Posts Tagged ‘home theater’

Movie Theater Quality Sound At Home

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Do you like going to the movie theater and get lost in the realism that their top-quality sound systems create? If you do, then I bet you are also one of those people who hates going there, only to have a potentially fantastic evening spoiled by irresponsible people talking through the film or letting their cell phones ring.

I used to be fond of the movie theater, but that was in the days when people respected the rights of others to listen to a movie in silence. There were no crying babies, ringing mobile phones or noisy youths in cinemas and if they got in they were soon kicked out if there was any noise.

Nowadays, cinema managers seem to take the easy route of letting these people spoil it for others. As a result, more and more quiet people are staying at home and the cinemas are becoming even noisier. If you are one of the stay-at-homes, but miss the cinema, why not recreate one in your home?

Build yourself a home cinema with surround sound. You will never regret installing surround sound in your home, because you will be able to play your favourite films, the TV and your music through it. The distinction between surround sound and stereo or even quadraphonics is breath-taking.

Different people have different requirements, aspirations, finances and even hearing ability, so it is tricky to recommend a system to a mass audience, but there are strategies for going about the purchase of your own home theater system. A lot of people buy a kit home theater. This is fine, if funds are limited, but you will want to upgrade the screen and the speakers before very long. If you just want to put a home theater in a small spare bedroom and do it quickly and easily, then this approach is for you.

If, however, you want a bit more, then you might prefer to get a bigger screen but make do with the speakers that came with the kit. These can easily be upgraded later. If you want to get everything part by part, you will need a screen, speakers and DVD player. If you would like to play games too, replace the DVD player with an Xbox.

But back to the speakers, whether you are renewing or putting your own system together, the strategy I suggest hold true. Write down the dimensions of your room or better still make a little plan of it to scale. Take this around the shops and malls and try to listen to a few set-ups in a room similar to your own. This could be difficult, but you might be fortunate.

Decide whether you need a 3.1; 4.1; 5.1; 6.1 or even 7.1 set of compatible surround sound speakers. Basically, it all depends on the size of your room, but the shop assistant will be able to demonstrate and advise you. As a guideline, a 5.1 surround sound set will be sufficient for most rooms. The figures stand for normal speakers and sub-woofers: ie 5.1 means five normal speakers and one sub-woofer.

The arrangement of the speakers depends on the size and shape of the room and on your personal preference, but the standard layout would be: one speaker the far left and far right of the screen and one underneath it with two more speakers slightly apart from each other at the back of the audience. The sub-woofer can go at the front or the rear.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with wireless home theater systems. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

Selecting A Screen For Your Home Theater

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

If you are considering setting up a home theater system, then there are three essential pieces of equipment to consider. They are the screen, the speakers and the player. Two of these pieces of equipment are directly related to the size of the room in which you will be sitting and where you will be seated.

All DVD players over a certain price are fairly good and you ought to listen to a couple to make up your mind. The same with speakers, although how many you will need is dependent on the dimensions of the room. The screen is more important and that is what I want to talk about here.

It will not actually be of very much help to you to just walk into a department store which stocks fifty or sixty television sets all in rows. You may find that you have a preference for one screen’s colour display over another, but the colours are controllable anyway by brightness, contrast and colour mix. You need to view the screen as it will be seen in your home theater.

In order to do this, I always advise getting a pen, paper, preferably graph paper, and a rule. Draw in the proportions of the room to the largest scale that the sheet of paper allows, maybe one inch for two feet or there abouts. Then draw a line to represent the screen against whichever wall you choose and finally add a few squares for the seating. Now measure the space between them and write that figure down, because it is very important.

Using our scale above, if the gap on paper between the screen and the seating is five inches, the distance in the room will be ten feet and ten feet is 120 inches. A good rule of thumb, when trying to work out screen size is the same one used for paintings, which is that the ideal viewing distance of a picture is between three and five times its diagonal measurement. Therefore, in our illustration, the ideal screen size should be between 40 and 24 inches. However, many experts put a minimum screen size for a home theater at 28 inches.

That may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you, because a lot of people think that the solution is the bigger the better. However, primed with this information, now go to the TV store and look at the models again. You will find that if you get up too close to some sorts of screen the picture becomes rather poor, particularly with conventional television screens. Plasma and HDTV allow you to get a little closer without losing quality.

Another factor is your age, or at least, the quality of your eyesight. Would you rather watch the film with your glasses on or off? Off for me, so I would tend towards the higher end of our scale or maybe even go above it. My eyes are not going to get any better, but I can always put my glasses on when the time comes that I cannot see my screen properly any longer. However, I want to put that time off for a while yet, so I would go for a 48 inch screen in this illustration for my home theater. Plasma, if I could afford it.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Home Theater Screens. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site.

