Any Home Theater Buffs?

[JMK]

This seems to be an exploding trend, and I've been bit by it and I was wondering if any of you fine guys (and gals if there are any out there) were intp building HT's in your places of residence. :D

I've been shopping around for some time now, and am also wondering if any of you are having as tough a time as I am in deciding what to buy!

[Marcus Telcontar]

:: Points at Jonathon::

[Admiral Lebron]

Me and my dad set up our Home Theater together. It took about a year or two of hard searching for final parts, but most of the stuff we already had, so I can't really tell you how hard it was to find the "perfect parts." If you need any recomendations on stuff, ask.

[JMK]

Well, I'm in an interesting position to say the least.
• Firstly, my ceiling is $2000-$2200 (canadian).
• My brother can get me Harman Kardon / JBL stuff @ -50% retail.
• I'm also negotiating online with a salesman at a store for some speakers. He's offering me the Energy Take speaker set for $700 minus the sub. Also, he's offering the Energy Encore system for $1550, which I've heard is the "cadillac" of speaker sets.
• For the receiver, I'm hung up on the Harman Kardon AVR 320 and Kenwood's VR-510 (THX, baby!!!). I could get both of these receivers for more or less the same price due to my bro's discount.
My dilemma is that I am definetly getting one of those 2 sets of speakers, and I want to make sure that the receiver I choose to power them does them justice, you know? And not give me any of the "clipping" by underpowering them. Ah...decisions....

[JonathanLB]

Yeah, that room in our house cost about $100,000 in all.

It kind of bothers me when people use the term "home theater" very lightly and they start calling their damn 50 inch TV a home theater. We have two 50 inch TVs, both with full surround sound -- they ain't home theaters ladies and gentlemen! They're big TVs. That is all. Expensive? You bet, but not home theaters.

Anyway, a home theater should be a projector based system, not a TV. That's a TV, not a theater.

Our screen is something like 84 inches by 56 inches or I dunno, some dang thing like that, because you do see black bars on the top and bottom with movies even though it is a theater type of screen. It just makes it better for use with TV too, so if you want to watch satellite on it you can (although not a good idea for long if you are watching sports because the score box will burn into the screen).

Someone was asking "how many inches is your theater screen?" Well, at least what the guys told me who set it up is that you do not measure theater screens like you measure TV screens, so it's not like "a 50 inch TV," you actually say the dimensions. But hey, what do I know, I just know that I love my theater and that's that :)

I understand that the projector was $15,000 to $20,000, but the sound was the bulk of the cost. THX speakers build into the walls, two to each side, two to each side front, then the huge subwoofers unde the "stage" of the theater (under the screen), and a main dialogue box there too. Plus the room is sound proofed with walls that don't allow sounds to bounce off them, otherwise the quality wouldn't be that great. Basically it is just padding, so if you push into the wall you are pushing into a panel of material that absorbs the sound. I wish I could be more technical.

I really don't know that much about my own theater, as I said, except that I really enjoy using it. I often watch comedies and stuff here in my room on my smaller 28 inch screen, but with action movies, it would be a crime not to use the home theater!

Plus we have Pioneer DVD/CD/VCD/LD players, so that is the only player I can use (which is on the two 50 inch TVs too) to watch my Star Wars films on Laserdisc.

Watching a Star Wars film on a TV when a better option is available, ugg, it'd be a crime!

If any of you are here in Oregon, you are invited to my house to see Star Wars in the theater :) Haha

The guys who installed the theater said the sound would be better than real theaters, and I find that to be true without a doubt. I always pick the best seat and the sound is obviously optimized for a smaller space (specifically, two seats, the middle two top seats), so it just does seem far better.

I think the visual quality is WAY better too because DVDs are just far superior to film. Oh gee, I just love watching a print where I have to see all of those cigarette burns (not really, but that's what they call them sometimes) and the flickering and all that crap. Nah, DVDs are way better. Maybe when theaters go digital they'll be able to compete with my home theater, but right now, they're just made for the masses and to be the most able to collect the most money possible. My theater was designed with maximum enjoyment in mind, not profit obviously :)

[Jedieb]

So exactly when can we crash at your place and watch movies JMK? ;)

[Starquest aka AndyR]

Wow! Thats some setup you have there Jonathan. Sa-weet!

Home theatre's dont have to be quite as expensive as Jonathans. You can put together quite a good little theatre on a budget.
Personally I got a second hand projector for about $1000.00 (Ebay is a good place). I have a Philips Proscreen 4100. Its not to bad, but its not top of the line. the resolution could be better, but hey, its a budget, right? :)

For sound/playing/decoding I actually use a Sony all-in-one unit (forgot the model number, but they are at best buy). Its got a decoder, dvd player, and amp all built into one unit. It also comes with 5 speakers and a sub. The sound is good, but not theatre quality. Paid $500.00 for it.

To display on, you can buy paint that is made for projection, but a screen is going to be better (IMHO). either way, it can run you about $100.00.

Keep in mind that when you start building a home theatre, there is a starting point and there should be a stopping point. Make a budget and stick to it. the little junk will really eat into your budget if you are not careful. Speaker mounts? $35.00 a pair.... Speaker stands? more than mounts... That is just an example.

Good luck.

