings currently houses the brands of Denon, Marantz, Boston Acoustics and Escient, among others. Harman, meanwhile, brings to the table Harmon Kardon, Infinity, …

Polk Audio has apparently begun shipments of a Sirius tuner component product it first announced late last year. The Polk Audio SR-H1000 is now available for around $350.