Four Home Theater Room Projects

THREE HOME THEATER ROOM PROJECTS Copyright 2002

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3Four Home Theater Room P rojects

Four Home Theater Rooms

Doing things together comes naturally to the FrankFamily of Medfield, Massachusetts. Richard (Dad)runs Frank Marketing, a successful public relations

firm specializing in the marketing of consumer products.As a consumer electronics enthusiast for more than 25years, he’d seen a number of exciting home theaterinstallations come to fruition and decided the time hadcome for his family to get involved.

Richard contacted several custom electronics specialistsand got quotes on installed ready to use systems. “Thepeople we dealt with were very professional, but thequotes we got were substantial, well over 20 thousanddollars,” Richard recalls. “While we realized that we couldhave saved money by putting in a smaller (60”) rearscreen television, we knew that that would defeat thepurpose; a real home theater, with a cinema-like 100”picture, and nothing less.”Presented with a not so

uncommon dilemma, The family considered their options;they didn’t want to compromise on their dream hometheater, but with daughter Tracy in college, and son Wes,in high school, this was not the time to spend $20,000plus. After mulling it over for a while a solution presenteditself. Built it themselves!

After spending some time researching, ordering andreceiving the equipment, the Frank Family’s first task wasto install the motorized projection screen. The location forthis screen was unique. Richard wanted to hide it in thesoffit above the family room’s picture window (see diagramon the next page.) This was important to him because hewanted the room to do double duty; first as a comfortablefamily room, but, with the push of a button, converted intoa full fledged home theater room. Building the screen intothe soffit allowed this, because it could be rolled up whenthe home theater was not being used.

• The Frank Family Home Theater Room -------------------------------------------- 3• The Doyle Home Theater Room ----------------------------------------------------- 5• The Freeman Family Home Theater Room ----------------------------------------- 6• The Fiorentino Home Theater Room ----------------------------------------------- 13

Four Home Theater Room P rojects4

After the screen was mounted in the soffit, the next stepwas to physically mount the projection monitor. “I wasconcerned that this would be difficult,” Richard recalls, “butthe process wasn’t hard. We read through the installationguide step by step, and then simply went to it.”

The next step was to do the mechanical and electronicalignment of the front projector to the screen. Thisprocedure involves focusing the projection lenses andadjusting convergence controls. Richard explains:“Traditionally the electronic alignment of a front projector isdone by professional video firms, but CinemaSource

supplied me with a highly detailed manual that took methrough the procedure step by step. I would say theprocedure is roughly equivalent to tuning up a car;certainly not something every person should tackle, buteasily within the reach of a do-it-yourselfer.”

The final step in the Frank family installation was to installthe audio and video equipment and run all the cables.Although this did take a few days, Richard took time tobuild the equipment into a custom bookshelf and hide thewires, behind the walls and under the floor. This gave hishome theater room a professionally installed look. Thephotographs below show the completed system in action.

The Franks’ Family Room During The Day The Franks’ Family Room At Night

The CompletedHome Theater Room,

3D view

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The Doyle Home Theater Room P roject

The photos here illustrate the Doyle Family’sfinished home theater room.The walls are coveredwith maroon pattern wallpaper and a gold art deco

stripe encircles the room. A comfortable couch is theprimary audience seating location and dark velvetcurtains not only give a theater-like atmosphere to theroom but function as acoustical treatments. Around theperimeter of the room various framed theater postersand other theater signs can be seen. The primary videodisplay device, a DWIN HDP-500 front video projector, ishung via 2” threaded pipe from the ceiling. Theremaining Audio/Video equipment is mounted in arecessed rack located in the left corner of the room andwires to the speakers and video projector are concealedin the ceiling and in the walls. For speakers the AtlanticTechnology 350 system was chosen for true home THXsound quality. This room is a good example of what canbe done on a modest budget with a good dose of sweatequity.

Four Home Theater Room P rojects6

Before a single hammer was lifted,Dave freeman ofHolbrook, MA did several months of research intohome theater design. By purchasing the equipment

from the right paces and utilizing some A/V components healready had, Dave figured he could build his entire room forless than $6000. The following steps document theinstallation and calibration of the equipment.

Equipment used: A Zenith video projector PRO851 ($3500retail, $2800 street), a Vutec 100” Vu-Easy flat screen($491 retail, $442 street), an Atlantic Technology 250.1home theater speaker system ($1826 retail, $1299 street),a Pioneer VSX-505S Dolby ProLogic surround soundreceiver ($549 retail, $399 street), and a PanasonicPV4664 Hi-FI VCR ($449 retail, $349 street) and Misc.Liberty wire and cable interconnects and speaker wire ($138 total). The grand total: $5427

The ProposedHome Theater Room,

3D view

The Proposed Home TheaterRoom, Overhead View

The Freeman Family Home Theater Room P roject

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Next the screen was mounted onthe wall. The actual mounting of

the screen assembly was done byattaching four small “L” brackets

(provided by Vutec) to the wall withtoggle bolts, and then bolting the

screen onto them.