Edit: also important is balance. Dont buy a super sound system and then watch it on a 24" screen - also, you cant go huge with the screen (or projection) and play the sound through old car speakers. ;)

[JMK]

Well that's basically what I'm doing! 27" flat screen with great speakers, and a harman kardon receiver. In my little bedroom. So Jedieb, anyone's welcome over to watch movies, as long as they like cozy! Which maybe isn't such a good plan afterall...

[Jedieb]

Bedroom! WHT?! Just what kind of a theater are you running? ;)

If you ever have buff over all you'll need is hay, meat, and some cheap Canadian Whiskey. And pepper spray, you'll need LOTS of pepper spray...

[JMK]

No worries, I got me a shotgun under the pillow!

[Shawn]

Hey Jonathan... can I come visit you? :D

[foxdvd]

Jon even has a freaking elevator to go down to his home theater… if it makes you feel better, I think he got stuck in it once for a long time..LOL

[JonathanLB]

That's true, I did get stuck in the elevator once. I have not used it since, for the record, and that was about two years ago I believe. In fact, it was probably just more than two years ago now.

I was in basically just a night shirt and boxers, and of course, that had to be the day when my sister had six friends over for a slumber party, go figure. So I was watching two Jackie Chan films and I'm going back upstairs after seeing them when the damn elevator sticks between floors 2 and 3, or just short of the floor where all of the bedrooms are located (the elevator comes up right near my dad's room). So I am thinking, "Uhh, crap this is not good," and the phone for some reason is not working either! I think it wasn't connected at the time for whatever reason, but I sure as to hell couldn't get it working. So I start saying pretty loudly, "Papa? Uhh, I need some help here," and he said, "Come in!" because he thought I was outside of his room (and I was, in a way), then he started getting a bit more frustrated, "I said come in!!" and I am like, "That is the thing, I can't, because I'm stuck in the elevator." So finally he figured it out and all of my sister's friends were soon there too, haha, as if that was necessary, and he took the door off the elevator after they called our house handy man (Darren gases the cars, fixes anything that needs fixing, deals with contractors, etc.), but he wasn't home. So my dad just pryed the door open by taking all of the hinges off and I climbed up with a bit of help because the top of the elevator was just above the floor, so I could get between and out. It was just a power failure with the elevator and for some reason it wasn't working, so a few days later the repairmen fixed it...

I just don't want to use it anymore. It bothers me. I'd rather not die in an elevator, haha, and I've seen bad stories actually on home elevators and how "accidents happen," so to speak. No thanks!

Our home theater has 8 seats, I forgot to mention that. It seems sufficient usually, I mean I never have more than 7 other friends over. Sometimes it's both Sean's, Ben, Bryan, Matt, maybe even Paul, but even if we were all watching something there is room.

The top two middle seats are the best, bottom two middle seats are probably second best, outside top two seats are third, and the worst two seats are the outside front seats, but not to say they are bad really... The theater was just clearly optimized for the top row because you can see the speakers there are just to either side of your ears exactly if you are sitting in the top row.

The second row is staggered so that it is above the first row and you don't have to see someone's head in the picture, hehe.

We have had many problems with the home theater over its history, but that is mainly because SOME PEOPLE (i.e. everyone else in my house) don't know how to use it. It just makes me want to say, "Ok, DO NOT USE the home theater anymore, only I may turn on movies in the home theater because you people obviously don't know how." It never breaks when I am using it, why is that? It's not coincidence, lol. I swear every time I get back from vacation it is busted again and it's never anyone's fault, haha, but it just "broke." You just cannot screw around with the settings or it will not work and I don't know enough about it to fix everything, but I know enough so that if I were the only one using it, it probably wouldn't break. I mean it's not rocket science here. You get the projector remote, turn on the projector, then you hit the main system power switch, then the DVD player already turns on when you have done that, you put the DVD or LD in, you switch on both audio power switches, one for the system sound and one for the system sound lights (but this isn't really necessary, just shows you the sound from each speaker), then you grab the DVD remote so you can press "enter" when the menu comes up and the play option is there. It really is not that hard, or if you want to watch a VHS movie you switch the input mode on the main module, but that's super easy too.

I have no idea what these people do to screw it up, but I had to mess around with it a bit to get Jay and Silent Bob working the other day.

If you leave the projector on, then it really screws it up, we had to replace the thing once already because someone left it on and burned an image into the screen. Ugg :(

I really want to get a chance to see The Musketeer on DVD down there soon, but I've been too busy. Speaking of which, that studio called me yesterday. They thanked me because apparently I am the only person who bought The Musketeer on DVD so far ;) LOL, just kidding. But hey, I loved that movie, everyone else hated it, hehe.

[JMK]

Sweet fancy moses Jon, your place sounds bigger than an actual movie theater. Do you have any pictures of the theater? I'd love to see something like that so that way I can show my gf that what I have planned is really not that bad! :D

[JonathanLB]

I should take some photos with my dad's new digital camera. I need to use it for work anyway, so when I do, I'll take some pictures to put up on an area of my site (private, hehe).

[foxdvd]

Do you still have those pics of your house Jon?

[JonathanLB]

What ones were those?

I don't think I have any pictures on this computer of the house. Hehe, actually I have stills from that movie we filmed in this house, so that kind of counts, but those are not well lit that's for sure.

Hopefully I can get some pictures soon, though, it would be nice.