Electric Massage Home Cinema Chairs

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

After you have finished planning the layout of your home theater, the next step is to settle on the accessories. Things like floor covering, lighting, decoration, curtains, and furnishings, like a small fridge, some small tables and chairs. If you are planning your home cinema just for yourself, then maybe you can afford to really splurge out on a really top end home cinema chair.

After a hard day’s work or exercise, your muscles can become taut, especially in your neck and shoulders. The best way of relieving this is some destressing exercise like yoga or a massage, but most people do not want to take up yoga postures after work, so they would go for a massage.

This is all well and good, but then you would have to shower, get changed and drive down there and sometimes you just can not be bothered. You could phone a massage parlour and have them send someone to your house! That sounds great, but no, you are not going to do that either.

So, why not go for the next best thing. Get yourself an electric massage chair for your home theater? You could kill two birds with one stone. You could spend an hour and a half watching a film, while getting all those aches and pains gently worked away.

A massage chair can never totally replace a masseur or masseuse, but many regular massage parlour goers say that it is a good second best. The point is though, that you can have a soothing massage every day of the week, which some people say is preferable to one heavy massage once a week. You masseur or masseuse right there in your own home cinema willing to work for pennies a massage any time of the day or night and while you are at the movies too! Think of it!

Using an electric massage chair as your home cinema chair (or one of them) is a great idea. While your mind is being taken off your daily troubles and strife, so your body is being relieved of the tensions that have built up there too. You can recline in your home cinema chair and have the head rest massage your neck, while the back rest massages your lumber region, soothing away those aches and pains in a gentle, but efficient way.

The great majority of these electric massage chairs come with a remote control, so it is very easy to switch cycles on and off or repeat them at will. Some are programmable too, so that you could build up your own massage sequence, once you get used to what your new home cinema massage chair can do.

Imagine having it start at your neck and calves at the same time with the two massage points slowly converging on the small of your back. Or beginning at the small of your back and then radiating up and down your body at the same time. You would need two masseurs to do that and all while you are sitting in your home cinema chair watching a movie.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with the Home Theater Chair. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

Home Theater Set-Up And First Rate Speakers

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Home theaters are very popular in the West now for many reasons, but partly due to the recession. However, I predict that after the downturn is over, home theaters will take off like a rocket. In my opinion, this is because, the recession has forced people to examine their spending, which normally means cutting back. Going out, eating out and movies are all in the front line of these cuts. However, the slump is upsetting and people have to get some enjoyment from somewhere.

In the medium to long term, it is cheaper to put together a home theater for a family than take them to a proper movie theater every week. Taking a family of four to the movies costs $50-$100, whereas a decent home theater might cost $1,000. It does not take long to recoup those costs. And it saves you the bother of travelling there and back, the noise and mobile phones during the film and high prices for candy and snacks.

OK, maybe people at the moment are buying cheap packages of home theaters, but one of the first things they will replace when they get a bit of money again will be the speakers, I bet. Evidently, you need a good quality, large screen, but after that, it is the sound and the bulwark to good sound is usually poor speakers.

The most important factor in the design of your home theater is the dimensions of your room. If the room is small, you will not have need of so many speakers. Perhaps three speakers will be sufficient, if the room is small. However, if you only need three speakers and a sub-woofer, get good ones.

If you have a bigger room however, the basic three home theater speakers may not be enough. You may need to put up to six speakers and a sub-woofer around the room. The position of these speakers is up to you and can depend on the shape or and size of the room anyway, but typical layouts are:

3.1 system: one speaker to the left of the screen, one to the right and one below it. You can put the sub-woofer on top of the central speaker or at the back of the room. Try it and see.

5.1 system: as 3.1, but with two speakers at the back of the room too.

6.1 system: as 5.1, but with another speaker between the rear speakers, as in the front.

7.1 system: as 6.1, but with two speakers central rear, slightly away from each other. You can move the existing rear speakers around to the sides too.

This set-up requires a lot of wires as you can envisage. Now, you could staple the wires to the skirting board, but you should only do that after you are dead sure that you have the speakers in the right positions. Or you could hang the speakers on the walls. However, although that sounds good for music, it does not always sound all right for a movie.

The best option is wireless speakers. Wireless speakers can be moved around to suit the number of people watching the film or moved out for cleaning or redecorating purposes. You do not want to bash your nice, new, expensive speakers with the vacuum cleaner, do you?

