Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Home Cinema Done Right?

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Posted by Louie Gonsalves (Member # 7097) on 09-10-2012, 08:27 PM:

What are the things that go a long way to make Home Cinema Done Right? Does the gear matter than the room, or is it the other way around?

To me, the room makes or breaks the cinema. I didn't used to think like this until I made my current room and saw the finished picture and sound was a lot better than it was before. To be honest, the picture showed the most improvement.

After a few tries (three with CRT TV, this is the 2nd with projector), I think I got it right, but what made it possible was buying a house. I was a rental apartment guy until 2 years ago and took a 9x11 bedroom and made it into my cinema. So here are the lessons I learned in what it takes to make a home cinema be like a real cinema:

Block all windows. Drapes / blinds not enough. I boarded mine from the inside with a plywood plug, and filled the gap between plug and glass with foam peanuts. The screen goes in front of one such window, and shelving in front of the other. No one hears me, I can't hear anyone. Especially the psycho jack russel that lives in the house behind mine and barks at things that aren't there.
Flat black ceiling and screen wall. This is probably the single biggest factor in having a cinema-like presentation. I've seen pictures of real cinemas with white ceilings.. isn't that like an instant fail? It sure was in my apartment. Many times I see home cinemas in magazines or on the web with white ceilings.
Rich, dark-ish side and back walls, no shinier than eggshell. Mine are glidden 'soft sapphire' which is really a lightened cobalt with a spit of red in it, in eggshell. Probably the second biggest factor in having a cinema-like presentation.
Design around the seating. Chair first. I never thought the chair itself would dictate where the screen goes! This is the first time I actually paid attention to the chairs. I used to just use a couch. I ended up with Ikea Poang with matching footstools, a cantilevered wood laminate chair that puts you a bit laid back, head looking up a bit, relaxed body and neck. This forced me to raise the screen so the top is almost near the ceiling.. which freed up room to put big speakers under the screen (vs. a miserable little "center" channel). Poang's so light it's a no-brainer to move around. I have 3 of 'em, but the room's really only big enough for one.. when I have company, I can reconfigure for 2 or 3 chairs in less than 5 minutes.
Properly sized screen. Mine's 7 years old, but was sized for a 9-foot viewing distance.. it's 7 ft by 4, 1.77 ratio. 1.0 gain, "Classic Cinema White." Made by Carada in Alabama, alum box frame, very stiff, with a fully tensioned vinyl sheet. No sags! Frame is fully finished in black velvet. Price? 1/2 of what a comparable made-in-china Da-Lite with a flimsier frame went for. The vinyl is amazing, even tho I used to smoke for 2 out of the 7 years I've had it, there's been no yellowing. It had tape stick to it when I moved -- no damage. It got leaned against a box corner, making a huge pimple on it.. I thought it was a goner.. next day, pimple was gone. Highly recommend Carada.
3 identical speakers up front, with surrounds coming from the same speaker family. Mine are 3 SF2 up front and 2 SB2 in rear, from the Synergy family from Klipsch, bought them in 2002. I couldn't believe how drastic the change was going from a little "center" speaker to having 3 identical speakers up front. The little "center" was from the Synergy family, but it was still sub-optimal.
Horns are preferred for two reasons (at least). 1 - they provide dynamics and impact that IME others can't match and 2 - they need less power than other designs, making for less expensive receiver / amps to drive 'em with and still have tons of headroom for things like Master and Commander or big orchestral music. I only wish mine had horn midrange too. They only have horn tweets, crossing over at about 2.something khz.
Receiver of the highest clarity one can get with enough power to ensure you never clip. Doesn't have to be pricey. It just has to play nice with whatever speakers are in the room. I use what is probably the most heretical piece of audio gear ever, the panasonic xr55. Weighs 5 pounds. 7 channels plus sub out. Sounds very much like tubes. Coupled with the Synergies, my little toy cinema has a very classic sound presentation. Not quite altec a4's driven by 300B tubes, but.. in a similar spirit, if you will -- full, deep, rich, clean, clear, detailed. It can do a seductive whisper in the ear accompanied by the shfffft of silk slipping on skin, to the subtle "sproing" screen left and aft that alerted Dumbledore to Slughorn's armchair disguise in HP 6, or break your chestbone with the *BANG* of a naval gun in Master and Commander, and anything in between. And even with that said, they could be better, much better, if only I had the room size and $ to go with Cornwalls or Fortes instead. I desperately want a midrange horn crossing to the woofer at under 700hz, but I can't do it. Not in this room.
Carpeted floor if acoustics and color demands it -- in my case, the floor is very light tile, making for a horribly reflective room (both light and sound). Blockbuster carpet from Joy Carpets fixed both problems in one shot. Mine's the navy one over 1/2" rubber pad.
Projector -- doesn't have to be expensive. I get along with a 720p panasonic ax200. Sharp corner-to-corner. 1080 will come later on, I'm freezing any projector expense due to Panasonic's debut of their first lampless designs. I bet in 3 years they'll have that technology in their home projectors. I'm sick of replacing my tiny 230w lamp every 2000 hrs to the tune of $350. Can't imagine how you guys feel having to replace a 4kw xenon every xxxx hours.
Attention to detail - no slop. Sharp paint edges. Hide wires. Things like that.
Lighting -- if recessed cans aren't practical, then go spots on tracks. I went with 14 MR16 12-volt fixtures on tracks, most of them are 10* 20w spots to light up various objects d'art and parts of the carpet, and floods to light up the bookshelves, all of it tied to a dimmer. I made little scrims out of business cards, painted them black, and put them strategically on the lights with zip ties to minimize light falling on the screen. I can have the house lights fairly high without washing out the picture.
Calibration - pink the room and make sure each speaker is as close to 0db from the others as possible. Run the projector in a cinema mode, or properly calibrate it with the right gear, or hire someone to do it. I lack both the equipment and the $, so I just ran with panasonic's Cinema 1. Looks "right" to me. Turn off all bogus sound processing like "hall" effects, etc. On the projector, turn off frame interpolation and other enemies of film-like presentation. Turn off dynamic range compression on both the source(s) and the receiver / decoder.

