Dedicated home theatre rooms

[Mr_Mike]

Who has a dediacted home theatre/media room? I have been flat out recently working on getting mine done. For the last 2 years since we built the house the front room has sat empty except a couple boxs and an old couch, With the front and back yard finally landscaped i was given the go ahead to put a room together for movies, xbox and tv.

Room is 4.1x3.6 mtr
3 seater black leather couch with chaise
DickSmith AV cabinet
90" pull down screen
Mitsubishi HC4000 1080p HD projector (ceiling mounted)
Philips HD set top box
Yamaha AV Amp
Eltax 5.1 floor standing speakers
Monster 14g cabling run through the wall cavities
Still looking for a blueray player and need to replace my xbox

Screen wall and ceiling and painted dark grey then the remaining walls are matt black. 5% tinted windows with block out blinds. 4x50w downlights at the rear of the ceiling.

The room had a shitty looking and feeling double sliding door that were promptly ripped down and i still need to hang double solid wood external doors. Once the doors are up i will start on accoustic treatments for the walls. In the form of accoustic panels and bass traps.

Unfortunetly it hasnt been all plain sailing, on the 20th of may i ordered a new projector and amp from a place over east that wholesales AV equipment, was told 10 day delivery. By the 2nd June still hadn't heard anything or got a postage tracking number so gave them a call, was told projector was out of stock but will be arriving next couple days and i should have it by the 10th. Then on Monday the 11th i looked on their website to check something only to be greeted with a blank page saying for more information contact this number and had details for a chartered accountant. Alarm bells went off instantly. Tuesday morning i called the accountant and the company had gone into liquidation on the 6th of june and my stuff had not been shipped although they had happily taken my money. the accountant informed me i had no chance of getting money from them and was best of contactiong my credit card company to reverse payment.
I done that but was informed its going to take 6-8 weeks for the dispute to be settled, so i am currently $2.5k out of pocket while i wait for it to be sorted. Not happy.

BUT i finished the wiring about 2ish today turned on projector to calibrate it and got to watch Isle of Man on an 90" screen in full HD and it was totally worth it!!! Cant wait for GP this weekend.

[shmoo]

will theatre rooms be the modern day equivalent of the formal dining room?

[mekon]

Think so, when I sell this place the new owner will be getting the projector, ceiling speakers, screen and cabling, might as well see if they want the amp and other gear for a little bit extra, or factor into price. Fucked if I'm going to take it all down and return to a normal ceiling.

[BOFH]

I personally wouldn't bother with a dedicated blueray player, I'd put in a PC with a blueray drive which gives you a lot more flexibility.

[xphread]

house under construction (still... because I'm literally owner building) but home theatre is one of the things I'm looking forward to.


room: 5.2 x 4.3m with 2.7m ceiling
dedicated AV cupboard so all the goods are hidden away
3 walls made of Durisol ICF, so very good acoustics already
One wall is almost full length double glazing with Venetian blinds internal to the glass. (will see if I need an extra blocker curtain or not, but as its west facing, I doubt it, unless watching anything before 10am)
conduit & speaker wire run around the room.
Conduit through ceiling to projector with component, VGA & HDMI cables.

Have:
Ceiling mounted Optima 1080p projector
3m motorized screen
Samsung blueray player with 1000w 5.1 amp (will do for now)

Need:
Media player / PC
cornice, paint & flooring

Photos, when there are more interesting things to see

[Mr_Mike]

I personally wouldn't bother with a dedicated blueray player, I'd put in a PC with a blueray drive which gives you a lot more flexibility.

I was looking to get an apple tv unit then jailbreak it with xbmc for downloaded content rather than a pc

[Mr_Mike]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1339603160.983924.jpgHere's a quick pic of mine bit hard to see cos it's so dark

[mekon]

I'll take a pic later and contribute when home.

