Offensive Sundries: Home Theater, On a Budget Like Mine

DLP, DMD, DTS, HD, LFE, SACD, DVD, 16x9, HDMI, Composite, Component, etc...................

At times these terms and more spark feelings of confusion, fear, inadequacy, disgust and so on. For me?, well to put it plainly it all kinda turns me on in an almost "giddy like a little school girl" sort of way. You can also reach this nirvana with posts like these and more! Yes indeedy with a dash of understanding you'll embrace all these terms and spout them in sonnets much like those days in middle school when the you wrote love notes to that girl with the best... uh... smile (at least that's what you scribbled to her wasn't it?). Or you may already get excited when THX intro music thunders into your ears and you're just looking for some direction and new ideas. This post provides some insight to my current setup and what I've decided to do with the funds available to me.

First lets look at the current situation and circumstances that lead to me undertaking this ongoing project. It's obvious I love audio and visual ear and eye candy, so the passion was there. Unfortunately life sets in pretty quick and stubs the toes of your dreams, but that's no reason to trip. The amount of money at one's disposal is probably the greatest factor, then you have things like kids, space limitations etc. So I did what I thought was best in MY situation.

*Also please understand that like most home projects this is a continuous project constantly evolving and adapting (and its not a cheap habit either). So you'll notice unfinished and rough around the edges real world items sprinkled within this project.

Act I: THE ROOM Alright down to business. I had an unfinished bonus room when I moved into my starter home.

The front wall just after installing the wall plates
I had a 1yr old daughter at the time (and was planning to have more) who was constantly into my DVDs and touching all the buttons and knobs on my receiver and TV. So I thought as long as the room was unfinished I'd cook up a plan to make a rug rat resistant home theater setup. I considered first wall mounting either a LCD or Plasma but after hours of weighing my options I decided a ceiling mounted projector would give a smaller footprint with a very large diagonal inch to dollar ratio. The room is about 12'x10' and only has 1 medium-large sized window (roughly 72"x48"). A projector room requires some degree of light control, period. I don't care what some salesman might try and tell you, or how the brightness of a particular unit will over come it. Granted the brighter the projector is the less control you need, but a room that can be limited in light exposure is ideal. If that's not the case then consider the plethora of flat screens out there. I painted the room in deep red and gold. When projectors are used in a room with all the lights off, the brighter colored rooms will reflect more than a darker room. After 2 hrs of movie watching the constant onslaught of bright and dark scenes can cause your eyes to be very fatigued. Take a look at the colors used in a genuine theatre the next time you go out to a movie for your inspiration.
The current room, window, curtains, rear shelf

I installed two wall lights behind the screen location connected to a dimmer switch so I could add more control to the minimum light with out flooding light directly onto the screen itself. For the window (which faces west and sees the sun from about noon to sunset) I added regular vinyl room darkening blinds and my lovely wife crafted some great black curtains that on the window side have a special 'blackout' vinyl fabric (available at almost any fabric store) to completely block the sun's rays.

The big and little kid play room, sub bottom left and wall lights
All speakers in my 6.1 setup (for you beginners that's six small surround sound speakers and the .1 refers to the subwoofer, giving you 7 speakers all together. See? all that's needed is a first grade education to get this stuff. And you worried for so long that its all so complex) are wired throughout the walls and crawl space to keep all wiring out of everyone's way. I placed the subwoofer wall plate connection in the center of the front wall so that I could move the sub around the front wall when re-arranging the furniture.
Connection Central, at rear shelf level below the projector
The next step was to figure out the best place for the receiver, DVD player, Xbox, etc. I decided to create a shelf along the back wall below the projector. This keeps the kids far removed from the equipment and drastically reduces the length of cables needed to run to the projector itself. The pictures also reveal a great secret to this adult/kid zen balance: no DVD rack or shelf anywhere! That's only possible thanks to the Sony 400 disc DVD changer (model: DVP-CX995V) to the far left of the rear shelf.

The furniture is a standard sofa and loveseat. One can easily elevate the sofa creating theater style seating but so far I haven't taken the initiative. While this room fits my needs very well its in no way perfect. The 3 doors present challenges for speaker placement and furniture arrangements . The room configuration also limits how you can arrange things, so if you absolutely feel the need to completely re-arrange furniture every six months (I'm talking to you ladies, you know how it is) be warned this will keep the room "stuck" or "as is" once completed.

Screen down, curtains drawn, rear lights dimmed.....we're ready!

92" (over 7.5 ft of diagonal goodness!) widescreen movie as seen from the rear shelf's POV
The room will be your canvas in painting your personal theatre experience and as the artist you need to understand and respect the room's strengths and weaknesses.