Summary: Tastefully designed for both beginning and advanced home-theater enthusiasts, the AVIA Guide to Home Theater is a terrific gateway to system set-up and integration--perfect for either planning or upgrading your home-entertainment system. AVIA, which was written by David Ranada of Stereo Review's Sound & Vision, takes full advantage of the nonlinear DVD-Video format. It lays out simply and clearly the basics of home theater: source components, video setup, and audio setup. Its seven chapters range in topics from home-theater components to viewing environments to system tools, and the disc features a host of professional-quality test signals for complete system calibration. Handy "hot buttons" give more depth on a range of subjects for those who want it. The disc gives insufficient weight to the importance of audio cable (and it recommends optical digital connections over the better-sounding coaxial type), but by and large AVIA is a trustworthy and extremely informative presentation. --Michael Mikesell