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with wireless home theater systems. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.

Xbox And Your Home Theater

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

There are several video game systems on the market, but if you are looking for a game system that also can be used for home theater entertainment, then the right choice has to be the Xbox game console. Usually, it is the case that children will want to play games in the daytime on holidays and before bed during the week, whereas parents will want to watch films at night before retiring to bed. Therefore, the two age groups need not clash often with their use of the home theater system.

Therefore, if you can get a device that fulfills both the roles of playing games and playing films, you can save some money. The Xbox game console fits this role, because the Xbox is one of the new generation of video game consoles that can also play films on DVD or whatever disk format.

The Xbox is actually a very hi-tech piece of equipment, something that non-game players might not have realized. It meshes easily with a home theater system because it has wide screen video capability, HDTV screen resolutions and Dolby Digital and DTS sound support, making it a perfect home theater set-up component.

The Xbox is also a good looking piece of equipment, which will suit any existing black home theater equipment you may already own. It does not look like just a plastic toy. It was invented by Microsoft and has a powerful, stylish look. The Xbox’s case is black with an X on it and a green Xbox logo resembling a jewel.

The Xbox is essentially a cut-down computer as it has many parts of a personal computer like an Intel processor, NVidia graphic chips and an internal hard drive among others. PC’s are general purpose tools, whereas the Xbox is designed for playing DVD’s in more ways than one. In other words, it is a dedicated computer. It is dedicated to the task of playing DVD’s and it does it very well.

However, it also has four controller sockets in the front of the box for connections and it has an Ethernet socket for multi player games that allows other gamers on the Internet to take part in the game. The Xbox system includes as standard: the controllers with a 9 ft cable, a standard AV cable, and an AC power cord. It also comes with a DVD loading tray and a multi signal audio-video connector for easy connection to televisions and other home theater systems.

The Xbox will change the way you think about games and how you play them, because it is so committed to making interactive games a reality and as exciting as possible. Games are written especially for it such as the Dead or Alive series and the Halo series too.

However, their are sports games to be had too such as football and Formula 1 motor car racing. The graphics, sound and overall reality are fabulous. Finally, for parents who are worried about what their kids are watching, playing or doing, there are parental controls built into the Xbox.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Home Theater Screens. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site.

Home Movie Theater: Screens

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

When it comes to choosing a projection or TV screen, the first consideration is the type of screen you want or even may need. If the room where you are setting up your home movie theater is large, then you will need to have a home theater projection screen or maybe you just want to go down that route anyway.

I, personally, like the idea of having a drop-down screen, but sometimes you have to have one even in a modestly-sized home movie theater. It would convert your living room into a home movie theater. Imagine: you recline in your chair; click the remote and a screen drops down; click another remote and the lights dim; click another one and the film commences!

However, if you prefer a television screen, then you might be considering buying a new one. They say that a 27 inch screen is big enough, but I do not think it is. I really think you need 48-60 inches, but then I am a baby-boomer and my eyes are definitely not what they used to be.

If you are purchasing a new TV for your home movie theater, I think you should get the latest model. HDTV is already here and since February 2009 the USA is committed to High Definition. So, I would make sure that your new television is capable of receiving it. Then I suggest that the new home movie theater screen is a flat one in order to reduce the annoying glare that could ruin your experience, which could be another reason for choosing a projection screen.

Then you should ensure that the new television has enough input and output sockets for the equipment you plan to use and youre done. So, to summarize, I would go for:

At minimum a 27 inch screen

A flat screen

HDTV compliant

Plenty of input and output plugs

Satellite compliant

I recommend satellite compatibility because it is probably the future or near future at least. If you get a satellite TV connection you will have access to HDTV downloads which you can watch whenever you like.

Are you thinking of installing a Custom Home Movie Theater? Then visit our website at Home Theater

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Home Theater: Lighting

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Light fittings are things that not that many of us think about very often. However, the way we light a room can cause us to feel a certain mood or enhance the atmosphere we want to create in that room. There are many types of light fixtures, fittings, bulbs, shades and stands to suit all areas of the home. That means both indoors and even outdoors where you might want to emphasize some special landscape feature.

Are you planning to redo a room? In this case, I know it concerns a home movie theater room, but it could be any room. I think that you should definitely consider light fixtures as one element to change. For example, you could start by changing the central, overhead incandescent bulb or tube light for sure.

I suggest that you install four or even six small wall-lights. They are not expensive and come in hundreds of colours and sizes to suit any pocket. The only drawback with wall lighting for your home theater, is that the wires should really be cut into the wall so as not to be unsightly.