I truly belive it's the room that matters the most. Middling equipment in an outstanding room will do better than outstanding equipment in a mediocre room. Or so I think..
Once I got it all finished and had put in the bookshelves, lined up and focused the projector and calibrated the sound and picture, I had my best friend over. He didn't get to see the thing under construction. He stepped in and with a long low whistle said "This looks just like a real theater, not a home theater." Then we rolled Master and Commander, uncompressed, low voices about 40db and cannonfire about 95. 55db dynamic range. He then said "Sounds better than any theater here, and looks sharper." We both saw this in the Muvico 18 when it originally released. Their low end was flatulent, perhaps a broken sub driver?
Best compliment any home cinema can get. "Looks and sounds like the real thing, not like a home cinema."

Total investment: 2 months labor (all me save for the carpet). The speakers are 10 years old. The screen and receiver are 7, the projector's 3. The tracks, tracklights and dimmer are 6 years old. All that gear put together plus the paint, wires, chairs, lights, etc is less $ than the big plasmas - which aren't 7 ft wide yet. [Wink]

And the last piece to complete the illusion:

Never show a blank screen. I don't have curtains, but I do have an oil-wheel projector from Mathmos that projects a circular image of moving oil and water of various colors, similar to a lava lamp. I made an aperture plate for it out of business card to constrain the top and bottom of the image to my screen and placed it in the slide carrier. A trick I learned from Teatro Paramount in Santurce, PR; the only cinema I've ever seen use an oil wheel in lieu of curtains or ads or trivia. This oil wheel machine was bought used from a co-worker.

The only other things I could possibly add to put this toy cinema over the top would be four-way masking, and motorized screen curtains with a painted or embroidered logo.. my toy cinema's name is "Cinema Ink and Paint" -- I love cartoons. [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-10-2012, 09:02 PM:

Assuming that we are talking about video (though I've probably seen more home film screening rooms than video-only rooms), the big things for me are:

- 2.35 (2.39, whatever) screen with proper masking--video people almost never get masking right for some reason, despite the fact that it makes a huge difference in the viewing experience

- speakers behind screen or at least immediately above or below it--not on the floor or in the ceiling; also, something that reasonably approximates cinema loudspeakers...not little cube speakers or Muzak-style ceiling speakers

- sound system properly calibrated

- room and screen size in proper proportion, with some kind of acoustical treatment to keep noise out

- all material shown in the correct aspect ratio and sound format

Honestly, though, it's all just an approximation of the real thing. Movies look, sound, and feel different in a big room than in a small one. I'd rather watch movies in a theatre than pretty much any screening room (with the possible exception of Brad's). And, no, a 60" plasma TV with a Blu-Ray player and some cheesy home speakers does not constitute a "home theatre." Admittedly, I'm a bit cheap about this...my apartment has a 20" CRT TV and 16mm; sound is through my home stereo. My neighbor's apartment has 16mm and 35mm. But if I want a real cinema experience, I'll go to a theatre after hours.

At some point, I would like to see a really good video room in someone's home. I'm sure that the really high-end versions are pretty decent.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 09-10-2012, 11:36 PM:

That's one of my life goals Scott: a truly state of the art home theatre (non-cinema equipment). I've got some amazing ideas, just haven't created the income yet to put it into practice.

And trust me, I wouldn't screw up the masking. [Smile]

AJG

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 09-11-2012, 12:25 PM:

Louie,

If you are not already aware of them, the following forums are dedicated specifically to home theatre and will probably be of interest to you.

AVS Forum

Home Theatre Forum

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 09-11-2012, 03:08 PM:

No room dimension should be half or double another dimension. For example if your room is 14 feet wide it should be more or less than 28 in length and more or less than 7 in height. Apparently this has some bearing on the way low frequencies move around the room.