Digital Home Theater

Ryland answers:

Comfortable Seating and viewing angles is
a good place to start. Be sure to place your
speakers in a position so you can hear all
of them equally, from your favorite vantage
point(s). I hope this will get you going in the
right direction. If you can get all this done to
your satisfaction; then you can decorate your
Theater to your taste! I wish you and yours well!

Ryland answers:

I like MM Home Cinema Design. This name reveals to the reader exactly what you do; there aren’t any questions about what the customer will get with the company. With a name like this, I’d find it easy to remember and easy to locate in a phone book.

Ryland answers:

CEDIA is the organization that trains and certifies home theater installers. I am in the business and I am certified by them. I can tell you that most companies only count on Cedia and usually that is the only training you will need. (However, they do not teach company specific things, like AMX and Crestron, the dealer will provide these trainings).

Check out www.cedia.net

Ryland answers:

Take a look at other home theaters on line and see what color scene they are using some of the better colors I have seen are a dark maroon; a dark brown, and blue, usually varied shades also look better than just one solid color like a maroon with brown trim or blue with gray combination.. I agree that a switch for the neon would be important, when you first set it up it may look really cool but after a while it may get annoying…also other lighting may also be important…

Ryland answers:

CEDIA

http://www.cedia.net/

They have various levels of certification:
http://www.cedia.net/education/certification.php

Ryland answers:

Purple and deep blues normally look the best for a room like that. However, it would depend on what else is in the room.

Ryland answers:

That requires a long answer and more information from you. Dedicated home theatres (HT) can cost $100K or more, or be built for a few thousand (including equipment).

Some questions to answer:
- What type of home theatre? For a small-medium TV/DVD combination? For music and video? For a projection setup?
- Where? If in an existing room, this will define some of the constraints. For example, seating distance will largely determine screen size. If a new room for the HT this has it’s own demands based on many variables.
- How fussy will you be about acoustics and sound proofing?
- What electrical and other wiring requirements are there? For example, do you require hidden wiring, connection to internet or a home network, or cable or satellite?

I don’t want to scare you, but many factors interrrelate and need to be worked through. The more you think about and plan the better the result will be.

You also need to be realistic. If you have limited funds you will want to do much of the work yourself, but do you have the expertise? A HT is great (I took a year to plan and build am just now enjoying the results .. And I’m not finished) but it is not an easy project to take on yourself.

Nuff said. Have a look at the construction and design threads on AVS Forum (See link to home page). Read all you can about home theatre equipment(e.g. For projectors read Projector Central. Consider seating and screen design .. See links) design ….. And go for what you can realistically take on.

Ryland answers:

The AVS Forum has loads of useful information on building a home theatre (HT). Look at the link below and browse through the various fora (left side, part way down on the home page) on room construction, screens, displays, etc. Also note the section on member HTs. The various postings also include a wealtth of links to other information sites.

Having built my own theatre I can strongly recommend doing a lot of reading before you begin because it is a “system” with many pieces interrelated. For example, size of room has an impact on seating, screen size, projector choice, amplifier and speaker selection, etc. It’s difficult to decide where to start, but I’d suggest defining how you intend to use the HT first (number of viewers, video only or video and music, type of display (i.e. Projector or TV)). This will help limit the other choices. Don’t forget to consider geometry (sight lines, height, size and shape of screen) and acoustics (both sound isolation and room acoustics).

Good luck.

Ryland answers:

Take a look at this software:

http://www.ajdesigner.com/speaker/index.php

Also you can get others, do a search for “speaker box design”
I wouldn’t like to discourage you, but in the long run it would cost you more to do it yourself, than if you buy a good but inexpensive system.
If you find satisfaction on doing it yourself, then go for it!
Speakers designed for cars aren’t the most suitable for the home, but they are OK. In addition to the box design, you would have to have the right cross-overs, but you may already have them.
A 5.1 receiver may have outputs that may not be suitable to drive your car speakers, but perhaps they would be OK, just know that this may be the case. Different speakers have different sensitivity, so some require more power than others to produce the same acoustical output. On a 5.1 system all of these are matched.
You can email me if you want, look at my profile.