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A Room with a Queue
Create a movie theater in your home
by Josh Kimball
At the most basic level, making a media room is easy. A home theater system consists of a television and a surround-sound system with five or six speakers and a receiver. That's all you really need. But a good media room can be much more than that. You can make your home theater exponentially better if you plan before you buy.
First of all, keep an eye on your pocketbook so that your spending stays in check. It's easy to spend big.
Since performance is what most people look for in a home theater, it's important not to skimp on the quality of your components. Look to the future. One or more of these situations will come up—and sooner than you think: Technology will change, your tastes will change, or you'll have money burning a hole in your pocket. No matter which occurs, you won't want to scrap your equipment and start all over again. That's why it's always best to bank on equipment that's easy to upgrade. Sometimes that means passing up cheaper—but less popular—brands, and sometimes it means doing extra research into technological trends.
Integrating your home theater into your media room's design is more important than ever. No longer is it acceptable to plant a pair of monster speakers in the middle of the family room like a pair of end tables. And why should blocky equipment take up space that could be better used? Flat, ultra-thin speakers, flatscreen televisions and other products with equally streamlined designs allow theater components to blend more easily with your home's decor, letting the entertainment—rather than the bulky equipment—take center stage.
Lay the foundation
If you plan to build a home, choose a design that has the living spaces that best fit your needs. Those looking for a place to gather and watch sporting events or television shows should pick a plan that has a media room near a game room or a family room. Kirby Fleming, lead designer at Estate Creations, says "Media rooms and game rooms often complement each other." Fleming suggests "merging game rooms with media rooms to create large, open areas for more all-around entertaining."
Often though, people want their media rooms as places of escape, rather than as places to gather. They want a spot that's set up "so you more or less feel like you're going to a movie theater," says Fleming. If you want a room in your home where you can get that cinematic experience, Fleming recommends picking a plan with a media room on the upper floor, away from high-traffic areas. Since most media rooms don't need natural light, many versatile and underutilized rooms can be easily converted to home theaters.
What goes where
If only two or three people will be watching at any one time, it will be much easier to optimize the viewers' experience. "Less is more," says Bill Anderson, president of Genesis Audio, a home theater installation company in Irvine, California. "Fewer seats are usually better, because the quality of sound and video at the sweet spot can be greater. It's harder to control the quality as the room gets larger." That sweet spot–the location in the room where the sound and the picture are best–is where every couch potato longs to be.
You'll need to position your furniture so that the viewer not only gets an earful of great sound, but is at peak viewing distance from the television. For 27-inch to 32-inch screens, viewers should be about 8-10 feet away. Measure your room, then eyeball a television before you buy it.
If you're looking for perfection, want a large-scale home theater or are fussy about the quality of your sound and the particulars of your layout, consult with a professional home theater installer. If you're installing the home theater yourself, just make sure you have clear sight lines, a visually pleasing distance between the television and where you'll be sitting, and optimally arranged speakers.
Now it's time for the big ticket. Like moths to the flame, people find the mind-numbing allure of that big-screen boob tube irresistible. "Most folks will pick a big picture first, simply because it's the visual element and it's easy to sell themselves on," says Anderson. "This choice typically drives the purchase of the rest—bringing it all together."
Soon, all of the major networks will broadcast digital signals, so if a new television is part of your plan, make sure your TV will support that format. If you don't have a high- or standard-definition TV, you'll still be able to watch the programming, you'll just be seeing a normal picture.
New flat-screen and rear- and front-projection televisions will support high-definition TV, but for each of these, you'd better have a fat wallet. Flat televisions have all kinds of benefits—no distortion, bright contrast and colors, plus a depth as thin as six inches. Rear- and front-projection televisions are also options for the consumer with around $5,000 to spend. The projection televisions offer bigger screens—but have much larger price tags.
You can also purchase televisions with components that will allow you to upgrade, letting you use high-definition television in the future. If you're interested in purchasing a home theater that will last, a television capable of high-definition is a must.
Putting boom in the room
The surround-sound system your theater uses is what makes your media room pop. A prime component of that system is the receiver that routes all of the sound information (i.e., which sound should come from which speaker) from your DVD, cable TV or compact disk player to your speakers. You'll need to choose from among three main formats: Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Digital and DTS (Dolby Theater Sound). The Dolby Pro Logic is the least expensive format, with the most limited sound quality. With the popularity of DVD players, Dolby Digital has become the standard for home theaters. On the upper end, DTS has the highest fidelity sound of the three systems, but right now, only three percent of DVD movies are encoded to use this system.
Home theaters usually use five or six speakers. To get the fullest quality sound, opt for a speaker package that includes a sub-woofer. Sub-woofers hit the low notes, and they're integral to hearing the full range of a movie's sound.
To have the best sound, you don't need stacks of speakers clogging your halls or taking up floor space. According to Anderson, one of the keys to creating a quality media room is to unobtrusively fit sound equipment into a room's layout. "There are several products that we use that allow us to do a room very nicely, to the point that most items are completely invisible," he says.
Even with the best speakers money can buy, the acoustics of a room can make your sound system boom or bust. Don't deep-six a room that sounds dead the first time you pop in a movie, though. "Changes in furniture and the use of a few panels can address most imperfections in acoustics," offers Anderson.
Lights, camera . . .
If you read up on home theaters before you reach for your credit card, you'll be in good shape. Don't be intimidated by fast-talking sales staff who try to tell you what you "need." Just keep in mind how much you can afford, how easily you can upgrade the equipment, and how smoothly your theater will fit into your home.
Now grab a drink, tether the remote control to your wrist and crank up your home theater.
Toys:
With your home theater components in place, you don't want to be left staring at a blank screen with an electronic buzz filling your ears. An ever-expanding variety of entertainment options ensures that you'll never suffer that dreaded horror. Here's a quick rundown of some of the stuff that's out there.
DVD
More and more movies are coming out on DVD, and the features they include can be great fun. With picture and sound quality that blows VHS tapes out of the room, DVDs' extras, such as bonus footage, director's commentary, foreign language soundtracks and footage explaining how scenes of the film were shot come in handy for the cinema connoisseur. It's a quantum leap in quality from VHS to DVD–and dropping prices in DVDs ($15 to $20 is the norm, but older movies can be had for $5 to $10) mean making that leap is a no-brainer.
Cable packages
A hardwire cable connection will still get you enough channels to turn your brain to mush. And they're adding options all the time in order to keep up with wireless technologies. In addition to your basic cable, you can receive digital cable, high-definition cable and video on demand—a system that allows you to download movies instantly. With updated features, cable television is still a good value. Packages cost around $30 to $70 per month.
Satellite television
Perfect for channel surfers, satellite television gives you as much variety in your daily viewing diet as you can afford. Companies such as DirecTV offer programming packages limited only by your budget. Basic packages provide about 45 channels and cost around $20 per month. If you can't be content with just 45 channels, though, there are plenty more. Packages showcasing a host of movie channels, national and regional sports networks, and specialty lifestyle programming can be added or dropped, depending on how much money you're willing to spend. A premium subscription costs about $85 per month.
TiVo
Not a content provider, but more of a "manager" for your programming, this system allows you to pause and rewind live TV and can automatically record television programs for later viewing. TiVo is best for viewers who know what they want–though not necessarily when they want it. TiVo recording devices from companies such as Sony and Phillips are compatible with almost all cable and satellite television systems and cost $300 to $400.
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