After the screen size wasdetermined, the installation

charts supplied by Zenith wereconsulted for the screen

mounting dimensions. As thediagram shows, the screen should

be mounted 3” from the ceiling.

L-Brackets

The next dimension to be obtainedfrom the installation charts wasthe projector mounting distance.For a 100” screen, it turns out

that the distance from thescreen surface to the center of

the projector bracket is also 100”.

The first step was to draw a sketch ofthe proposed room and decide the

audience seating position and best sizeprojection screen (see our article,

Optimum Room Dimensions, on page 22for guidance on this). Dave decided to

use a 100” diagonal screen.

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Because the ceiling in Dave’s home theaterroom is a standard suspended ceiling,attaching the ceiling mount bracket

securely to the floor joists above wasrelatively easy

Suspending the ceiling mountbracket requires some handiwork.The Zenith PRO851 projector is

heavy (110 lbs) so it must befastened securely to structural

members above the projector. Thediagram shows the method used.

Six heavy 5” drywall screws were used toattach each 2x4 support beam to the floorjoists. Threaded rods were then suspendedfrom the 2x4 beams and into the projector

ceiling mount bracket.

Care must be taken to make sure theprojector is mounted “square” to thescreen. In this diagram, the screen-

projector system is square when X1 = X2 and Y1 = Y2.

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After the wires are routed, then theprojector is hefted up onto the ceiling

mount. After it is securely bolted to themount, the power and video cables were

connected to the projector.

The audio system was thenext thing to be installed. This

diagram illustrates therouting of the speaker cables

to the speakers.

A local electrician was called in to install an ACduplex box above the projector mount. The

projector’s power cord was simply plugged into theoutlet. Once the ceiling tiles are put back in place

the duplex box and plug are completely hidden.

The actual wiring of thevideo section of Dave’s

home theater system israther simple. The diagram

shows how the videocomponents areinterconnected.

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The left and right front speakers wereplaced on stands that flank the screen.This allows the sound stage to closely

mirror the screen action and allows thespeakers to be angled at the audience

for optimum sound reproduction.

Sometimes simpler is better. The centerchannel speaker was just placed on a

small wooden shelf. The shelf andbrackets were painted white for minimum

The subwoofer was placed up in theright hand corner next to the wall unit.This location takes advantage of wall

boundary near field conditions so thatbass frequencies are reinforced.

The VCR, cable box and Pro-logic receiverwere placed in the wall unit and all

connections between components and tothe speakers were made.

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The surround speakers were hung viasupplied clips on the walls. The speaker

wires were snaked across thesuspended ceiling and down inside the

walls. They exit through a smallunfinished hole right behind each

surround speaker.

Since the PRO 851 lacks abuilt-in test pattern generator,

The Imaging ScienceFoundation’s Video Standarddisc was used as a source. (ARadioShack SPL meter was

later used to adjust thePrologic speaker levels.)

Now that the physical installation ofthe projector, speakers and all the A/V

equipment is complete, the aligningprocedures can start. First, we power

up the system and verify that allsystems work.

The dipole surround speakers were hungon the rear walls flanking the audienceseating area. This creates an acousticnull in the seating area that eliminates

localization of the rear surroundinformation.

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The lighting in theroom is controlled byX-10 modules wired

directly to each lamp.

Dave in his completed home theater room.

The projector was aligned usingthe instructions in the PRO 851Installation instructions in theCinemaSource Guide To Home

Theater Construction.

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The home theater room profiled here was built b yGilbert Fiorentino, the CEO of TIGER Direct. It differsfrom the standard high-end, custom-installed, hometheater room in that Mr. Fiorentino built almost all ofit himself .

The equipment in the room is all high level. A NECgraphics projector projects on a 4:3/16:9 automaticmasking Stewart screen. The audio system is Krell,Lexicon, Velodyne and Martin-Logan. The systemincludes a separ ate A/V equipment room (withdedicated 150 amp service) and the main room, itself ,features elabor ate acoustical treatment and tactiletransducers under floor surfaces. Because of Mr .Fiorentino’s occupation (Tiger, Direct is one of theworld’s largest computer resellers), this room alsofeatures full integr ation to digital sources; Internet,computers, video games, etc .

Conduits were laid under the concrete slab...

... and terminate in the equipment closet.

An overhead view of theroom showing the

acoustical treatments

The Fiorentino Home Theater Room P roject

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An inside view of the room showingplacement of the screen, speakers

and other components

An overhead view of the roomshowing placement of the screen,speakers and other components

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The finished room, front view

The finished room, rear view

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