I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to home theaters, I just put my movies in the dvd player and watch them. I have a Sony STR-DE635 Receiver/Home Theater and was recently trying to mess with the settings to make my movies sound better. What I was wondering was what setting is best for movies, Stereo Movie, Mono, Large Hall, Small Hall, Church, Club, Virtual Studio. Also what is a good DVD to test your home theater with. Thanks for any help you can offer.

The best setting is often the one that pleases your ears the most. Persoanally, I leave it set to AFD (auto format decode) for almost every movie I have, and I change it to LARGE ARENA (or something like that) for some live music DVD's that I have.

As for testing the HT, I would get a calibration disc like Video Essentials, and use that to tweak your settings. if you're looking for a movie to use to showcase your hardware, I would recommend the Lord of the Rings : Extended Edition - this has quickly become my favorite disc to watch - for content, as well as visual/audio quality.

I agree, just listen to the different ones until you find one you like
on my RCA receiver I just set it to dolby digital or DTS for movies and only use those other different settings for cds, then depending on the cd I choose concert, stadium or club most of the time so that all the speakers are used and not just the front 2