However, you could avoid this by using standard lamps. These are also available in a myriad of designs, but they come with two drawbacks: namely trailing wires and a higher cost. They are moveable though. Small, table lamps is a sub-class alternative, but you may need more electrical points.

Once you have decided exactly on what style you want, have a dimmer attached to each either in unison or separately, as you like. You should probably keep one reasonably powerful light at the DVD end of the room just in case the equipment needs attention, but it too could be on a dimmer.

The effect can be stunning. And all from just changing the existing light fixtures and fittings. You could even go the whole hog and have an exit sign over the door or a few speciality lights higher up out of line of sight so that they are not distracting ” say, a 1970s style lunar lamp and a fibre-optic lamp, for amusement or as a talking point while waiting for the film or snacks to be prepared.

So, whatever type of home theater lighting you are looking for, contemporary or old style traditional, you will find many options to choose from. From different colors to different sizes and styles, there are many. You can find them online or in home improvement stores. I have made a link to one of my online favourites below.

And, when you do make the changes, you will notice that your home theater has taken on an ambiance all of its own and it will ” guaranteed ” enhance your home theater experience. It may be these subtle changes, room by room, that make you see your home in a completely different light.

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Home Theater Lighting

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Light fixtures are things that not many of us think about very often. However, the way we light a room can cause us to feel a certain way or enhance the atmosphere we want to create in that room. There are many types of light fixtures, fittings, bulbs, shades and stands to suit all areas of the home. That means both indoors and even outdoors where you might want to emphasize some special landscaping design.

Are you planning to redo a room? In this case, I know it concerns a home movie theater room, but it could be any room. I think that you should definitely consider light fixtures as one element to change. For example, you could start by changing the central, overhead incandescent bulb or tube light for sure.

I would suggest installing four or even six small wall-lights. These are not expensive and come in hundreds of colours and sizes to suit any pocket. The only drawback with wall lighting for your home theater, is that the wires should really be cut into the wall so as not to be unsightly.

However, you could avoid this by using standard lamps. These are also available in a myriad of designs, but they come with two drawbacks: namely trailing wires and a higher cost. They are moveable though. Small, table lamps is a sub-class alternative, but you may need more electrical points.

Once you have decided exactly on what style you want, have a dimmer attached to each either in unison or separately, as you like. You should probably keep one reasonably powerful light at the DVD end of the room just in case the equipment needs attention, but it too could be on a dimmer.

The effect can be stunning. And all from just changing the existing light fixtures and fittings. You could even go the whole hog and have an exit sign over the door or a few speciality lights higher up out of line of sight so that they are not distracting ” say, a 1970s style lunar lamp and a fibre-optic lamp, for amusement or as a talking point while waiting for the film or snacks to be prepared.

So, whatever style home theater lighting you are thinking of, contemporary or old style traditional, you will find many options to pick from - from different colors to different sizes and styles, there are many. You can find them on the Internet or in home improvement stores. I have made a link to one of my online favourites below.

Furthermore, when you do make the changes, you will notice that your home theater has taken on an atmosphere all of its own and it will “definitely|guaranteed” enhance your home theater experience. It may be these subtle changes, room by room, that make you see your home in a very different light.

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Creating a Custom Home Theater

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

Watching movies is a great escape from the stressful life we all live these days. Watching movies on a wide screen system with surround sound can transport you far away from that stress and into the movie you are watching. You allows you to experience the plot it as if you were actually there in the movie itself.

Until recently, we could only experience this sort of escapism in a cinema. However, modern technology is able to provide the same audio-visual experience right in your own living room. We will discuss the starter components of a home theater system in this article. Read on to understand how these basic components can deliver the best cinematic experience possible in a custom home theater system.

Home theater experts state that the most important consideration in setting up a custom home theater system is the size of the room where you will set up the home theater system. The most important component of your custom home theater system, which is the television, is dependent on the size of the room, although the recommendation is that a 27 inch television set is the minimum necessary for your home theater set up.

It is also recommended that a flat screen television be used for a home theater system because it shows minimum glare and produces a crisper image. Another major component in any custom home theater system also dependent on the size of the room, is the loudspeaker system.

The number of speakers for your custom home theater system is dependent on the size of the location. You need at least three speakers to create a believable surround sound, but you may have to place up to six speakers, if you want a more lifelike sound. Adding a subwoofer may also be a good way to achieve a complete surround sound like in the movie theaters. Three loudspeakers is really the bare minimum, but you may go up to six if the room is larger.