[BOFH]

I was looking to get an apple tv unit then jailbreak it with xbmc for downloaded content rather than a pc

Just a half decent PC, (lots of RAM & storage vs CPU), running Windows 7 will be fine. Benefit then is that you can watch your recorded TV from any PC in your home group & connect an Xbox as a media extender. If you can configure port forwarding on your router you can remotely access your media server to schedule recordings etc. Mythbuntu is a good option if you want to watch live TV from anywhere can be a very involved setup.

[mcmurray]

I personally wouldn't bother with a dedicated blueray player, I'd put in a PC with a blueray drive which gives you a lot more flexibility.

Great idea. Plus a nearby ethernet socket

[BOFH]

You need a wired network, streaming media over even a good wireless connection sucks.

[timmay]

Great idea. Plus a nearby ethernet socket

Wouldn't be a bad idea to have allowance for NBN network either- should allow streaming in real time making Internet tv etc much better and higher quality.

[okitoki]

I remember when my friend first bought his house and set up a nice projector (cost him a pretty penny), massive sound system, awesome seats to sit back and watch movies or play games on...

he used it a few times... but now it has become his kids play room, and he watches his show in the family room with the 40" LCD....

such a waste...

my gf always gives me ship on how I have a 42" TV near my dining area, a 40" in my small entertainment room and a 60" in my bedroom, but then I keep watching my shows on the Ipad

[Mr_Mike]

You need a wired network, streaming media over even a good wireless connection sucks.

And here lies my biggest problem, where i live in Harrisdale ADSL2+ is none existant, i can get ADSL but shit speeds. Despite the exchange being less than a km away it is maxed out and apparently due to the NBN getting connected in this area within the next 2 years there is no plans to upgrade the exchange.
So far i have tried Optus and Bigpond wireless both were terrible and am now using Vivid with mixed results.

[BOFH]

I have to use wireless broadband & it's pretty flaky sometimes, I have an ethernet to wireless bridge & taped the cables down because I'm in a rental & they don't like you knocking holes in their walls. I've considered something like these but they are very sensitive to spikes & don't like surge protectors:

D-Link Powerline AV Starter Kit

[BlackFZR]

Foxtel provide a Powerline AV kit with any install. It seems to work pretty well so far over the last 4 weeks, its also allowed an easy ethernet hub to be used at the other side of the house...

[Crobbo]

I've got a few powerline kits at home they're good for about 10 meters or less if you want good capacity and stability.

I tried to bridge the length of the house with them but found it useless so ran some cat through the roof and down the doubleleaf, from there the powerline is used to connect a few computers.

[mekon]

Here's mine, it's a custom theatre room (as in, that's it's sole purpose), but nothing over the top, wouldn't suit the house to have cherry stained wood all around type thing.




Boltz storage racks from US for DVD/Blu-Rays and CD's.



95" screen ignore the old plasma that's just being stored there.






Decorated with day bills and other movie poster I like.



Gear sits behind the seats to reduce extraneous light, Receiver, blu-ray, DVD, apple TV, media network switch for games consoles etc and ethernet connection for apple tv rather than wireless.
Universal remote, ceiling mounted projector. 4 in ceiling rear and effects speakers, 2 fronts and centre and sub, does the job.

Next place it'll be all architecturally designed stuff to hide speakers and have less obvious mess lying around. The messiest bit is behind the stand. All wiring is put through one of the 6 conduits in the room.

[MrNomas]

This used to be my system before I moved. Got rid of most of that gear. Still run a projector with an 80" screen as our main system though.

[Mr_Mike]

Mekon that's a pretty awesome room space was my biggest limiting factor, would love to of built up 2 rows of seats with the second level stepped up. More than happy with what I have now tho just need some acoustic treatments as the sound does get a little muddy when up loud.
Bought a blue ray player today with built in wi-fi to stream from the net. Watched the 3rd transformers movie this avo and was blown away by the quality and how good the image stayed even thru the big scenes with shit transforming and flyin about