Another major piece of equipment for your custom home theater system is the digital DVD player. It is a recommendation that DVD players with a progressive scan are the best choice. This is because the progressive scan reproduces sharp, flicker-free images. However, this points back to the choice of television unit; you may need to check that your flat-screen television set supports progressive scan signals. You may also want to buy a five-disk carrousel DVD player. This will stop you having to get up from your chair to change discs quite so often.

A minor cause for thought is the power of the DVD player as that will determine how loud your loudspeakers can be played. Of course, almost all this depends on the size of the room in which the custom home theater system is going to be set up. Small rooms only need a few pieces of equipment, bigger rooms may call for more and adding some proprietary home theater furniture to your home theater system will make a huge difference. A bigger room therefore needs a larger investment. A smaller room might require less, but nevertheless high quality, equipment to prevent your home theater set-up under-performing and feeling ‘cheap’.

Finally, you may consider hiring a home theater expert in order to create a beautifully designed home theater system. If you can afford it, this is the best, because the home theater expert will be able to effectively design and set up your home theater system.

That custom home theater expert may also suggest the installation some additional features like specialized home theater seating and even other home theater furniture, such as small tables in order to make your home theater package complete and thereby make it more closely resemble an authentic movie theater. Having the finest and highest-quality custom home theater system will give you a most desirable installation, one that you can be proud of and that will enable you to enjoy your movies to the utmost.

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Will I Need a Home Movie Theater Projector?

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Going to the movies is a very popular recreational pastime especially for those young executives conducting very|considerably stressful lives running corporate affairs. However, for those who cannot afford to spend time travelling to and from movie theaters, the answer to this recreational dilemma could be just inside their own house.

You could recreate the audio-visual systems of the movie theaters with your very own custom home theater system. The best custom home theater installation certainly can consist of high quality components that are capable of rendering the complete movie theater experience without having to travel from your residence to the movie theater wasting time and effort queuing in heavy traffic. This modern technology can give you the relaxation and experience that full-sized movie theaters furnish.

The basic components, such as a big screen and speakers with clear and flicker free images from a high quality DVD, can easily provide an almost-authentic movie theater experience. Home theater experts recommend that before you decide on the final set-up and equipment for your custom home theater system, the size of the location must be the first consideration.

Therefore, if you have a small sized room for your home theater system, a television set may be best placed in the center of one wall and three loudspeakers, placed on the left, right and center, might be enough to provide the surround sound you want from a custom movie theater. However, if you have a bigger room, a home theater projector might be the best option for providing that big screen experience.

Home theater projector screens can provide an authentic movie theater experience. If you have a very large room for your home theater system, in combination with your home theater projector and home theater projector screen, you could add more speakers around the room. A further useful recommendation is that a subwoofer may also help to provide the optimum surround sound that will enable you to recreate the true sound of a movie theater in your own living room.

There are various designs and models of home theater projector you can choose from. You will need to understand the features of each one, before you decide on which one to buy. It may also be necessary for you to enlist the services of a home theater designer in order to get the home theater package that will give you the best entertainment. This will mean not needing to spend an unreasonable amount of time and money on your home theater system and home theater projector.

It is so easy to buy equipment with an unnecessarily large capacity for your home theater, especially if you do not know what the possible choices are and the various requirements that your home theater may have due to its dimensions. The size of your home theater projector screen should be a function of the size of your room and the components of your custom home theater. For example, from where you plan to sit to the screen should be between two and five times the diameter of the screen. So, looking at it from the other perspective, if you are going to sit 10 feet (120 inches) from the screen, then the screen should be 24-60 inches, but it is very subjective and depends on the viewers eyesight.

Your home theater expert might also propose options for your home theater that may not include a television set. Why? The reason for this is the technological innovations employed by computers and home theater projectors. Home theater projectors like InFocus screenplay models, for example, can be hooked up with a computer in a small room set-up. Home theater projectors are also lightweight and can be transported effortlessly. Therefore, a projector is very useful for employment in custom home theaters and business presentations.

Home theater projectors and home theater projector screens can help provide an authentic cinema-like experience. This kind of set-up is extremely useful for business presentations and so it is becoming more and more popular. Combining your custom home and custom office theater systems is a new innovation, which only very few intelligent consumers have thought of.

It may well be that being now cognizant of all these facts: ie, that a basic television set, three speakers and a DVD player can be enough for those people who only want a basic home theater system, you may come to the conclusion that you do not really need a home theater projector, especially if the location for your custom home theater system is not very big|large|.

Enjoy a cinematographic experience right in your very own home by researching your options carefully. Then you can enjoy the exhilaration a movie theater gives you without having to put up with boring traffic on the way back and fore from the movie theater.

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